How Dems Can Win Elections Big Time
(I originally wrote this in 2021. I updated it in 2024.)
Anyone not scared now is out of touch with reality.
Please join me in writing to liberal organizations and philanthropists about these needs. If you read the “Can the Real Lessons of Virginia…” article I’ve cited below, as well as my own “Open Letter…” article cited below that, you will have some ideas you can share about what kinds of projects these organizations and individuals could fund or organize, that would be of more help in saving democracy, than what they are doing currently.
Some of the standard, and I believe misguided, views are illustrated in this report below, on a focus group after the VA governor’s election which the Democrat lost. It makes some excellent points about Democrats not getting the messages out or having a strong brand. However, it also illustrates some problems common to many such analyses.
One problem is that impressions people have of Democrats come mostly from media. Focus group researchers need to know what media people consume. Some people in the above focus group may be Fox or Sinclair consumers who hate Trump but believe everything else Fox/Sinclair says — and who vote for all Republicans except Trump. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of “Independents” do have a party preference.
Those in the focus group who don’t consume Right Wing media likely consume mainstream media — which can also be a problem. It’s still somewhat Right Wing biased and quite unfair to Democrats on the whole.
Why Mainstream Media Are So Right Wing Biased and How to Change That
Also, there is a common assumption that Democrats need to win over “swing voters” — incorrectly assuming swing voters or independent voters don’t have a strong party preference. We actually don’t need to win over voters who have a strong preference for the Republican party and we likely can’t. Elections can be won by getting our own Democratic voters out to vote — including those who usually stay home during some or all elections.
David Shor also holds the standard — and I think misguided — view that the one solution for Democratic failures is for Democrats to always keep going further Rightwards to attract “swing voters.”
In contrast to the standard views above, here is an analysis containing some new — at least for Democratic leaders — ideas. The article below contains a thorough and nuanced examination of how Democrats can do things differently in order to win elections. It was written about 2022, but applies to all elections.
I’d really like to see liberal organizations and philanthropists direct their resources toward projects that carry out the excellent goals described in the above article. At least one of them already is: Strikepac at https://www.strikepac.com/vote/ . If McAuliffe had followed Rachel the advice of Rachel Bitecofer who was formerly associated with Strikepac, he’d be governor of Virginia now. She was and still is at @rachelbitecofer on Twitter.
So if you have some spare cash to donate to someone doing messaging for Democrats better and more aggressively than Democrats do it themselves, please contribute to Strikepac.
I’d also like to see some liberal organizations getting well funded enough, and constructively focused enough, to buy up radio and TV stations and newspapers, to help spread truth, counteracting the lies in which millions of people are immersed.
There are other kinds of liberal institutions that need to be created and funded too. There are two crises caused by Right Wingers trying to destroy both public school systems and state election systems. Right Wingers have well funded organizations dedicated to destroying these systems. Democrats have very little in the way of organizations that can protect these systems from being destroyed. If that doesn’t change, both will remain at high risk of being destroyed, along with democracy.
Please join me in writing to liberal organizations and philanthropists about these needs. Please read the article above, as well as my own article below, to get some ideas you can share about what kinds of projects these organizations and individuals could fund or organize, that would do more to save democracy more than what they are doing currently.
Feel free to share the above article and/or my own article below with any of these people or organizations.
Open Letter to Liberal Donors: Please Create Missing Liberal Institutions
When I write them, I tell these individuals and organizations about my concerns about fascism descending upon us, and about how I really want nonprofit organizations and philanthropists to be successful at keeping our nation from descending into authoritarianism and fascism. I let them know I am concerned that new ideas have trouble getting past all of the noise. I let them know I can share new and promising ideas to dig our nation out of the hole into which we’re quickly falling.
Below is some contact information I found for some liberal organizations and philanthropists.
This information was hard to find. Many of the people who control our world, whether Democrats or Trumpublicans, seem to want to do it without any contact from the ordinary people in the world being controlled. That is unfortunate.
