September 18, 2020
Hello ,
I'm taking time off this week and visiting Yellowstone National Park for, hopefully, some quiet time in nature.
Before I left, I wrote 50 letters to registered voters in Florida who have not voted in awhile.
It's a small thing in the grand scheme, but it gives me hope to do even something small in support of our democracy.
This is part of an effort to send 10-million letters to individual voters in swing states. It's a form letter where I add a personal paragraph about why I vote.
The letter does not suggest who or what the person should vote for, or whether they mail their ballot or go to the polls. It's part of an effort by the non-profit Vote Forward to target traditionally underrepresented voters who are registered, but relatively unlikely to vote in the 2020 election.
Vote Forward is keeping abreast of electoral policy, which is in flux in many states. For a snapshot of where things stand in key states today, click this page and then scroll down past the info on the mail date for sending letters until you see: What we know about first-class mail and election mail
George Packer writes, "The country is at a low point. But we may be on the cusp of an era of radical reform that repairs our broken democracy ...Our collapse is so complete that the field lies open—the philosophical questions brought on by despair allow us to reimagine what kind of country we can be.
“I think we are at a hinge moment in history; it’s one of those moments that arises every 50 years or so,” Senator Michael Bennet, of Colorado, told me. “We have the opportunity to set the stage for decades of progressive work that can improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.” The crises of 2020 could become the catalytic agent of a national transformation."
You probably have to be a complete and total history/poli-sci nerd like me to go for this article because it's an in-depth, long read, but it gave me hope when hope feels in short supply.
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