💌 Week of April 15, 2024
A positive outlook: or, finding clarity, purpose, and motivation in the face of Kant and our confounding politics
👋🏼 Hi, friends!
I was recently reminded of the very stressful (and enlightening!) undergraduate quarter that I spent studying the German philosopher Immanuel Kant while chatting with my cousin, a college freshman who is currently taking a seminar on Kant and described an uncannily similar experience — oscillating between crystal-clear understanding and deep confusion while reading the Enlightenment thinker’s Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason.
Over 12 years on from my [admittedly brief] adventure in moral philosophy (and the attendant undergraduate panic about how I would survive the wild ride), I remember being struck by how rapidly I could descend from a rock-solid grasp of Kant’s formulation of what it means to pursue a moral life through reason and clear intention 🧘🏻♀️, into an intractable feeling of detachment from reason 😵💫.
The disorienting sensation of being suspended between these extremes is not so dissimilar from the experience of living, and surviving, our daily politics in 2024 — a test writ large in navigating hope vs. cynicism, clarity vs. confusion, justice vs. injustice, community vs. division, and progress vs. regression.
This trip down memory lane prompted me to do some light internet sleuthing, and I soon learned that, coincidentally, April 22, 2024 was Kant’s 300th birthday. In celebration of his birthday, the contemporary philosopher Susan Neiman wrote a New York Times essay on Why the World Still Needs Immanuel Kant, in which she makes a convincing case that Kant’s writings of late-1780s vintage (while, yes, dated in some ways) are indeed applicable to American life today, and the challenges that confront us in this shape-shifting election year:
In fact Kant was driven by a question that still plagues us: Are ideas like freedom and justice utopian daydreams, or are they more substantial?
We want to determine the world, not only to be determined by it. We are born and we die as part of nature, but we feel most alive when we go beyond it: To be human is to refuse to accept the world we are given.
At the heart of Kant’s metaphysics stands the difference between the way the world is and the way the world ought to be.
Mobilizing our fellow citizens to vote is the ultimate affirmation of our collective power to effect change, and we have 195 long and promising days between now and Election Day to galvanize our communities in support of progressive candidates and causes. Direct outreach to voters plain works, and — Kant abstractions aside — it concretely helps us transform the world we have into the world we want. 🌊
📬 Total # of postcards mailed last week: 84
📣 Campaigns + opportunities
🗽 New York: via Markers for Democracy / Postcards to Voters, I wrote 20 postcards to voters in NY-26, as part of a rapid-response effort organized for Democrat Tim Kennedy’s campaign to flip a critical House seat (vacated by Republican Representative Brian Higgins) in an April 30th special election. Democrats have a strong track record in special elections, due in large part to the power of grassroots activism activities like postcarding and other forms of direct outreach to voters (just look to Democratic Representative Tom Suozzi’s victory earlier this year in NY-3).
You can learn about opportunities to participate in rapid-response outreach campaigns for special elections by subscribing to the Markers for Democracy newsletter on this page.
🥜 Ohio: via Activate America, my mom and I mailed an initial batch of 25 postcards to Ohio voters, providing information about signing up for mail-in ballots. While the state of Ohio does offer the option of voting by mail, voters are required to request mail-in ballots piecemeal for every single election. Reminding voters about the importance of making a plan now will pay dividends later this year, and this is especially relevant as Senator Sherrod Brown is running for reelection in November.
🎲 Nevada: via Blue Wave Postcards, I wrote 39 more postcards to Nevada voters, reminding them to to register to vote (or check their registration status). Nevada is a universal mail-in ballot state, so encouraging voters to register to vote now will pay dividends later, as Senator Jacky Rosen (a proven advocate for children and working families who is widely viewed as a cornerstone of Democrats’ efforts to hold the Senate in November) is running for reelection this year.
🏜️👋🏼 A friendly repeat of last week’s note that Arizona can and should be blue (instead of a fickle purple), and you can be part of this transformation in 2024 by contacting voters via any of the following excellent organizations currently running voter outreach campaigns:
🌊 Blue Wave Postcards: you can order a postcarding kit (with pre-printed postcards and self-stick address labels) on this page to remind Arizona voters that women’s rights and reproductive rights are at risk. (Use the code HELLO for 15% off your first order.)
🔑 Activate America: you can join their ongoing Arizona postcarding campaign via this page to help acquaint Democratic-leaning voters with Representative Ruben Gallago, the quality candidate running to replace Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
🗓️ Upcoming events
BigTent USA, a community empowering ordinary citizens to take action in defense of democracy, is hosting a virtual conversation on the global rise of authoritarianism and the current state of American democracy with Anne Applebaum (the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian) and Katie Couric on Thursday, April 25th; you can sign up for the event via this page.
🎨 Get your postcarding materials today!
You can be a force multiplier by mobilizing voters in important elections up and down the ballot.
Here’s what you need to get started:
Postcards! Some of my favorites (accounting for cost, quality, and aesthetics):
Forever postcard stamps, available online here or at your local post office (prices may go up in July, so stock up now!)
A trusty / comfortable pen
✌🏼 Until next time…
All elections matter, every vote matters, and every act of outreach to a potential voter matters as we write the story of 2024 together. Onward! 💙🐳
I "Kant" believe this brilliant writing!🧐❤️