We can contact our Congress members by phone or mail. But it’s far harder to contact the people with the MOST power over us — our real rulers. That really needs to change.
The biggest reason why citizens aren’t able to get what they want out of their government, is because they don’t know how power works. I’m telling you how power works now. Wealthy people, mega-corporations and politically active organizations have more control over our society’ s fate than our government does. Our economy and its biggest players dwarf and rule over our political system.
Below is the contact information I found. Please add more contact information for more liberal donors and organizations, in the comments if you can find more. If I can verify it, I will add it here in the body of this article.
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Open Society Foundations
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Jeff Bezos
Here is a list of ways to contact him.
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Sheryl Sandberg
@sherylsandberg on Twitter
At her organization Lean In
Address
Sheryl Sandberg
c/o Lean In
855 El Camino Real Suite 13A #262
Palo Alto, CA 94301
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Mike Bloomberg
c/o Bloomberg Philanthropies
25 East 78th Street
New York, NY 10075
+1 212–205–0100
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Sixteen Thirty Fund
(202) 971–1337
https://www.sixteenthirtyfund.org/contact/
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Laurene Powell Jobs, President, Emerson Collective 2200 Geng Road, Ste 100. Palo Alto, CA, 94303–3358
650–210–5000
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I would like for us to be able to get in touch with MacKenzie Scott, but apparently her organization has no website or address. Please let me know if you find out differently.
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I suppose the best way to contact Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, is at their ice cream company’s address.
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., 530 Community Drive, South Burlington, VT 05403–6828
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I found a contact form for Tom Steyer on his web site. It says he’s interested in “securing environmental, economic, and racial justice for every community.”
Like most liberal philanthropists, he may not realize how close we are to falling into fascism. He may not realize how much greater his results will be per dollar spent, if he contributes to creating more liberal media and other missing liberal institutions — institutions that could help keep Republicans from taking over the nation. This would do a lot more good, more quickly and less expensively than trying to put out all the individual fires that are set by authoritarian Republicans, once they come into power.
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You can contact Bill Gates, and also Melinda Gates c/o their foundation:
c/o Gates Foundation
500 5th Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109
You may want to contact them separately, as they are divorced.
The Gates Foundation — like most liberal nonprofit organizations, is philanthropic. Like Steyer, the Gates family does what I refer to in my Open Letter article as “putting out fires.” That is, their foundation works to lessen crises — many of which are created by Right Wing governmental policies and laws. What we need now is individuals and organizations who are willing to prevent “fascist fires” — rather than putting out each fire, once the fires are all roaring along, burning down people and institutions.
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And there’s New America that just put out this letter below, signed by many people. So apparently they have some awareness of the problems we are facing, rather than being in denial of reality, as many people are nowadays.
A lot of people signed this letter, showing they are aware of at least some of the issues we face. Perhaps we might contact some of those individuals too.
New America
740 15th Street, N.W., Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202–986–2700
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The Aspen Institute, at https://www.aspeninstitute.org/ , can be contacted at
The Aspen Institute
2300 N St. NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 736–5800 (tel)
(202) 467–0790 (fax)
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Abigail Disney can be contacted through the organization Peace Is Loud, which she founded.
PEACE IS LOUD
25 EAST 21ST STREET
7TH FLOOR
NEW YORK, NY 10010
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Here are some ways to contact Warren Buffett.
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Nick Hanauer can be contacted through his web site here.
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Robert Downey Jr.
c/o Team Downey
1311 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, California 90291
Phone: (310) 450–5100
Website: www.teamdowney.com
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Jeffrey Katzenberg
c/o The Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Foundation
11400 W Olympic Blvd No 550Los Angeles, CA United States 900641551
Phone: 310–481–3513
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Reid Hoffman, and his group of liberal donors, Investing in US
https://www.theallianceframework.com/
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Good luck to us all, in contacting these people. All of us who are willing, need to all put our heads and hearts together. It takes a village to save democracy.
