How can we help this election year?
My thoughts on getting involved in the 2024 election, Speaker Mike Johnson's disgraceful position on military aid to Ukraine, and the real threat to birth control
After last night’s Super Tuesday primaries, it’s all but certain that Donald Trump will be the GOP’s presidential nominee. And if we can believe the polls, he and President Biden are now tied in the national popular vote race.
So Louisiana Democrats and other progressives who want to stop Trump must do everything we can to keep this criminal/rapist/traitor/grifter from getting within a thousand yards of the Oval Office.
Louisiana is not a battleground state, so there’s not much we can do here, right? Our votes don’t count as much as someone in a key state like Georgia, Arizona, or Michigan. As for control of Congress, we have no U.S. Senate elections this year. The only U.S. House election of note will be for the new majority-Black 5th Congressional District.
So, what’s a progressive in a solid-red state to do? Thankfully, plenty.
If you want to help Biden win reelection, or lend a hand to a Senate or House candidate who might decide control of Congress, you can contribute to those campaigns. That’s a good start. But you can do much more.
You can also volunteer remotely.
At least a handful of reputable progressive organizations will put you to work making phone calls, writing postcards, and doing other important outreach work that can make a difference in the states that will decide the 2024 elections.
Here are a few of them you may wish to consider. Under each heading is a description of the organization’s work in their own words. Each heading is a hyperlink that will take you directly to that organization’s website.
Democrats.org Call Crew
As a member of our Call Crew, you will join hundreds of volunteers in having meaningful conversations with voters in battleground states across the country. Our Call Crew talks with thousands of voters each week. With your help, we can get voters the information they need and maximize our impact. Select how you want to get involved from the options below!
The Power of Picking up the Phone
According to a study done at Temple University, phone calls from volunteer phone banks boost voter turnout by almost 4%! Having real conversations with voters is powerful. GET STARTED NOW
Progressive Turnout Project
Our field programs have increased voter turnout by up to 10.4%. We’re also committed to updating the Democratic playbook and testing new ways to reach more voters that traditional canvassing can’t reach. That includes recruiting and training new organizers, funding grassroots voter contact groups, and empowering volunteers to write millions of postcards to swing state voters.
Postcards to Swing States: We send you free postcards, a voter list and instructions with proven messages. You provide the stamps and mail the cards to voters. You’ll help us rally Democrats to vote across the country, from presidential swing states to competitive state legislative districts. Sign-ups start on May 1.
Democratic Volunteer Center
The mission of the Democratic Volunteer Center is to support volunteers and activist groups in the democratic process by providing the space, infrastructure, and resources necessary to elect Democrats and pass legislation aligned with Democratic Party values at the local, state, and national levels.
The Democratic Volunteer Center began in 2010 with the goal of harnessing the expertise, passion, and resources of the mid-Peninsula to elect Democratic candidates. A founding principle of the DVC is inclusion, bringing together volunteers across the progressive spectrum, regardless of any relationship with the Party.
We are based in Silicon Valley and serve volunteers both local and remote. Originally a local organization, in 2020 we moved our phone banks and meetings online, and began distributing supplies for people to volunteer from home. We now have volunteers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and abroad. In August of 2022 we reopened a physical location in Mountain View, CA, for the first time in more than two years.
Swing Left
Swing Left is building a lasting culture of grassroots participation in winning elections for the Left by making it as easy as possible for anyone to have maximum impact on the elections that determine the balance of power in our country.
When you sign up with Swing Left, you’ll receive updates about ways to take impactful action:
Donate to candidates in the closest races
Mike Johnson’s deadly gambit over military assistance to Ukraine
I’m astounded by the careless way House Speaker Mike Johnson treats the precious lives of young men and women who serve in our armed forces, especially those stationed at military bases in Louisiana.
No American wants the see the U.S. and its young men and women sucked into another gruesome war in Europe. But that outcome is much more likely if the U.S. House doesn’t approve more military assistance to Ukraine. If Ukraine falls, Vladimir Putin won’t stop with Ukraine. Before long, he’ll train his sights on the former Baltic states. And that probably means a war between the West and Russia.
The best way to make sure our Louisiana sons and daughters are not called to fight in Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania is to help Ukraine all we can.
Our wavering — mostly the House GOP and Donald Trump — only encourages Putin to keep pressing his attacks on Ukraine.
If Trump is elected this November, the game will be over. Trump will hand Ukraine over to Putin and that will increase the likelihood of a conflict that could destroy NATO or require our entry into another war to save Europe.
I agree with the editorial in Tuesday’s Baton Rouge Advocate:
Johnson represents the 4th Congressional District in northwest Louisiana, which includes Barksdale Air Force Base. Barksdale is headquarters of the Air Force Global Strike Command and home to the 2nd Bomb Wing. As such, the men and women stationed there — Johnson’s constituents — could be called to action should events in Europe spiral.
