A reader wrote he was looking through the site for how the dems can win. Â He didn't see us discussing that. Â I agree. Let's focus on how we will end T and the GOP grip in November. Â Defeatism is a self fulfilling prophecy that the GOP wants. Â Yet the GOP is terrified of the electorate. Â Oh we know they will call names and lie, lie, lie. That's just politics.Â
I want to throw out two thoughts and hopefully get others to share their ideas.Â
1. New political analysis by the  political scientist who called the 2018 midterms, has called it for the dems.
I posted previously about Rachell Bitecofer, a political scientist at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C., who  thinks that most pollsters and forecasters rely on outdated ideas about how candidates succeed.
She argues that the outcome has far less to do with the candidates’ ideology than we think it does. She's back in the media again in this week's New Yorker that says "we should stop worrying about losing and focus on firing up the blue voters. "
They go on to say, "Her perspective has been controversial, but in July, 2018, months before the midterm elections, her model predicted the Democratic victory in the House with an accuracy unmatched by conventional forecasters."Â
Bitecofer feels the elections are now going to be won according to the expanding electorate, a sentiment that AOC had also expressed about how she won her upset election.Â
2. Avoid defeatism.  I know that we, myself included,  need to express our feelings when we feel down or despairing.  I also feel that facing our feelings is important to our being able to turn those feelings around. When we repress our despair, it just increases, like an elephant in the room (pun intended).  But if we expressed our despair here in the Forum, then I ask that we openly own those feelings rather than try to convince others that they should  also be giving up.  We can instead  ask for others to help us rather than to make a big announcement that all is lost.  The evidence is that all is not lost.Â
3. If you knew we were going to win but that you had to help to make it happen, how would you contribute? Â
I'd like to answer that for myself:Â
A. They say that going door to door is the most effective way to change minds. Â In my town, they go door to door to get out the vote, to get dems to the polls. They also travel to other states and go door to door there. That's good. So if you are comfortable with going door to door, then please do!
B. Getting people back on the voter registry who have been thrown off is going to be critical this time. Â So find a place you can go and help with that.Â
C. Meditation is powerful. Â @Micheleb has been rallying people to do Wednesday night 9 pm ET/6 pm PT meditations to heal this world. People who have attended, including myself, have had powerful healing mediations. Â I am going to start setting up zoom sessions for anyone who wants to come together online for some of those sessions. I believe we can help rally our own well-being and this world with this kind of meditation.
What else can we do?Â
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I'm going to admit something that I have not generally said on this site. I don't know why but I have been in a funk today. Funk over the Bernie thing (I think he and/or Elizabeth deserve to win) but in a funk in general. Woke up spilling my cereal all over the place, then dropped stuff, and just fought with my husband. Have a headache and feeling a bit defeated. Went for a walk with my husband and a nice neighbor of ours walking his dog said he's scared Bernie's going to get the nomination because he's afraid the congress could go back to red in some areas, (he's ok with Bernie but afraid of that aspect of losing house and senate). I told him VOTE blue no matter who anyway...
The first thing I did though when entering back home a min ago (after a walk/fight with my husband) was come to this site. I read the piece about the FAIR reporting you wrote and about Bernie etc. I felt like fighting some more, but not in a negative way, fighting for the LIGHT. I want Bernie and Elizabeth to win and hope they clean the corporate interests clock. I was so happy and elated to see Michelle's post in the "If you see a prediction that comes True" area about the democratic underground mentioning Jeanne's site for reliable predictions! SO PROUD and elated. Then reading your idea about posts to give ideas on how to WIN!
I think the dems need a good campaign slogan too:Â MAKE AMERICA PROUD AGAIN! or something catchy. VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO.
One thing I will do and offer to the dems is to make calls on people. Calls to rally dem support in my area, but If I could actually do that in areas that really need it I would be open as to how to make those calls.
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You can write letters & postcards to voters in states that are close to turning purple or blue. You can connect to several different groups. here are a few that I have written for: Vote Forward, Postcards to Voters and I have also adopted specific down ballot candidates plus Congressional & Senate candidates in my own districts as well as other States. If you have a local Indivisible group near you, contact them to see what needs to be done. In my Indivisible group here in Southern California we just completed more that 6,000 postcards that have been sent to voters in our district just for the midterm election. Special attention was given to registered Democrats & No Party Preference voters who voted for the first time in 2018. We also have a dedicated group of people who work registering voters -they received training from Field Team Six and Jason Berlin, who is & training volunteers all over the country to "Mobilize America". One last thing that you can do, is to send contributions to Democrats running for Senate seats. Additionally, Democrats who won Red seats in the House two years ago need to hold onto those seats. We need to retain the House & flip the Senate BlUE. If you search, you can easily find States or candidates to support. We are all in this together and it is us who will create the future that we seek.
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I like Make America Kind Again..just helps me personally.Â
I was really frightened a couple of weeks ago buying into that false narrative of losing the election. For some reason I experienced a big shift over the last 4 or 5 days..not sure why. Now I am not only hopeful, I am excited.Â
Part of it is connecting with my community Democratic Office and getting involved. That really helps. I experience a greater sense of meaning and purpose.Â
Every time I start to lapse into a fear-place, I re-double my postcard writing. It is important for me to do something that I think will make a difference and since, my brain won't let me do two things at the same time, I just put my head down and focus on the writing. I keep creating new scripts and refining them. If I am writing to women, for instance as I did when I wrote for the Virginia election, I create a special tag line. Something like, (regarding voting) "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, especially if you are female." The results of that election gave me so much pleasure. I figure we can afford to hold tight to a belief that we will prevail- no sense in inviting anything else. Be well.
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Bernie supporter Susan Sarandon is trending on Twitter because she wants Pelosi voted out and a progressive candidate in. She also voted Stein as she didn't like Clinton.
Not very helpful for Dems. Frustrating.
@stardancer, I love what you wrote. Â I read it twice. Â So true and so beautiful how you handled the pit fall.Â
Empaths like you and many in this community get tossed around by the collective mood, tossed like waves in a stormy sea. Â It is tough when it happens and you may not know why you feel that way. But then like good rational beings, we find a narrative to fit our feelings and that can make it worse, more concrete and harder to shake. There is so much GOP gaslighting out there that it is easy to find a narrative that will fit our bad feelings. Â I fell into a pit of political pessimism for a bit. Â I didn't want to share those feelings publicly because something kept telling me not to give power to them. Â Especially not to drag others down. Â
Those bad feelings are just feelings and feelings change like the weather, like the sea. But I couldn't repress them either or they would shout at me more loudly, until I aired them with someone. It's like falling into a pool. Â Sometimes we need to let ourselves hit the bottom so we can push back up. Â
It is tricky when you work with intuition, because feelings can seem like psychic truth but often they are just the truth of the moment and not even your own, but the collective's.Â
We do not know who will win.  The psychics are all over the place.  I like our Read the Future visions because there is less  hidden agenda among the readers. Names hidden, no commercial intent, so much purity among our community. Â
We need what Joanna Macy calls, active hope. Hope is something we do, not necessarily something we have.Â
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Thanks for the insight, Jeanne.Â
Your post was very beautiful and gave me so much hope.
Especially the part about pushing off from the bottom after falling in a pool.Â
I have lost heart. I have been feeling hopeless. not just for our country but in other ways too.
Your posts are sensible and strong, I feel guided. Thank you.
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@ghandigirl thank you. It means a lot to me  that it helped you. Â
And @stardancer thank you for inspiring me. Â Â