Anat Shenker-Osorio

But, fundamentally, Trump was by every rational metric "unelectable." And yet...The question is whether there's enough runway (real Q) for true progressives running in battlegrounds to get their choirs to constantly preach & convert conflicted, most of whom need to come off couch.

We have GOT to exit the make believe that our "institutions" (including elections) are just fine. Far from demobilizing folks (as is understandably/rightly a concern), if you do it right it actually creates necessary defiance to create more activation.

The "this only happened cause NYC" folks seem to forget NYC once upon a time elected...Eric Adams and Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. The notion that it's just a given that DSA can win there cause of population make up is just false.

These people are telling on themselves. They know Americans are infuriated with the status quo and want leaders who will beat back the billionaires. Hard to terrify us with possibility of (gasp) health care, wage hikes & safety nets - when armed agents of the state are murdering in our streets.

It would be amazing if, given this "strategy," Dems correctly conclude that Republican midterm loss is due to hatred of the regime. But I fear they'll conclude that denouncing "wild" idea like human rights is wise & last 2 years of largely laissez-faire approach to fascism is voter-approved.

When their grandchildren ask, what were you doing when MAGA was trying to keep people from voting, keep votes from counting & control outcomes of elections for permanent power, they can say: I was helping make their arguments.

Lovely sentiment, sadly untrue. So much wrong with our elections - no time off to vote, massive lines many places, districts drawn by politicians picking their voters, electoral college, urban folks having so much less say than rural (Senate), massive $ in politics./1 RE:

When their grandchildren ask, what were you doing when MAGA poisoned our food, bombed kids abroad, persecuted protesters and turned pregnancy into a possible death sentence, they can say: I was preserving the sacred right of the rich to purchase themselves power.

When they lost in 2020, they peddled false claims, filed frivolous lawsuits, & incited violence in January 6th attack. They're still spreading lies when only eligible Americans vote & we have countless measures – from registration requirements to IDs to verification checks – to ensure it.

A person who helped orchestrate an armed attempted coup in which people were killed was allowed to run for president. That feels like "something" is wrong with our elections.

A fundamental flaw of Pollingism (as I call it) is believing how people respond as captive audience individuals in survey will translate to their public actions in the messy, noisy world. That the box they check on RCT will translate when you can't actually guarantee their attention.

Declaration (has been made public) from 16 year old when she was in Dilley:

This regime of the bullies for the billionaires has robbed and now wants to cancel the contracts of lawyers representing unaccompanied kids in immigration courts. We must stop them and ensure kids can have a lawyer by their side when they fight to stay in the only home most have ever known.

If you're running for office, you should want the job. And the job is public service, which I know can be hard to remember because (waves arms helplessly.) We must be simultaneously anti this regime, fighting the status quo that helped bring it AND pro government.

Talking with Dilley lawyers (fucking heroes) about what's actually going on. I struggle to put it into words. They are contracting with firm CIA uses, paying agents known to torture to track down & seize kids alone only because they've already taken their parents.

Once again, there is only one apt name: MAGA Murder Regime. RE:

Why? Because we need to be repeating the refrain that voters are DONE with the MAGA Murder Regime and will vote against them whenever, however, and for whomever possible. This generates the social proof that "people like me" (and all I know) are lining up to fire MAGA.

Right says - election fuckery afoot (lies of course) AND arguing this yielded nefarious outcomes. Our side keeps saying - "they're going to do a voter suppression" and then THEY DO IT (see TX, FL, GA, etc) and after "we have free and fair elections." And so now here we are.

Most of us believe that voters should pick our leaders, our leaders should not pick their voters. But MAGA Republicans will do anything to seize power, and when they fear they’ll lose, they lie and lash out.

It was, in fact, the noble and notable Senator Van Hollen going to El Salvador that helped push Trump's numbers down on immigration. (Note that pollsters never ask about "immigrant rights.") And the rest of Reps downfall here is voters finally seeing what Reps meant all along.

They are in league with the MAGA Murder Regime as they readily echo & pay to promote their arguments about the source of our pain & the path to solutions. We have been seen time & again that neoliberalism is handmaiden to fascism.

Even during the election, as many have noted, claims that voters suddenly wanted "mass deportations" based on NYT polls hid fact that those same polls had those same voters also wanting "pathway to citizenship" - in bigger numbers.

We gotta turn up the fuck you in every person by spreading the word: speak now or forever hold your peace. We can electoralize the election - turn MAGA's efforts to keep us from voting into the defiance drive to register every person we've ever met. Tap into your ragency.

"Electability" arguments rest on Pollingism assumptions: that you need big dollar donors to do constant expensive broadcast comms, that voters you need are the ones selecting their "hot dog" vendor on ideological beach. And, yes - that is so deeply baked it HAS impacted normie voters.

Mainstream Dems who are pissed at DSA candidates seem to miss that when you're primarily oriented toward "call time" audience - donors - you have less time for what ought to be your real audience - voters. And, also, less to say to them because they are furious about the status quo.

This has been the lesson we've tried teaching since 2016: authoritarians give an origin story for people's pain, a scapegoat to shame and blame, thus casting themselves as "strong man" solution to take care of "threat." You can't replace something w nothing. You have to tell true tale of villains.

OAKLAND!!! Time to be Too Fabulous for Fascism.

Further, we must stop calling abductions and even murders "immigration enforcement." "Immigration" means movement of people into country; reasonable people can disagree on policies like # of visas, process for green card, etc. substack.com/@anatosaurus... Call Trump's Concentration Cam...

I have consulted on electoral campaigns in UK, Australia, NZ, Brazil, France, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and Mexico. Our voting process and election procedures suck. Nowhere has $ in politics like here.

Authoritarians assume power with shock & awe till they're met with resistance; then they use compliant existing administrative state to continue & grow their all out assault on anyone they deem enemies. But the more local they go, the more the force of everyday people can actually stop them. /1 RE:

Pundits and pollsters sold us the "massive realignment" 2024 post-mortem story claiming that swaths of voters had come to embrace the MAGA Murder Regime's plans but IN REALITY they (1) didn't actually believe it would come to pass (2) are pissed as fuck at SQ and turn out to reject current power

The task wasn't then and isn't now to ask for the chance to also be shitty to immigrants, or trans people or people of color etc, but rather to make clear just what MAGA's plans actually entail and how many will be hurt if not worse.

When their grandchildren ask, what were you doing when MAGA was trafficking unaccompanied children, abducting their parents, expanding concentration camps, they can say: I was fighting the foe of universal healthcare & living wages.

"Electability" conversation exists inside make-believe where only habitual voters turnout and some number must be coaxed into swapping parties, based on rational issue position calculus. In fact, what caused Dem MEGA Blue Wave in 2018 was unprecedented non-habitual & new voter turnout. /1

The Epstein Regime is hell bent on paving the way for sending kids to concentration camps and/or into danger abroad by forcing them to face immigration court without legal counsel. @defiancedispatch.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy breaks it all down: www.instagram.com/reels/DbbxrG... Defiance Dispatch on Instagram...

If they thought their ideas had merit or appeal to the public, they would run on them. Instead of - as they admit - having their billionaire backers finance their fear & smear campaigns.

We have got to stop telling the frogs this boiling water is a hot tub. That is part of how we got here. People have to understand the full extent of the fuckery - and that is largely the corruption of billionaires buying themselves power - or we will never actually deal with it.

Majority of these kids grabbed from homes after their parents were abducted - nowhere near border. They have lived basically all their lives in the US - they are with their friends and relatives. Regime spreading lies about who kids are to make them seem dangerous or their parents' negligent.