Congressional aid — which would provide weapons and equipment manufactured here in the United States — is a down payment on preventing this and keeping the service members that call Barksdale home out of harm’s way. We see no downside to this proposition. . . .
[W]e hope Johnson will rise to the role of a true statesman and remember that some things are more important than clinging to power.
The world is watching his next move. And so, we’re quite sure, are the folks in Johnson’s own district.
This comment by Stuart Stevens, the former GOP media consultant who helped run Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, sums it up well:
Your birth control is at risk
If you don’t think some Republicans plan to outlaw contraception if they win control of Congress and the White House next year, you haven’t been paying attention.
Rachel Cohen, a social issues reporter for Vox, reports this week that the next battleground in the fight over women’s reproductive health is birth control.
Yes, you read that right: Increasingly, conservatives want to outlaw contraception.
I know this sounds crazy, but it’s worth your time to read Cohen’s piece at this link. I’ll also share a few excerpts here:
If the idea that birth control could be at risk in America strikes you as hard to believe, I understand. There’s no proposed legislation on the table to ban it, and it does seem unbelievable that contraception — which an overwhelming majority of US women, including religious and Republican women, have used and support — could one day disappear.
But attacks on reproductive rights have never really been about public opinion, as the overturn of Roe showed and the current national debate over IVF has further proved. While it’s not an immediate threat, anti-abortion leaders have been laying the groundwork to curtail contraception access for many decades, despite birth control being one of the most reliable ways to reduce the incidence of abortion.
Their fundamental opposition is rooted in a belief that penetrative sex is sacred and should only occur within a heterosexual marriage and in the service of having children. In their eyes, birth control has encouraged sex outside of marriage — a development they charge with weakening families, absolving men of responsibility, and steering women away from domestic duties.
These are fringe conservative views, but ones endorsed by religious institutions and groups that have long provided funding and power to the anti-abortion movement. . . .
The political playbook for attacking birth control shares some similarities with the playbook for attacking abortion — a slow and steady chipping away of rights and access. Both efforts rely on measures like slashing funding for low-income patients, enacting parental consent laws to restrict minors’ use, and empowering ideologically supportive lawmakers and judges who push friendly legal frameworks.
But the major difference between pushing to restrict abortion access and pushing to restrict birth control is that leaders are typically much quieter about their goals for the latter, aware that open discussion will prompt fierce backlash. They typically try to paint those who suggest they’d take aim at contraception as alarmists and conspiracists.
Anti-abortion leaders tend to take advantage of one basic fact about the American people: There is great confusion about how pregnancy works, how abortion pills end it, and how birth control and emergency contraception (such as Plan B) prevent it. For example, one recent poll found that a stunning 73 percent of Americans think emergency contraception can end a pregnancy.
Fortunately, there’s an effort to stop this movement in Louisiana before it begins. Two New Orleans lawmakers have filed bills to ensure women’s access to contraception. As reported by the Louisiana Illuminator:
Sen. Royce Duplessis and Rep. Delisha Boyd, both New Orleans Democrats, have filed Senate Bill 225 and House Bill 395, respectively. Referred to as the “Right to Contraception Act,” the legislation mirrors that filed in other states in an effort to counter a national conservative movement to revoke access to birth control and other reproductive health care.
The bills would codify an individual’s right to birth control, emergency contraceptives and information related to contraceptives. It would also guarantee health care providers the right to provide such contraceptives.
This is a vitally important issue for the well-being of women and their families.
Reproductive rights at LSU
While we’re on the subject of reproductive rights, I’d like to tell you about a group of LSU students.
Manship School Professional-in-Residence Alyson Neel has partnered with LSU’s Feminists in Action (FIA) and four students from one of my courses to educate students about emergency contraception (EC) and where to get it.
Working with LSU’s Public Policy Research Lab, in partnership with FIA and several community groups, Neel designed a student survey to gauge knowledge of and access barriers to EC. In two weeks, she and the students have received almost 600 student responses. (They’ll release the results of the survey soon.)
Meanwhile, they’ve been distributing free EC — no questions asked — via table-sits, individual drop-offs, and word-of-mouth promotion. Over the past two weeks, FIA has distributed about 950 units of EC.
Neel hopes to see similar surveys fielded on other campuses throughout Louisiana to get a fuller picture of EC access for young people.
If you’d like to support this EC effort, the Baton Rouge chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) funds the emergency contraception that FIA members distribute at LSU. You can make a contribution to NOW-Baton Rouge at this link.
If you’d like to follow the amazing FIA members as they advocate for women's rights at LSU, you can find them on their Instagram page at this link.