The 2022 Election, What Worked Well, What To Do for '24

 I meant to comment on this election sooner. As it happens sometimes reality is more real than what we mean to do. I got a note from Gail of the Montgomery County Democrats, asking for thoughts about the election. 

It is pretty clear that the women and  young people were the biggest increase in actual voters  and influence in this election. The attack on health care for women of all ages by the Supreme Court and Republican Leadership drove much of this increase. 

For young people the increase in voter turnout was up considerably from past elections. The biggest issues for younger Democratic Voters were; accessible abortion and affordable health care (includes ongoing attack on the LGBT issues around health care) etc, inflation, climate change, gun violence prevention, abortion, discrimination and racism, and affordable education. This was pretty similar among young Democrats and young Independents.

Democracy and Voting Rights are also a bigger issue in some states. Still only about half of young voters under 24 were contacted before the election.

Some of the polling and exit polling suggests that outreach to younger voters substantially increased turnout. Personal, online through Social Media, and in person outreach all helped drive turnout.

The Democratic Women groups were very apparent in the updates from online social media and in the regular media and very active in the bigger towns and University cities

My suggestion for the upcoming election cycle for 2024 is to start a Democratic Youth group for each county or region in the state. Even if it is just a Facebook or a Twitter group in each area. Once up and running it can be handed over to a couple of local moderators to add posts or drive engagement. People in each county or region also have many local issues that are more important to them, and will relate to local issues that might not be so important in other places. Local forums to relate to people in there own area helps people stay involved.  BB

 

 

Alan Savory; Deregulation, Neoliberal Economics and Monopoly Do Not Work!

 

 

I was listening to a podcast of an interview with Alan Savory who is one of the people behind the movement to reverse desertification and climate change using managed herds of grazing animals. Managing them in a way that results in a better grazing situation if done well. If we would like to have the USA be a better country we will have to manage it better. It is up to all of us. Democracy is not a spectator sport. We have to have representatives that are responsible to the people they are supposed to represent. It's up to we the people to set this straight. Contact your representatives. Get active.

Many of the political, business, and social problems in our society are a result of a lack of actively managing the situations and problems in our country. It is the responsibility of Congress Article 1 Section 8 to regulate. Since the beginning of deregulation in the early 80s under Ronald Reagan, the controls on monopoly, the Saving and Loan Scandal, the Black Monday event in the stock markets. Then the consolidation of the media and money in media ownership have created one disaster after another. Then the removal of the Glass-Stegal act by the republicans and Clinton in the 90s, along with the NAFTA agreements, made the whole situation worse except for a few very rich people and corporations. The economy and society have become much more unstable, or outright volatile, the dot.com bomb, the mortgage banking crash of 08, the housing crises, the Crypto disasters, etc, etc. The lie of deregulation being good for the economy or people, pushed since the Reagan administration is just a plain old disaster.

Noe-Liberal economics is now thoroughly discredited. Offshoring jobs and production just created more inequality and damaged the stability of society in America.

It is the responsibility of Congress to regulate according to Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States