💌 June to date

On where we come from and where we're going...

👋🏼 Hi, friends!

A silly, frustrating, and healing (❤️‍🩹) hand injury has sadly kept me from heavy writing over the last ~3 weeks, a highly inconvenient reality when you’re in the business of defending democracy 😭. I’m very eager to resume my regular writing cadence in the coming weeks, with postcarding plans for Colorado, Ohio, and Arizona on the docket.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some high-impact opportunities for you to put pen to postcard (see below ⬇️). Thank you in advance for your commitment to mobilizing voters in 2024 and beyond — you’re making a difference! 🩵

I spent last week in the Philly area, indulging in a dreamy blend of East Coast energy and humidity, and witnessing the distinct kind of nostalgia that you really only feel in a place where you came of age and experienced so many of life’s firsts.

Just a few hours in my Philly suburbs hometown take me right back to my earliest work as a grassroots political activist, helping Democrat Joe Sestak win PA-7’s House seat in 2007, protesting that same year on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in solidarity to amplify awareness of Darfur genocide that ravaged Sudan in the early 2000s, and mobilizing Pennsylvania voters in support of Barack Obama in 2008.

I was also transported back in time to the formative high school history and government classes that oriented me around our shared responsibility for carrying the torch of democracy — and the importance of simple, everyday acts in support of our shared systems and traditions.

June 6th marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a humbling moment for reflection on the legacy of the millions of Americans who came before us and made grave sacrifices in defense of everything we cherish in our daily lives.

June 6, 1944: the 16th Infantry Regiment, US 1st Infantry Division wades onshore at Omaha Beach

Writing beautifully in The New York Times, historian and journalist Garrett Graff linked the past to the present and issued an urgent call to action:

This election year it is worth asking what we are doing with the legacy that the Greatest Generation defended and bequeathed to us. American freedom has always been imperfect — a nation seeking, generation after generation, to be better, more equal, more inclusive and still more free. It is a story of hard-fought rights and bloodily defended liberties that each generation of Americans has handed down to the next, a vision for a future in which each successive generation will improve upon the past.

Air Force veteran Michael Kripchak is one millions of Americans proudly and passionately defending this legacy. I wrote a few weeks ago about postcarding for his special election campaign to flip OH-6’s House seat. In total, 4,345 grassroots volunteers put pen to paper and mailed almost 85,000 election reminders to OH-6 voters in just two short weeks. The special election results are in, and while Kripchak didn’t manage to flip the seat this time around, it was highly energizing and encouraging to learn that he lost to his Republican opponent by less than 10 percentage points. In 2020, Trump won that district by almost 30 percentage points.

When we show up and contest every single race (even the ones we don’t reasonably think we’ll win on this attempt), democracy lives, breathes, and thrives — and we make crucial and tangible progress toward securing the America we want to live in.

We have 144 days between now and Election Day 2024 to join millions of our fellow citizens doing the challenging and gratifying work of defending and strengthening democracy. Together, let’s make each and every one of those days count. 💪🏼🩵

📬 Total # of postcards mailed this week: 12

📣 Campaigns + opportunities

• 🏔️ Colorado: getting back into the postcarding game, I participated in another rapid-response outreach campaign organized by Postcards to Voters, this time in support of Trisha Calvarese’s bid to flip CO-4’s House seat in a June 25th special election (remember, in the last few years, Democrats have repeatedly outperformed expectations in special elections, due in large part to grassroots activism efforts). This is the House seat that Lauren Boebert (who has ignominiously occupied the CO-3 seat since 2021) is angling to win this fall. Together, we can keep Boebert out of Congress. If you’re ready to write postcards to CO-4 voters in the next few days, please reach out to me directly, and I will gladly help you get started!

• 🥜 Ohio: Blue Wave Postcards (remember, “easy mode” for postcarding, with pre-printed postcards, self-stick address labels, and just a short pre-scripted message to handwrite on each card) is currently recruiting volunteers to encourage Ohio voters to register to vote (or check their registration status), as the state of Ohio has shamefully purged almost 650,000 voters from the rolls since 2018. You can get started by ordering your postcarding kit on this page.

• 📨 Postcards to Swing States (part of Progressive Turnout Project) is a fantastic grassroots organization currently recruiting volunteers to write to voters across 11 battleground states. Since May 1st, 56,000 volunteers have signed up to write 8 million postcards, marking substantial progress toward the organization’s goal of 26 million total postcards in 2024. I signed up to write postcards to voters in Pennsylvania and Georgia, and we have until the fall to get them in the mail.

  • Ready to get started? Join a virtual webinar on June 18th to learn more about the organization’s efforts and how you can get involved. When you sign up to help, Postcards to Swing States will mail you free postcards; you’ll just need some stamps, a good writing implement, and a good TV show to keep you company.

• ⚡️ Activate America is currently running a series of high-impact voter outreach campaigns in Arizona, New York, California, and Ohio. You’ll need your own postcards for these campaigns (see the next section!), and you can get started right away on this page.

🎨 Get your postcarding materials today!

You, too, can be a force multiplier by mobilizing voters in elections up and down the ballot.

Here’s what you need to get started:

• Postcards

• Forever postcard stamps, available online here or at your local post office (prices may go up in July, so stock up now!)

• A comfortable pen

✌🏼 Until next time…

4,345 grassroots volunteers writing almost 85,000 postcards in ~2 weeks, 56,000 volunteers getting energized to write 8 million postcards over the next few months. These numbers are staggering and speak for themselves — they should inspire confidence and resolve as we sweat through the next few months of summer politics.

And so, Graff continued in the NYT piece linked above:

Across the next few months we will be hearing a lot of argument about what America is and what it isn’t. There’s a simpler answer to that question than many would like to admit: What we’ll fight for is who we are. And, as we look ahead, we must decide if we’re still as willing today to fight for democracy as the generation who stormed Normandy was 80 years ago.

Yes, it’s easy to get trapped in the doom and gloom of MAGA distractions, the quagmire that is our current Supreme Court, and/or the mainstream media. But I like to think that it’s actually even easier to be optimistic and action-oriented when you think not of all that is wrong and needs fixing, but of the millions of Americans educating, inspiring, and mobilizing their fellow citizens toward a shared (and attainable!) vision of justice, equality, freedom, and democracy. As ever, onward, together. 🌊