It’s now less than nine weeks to the midterms, perhaps the most important election of our lives. If Trump and his goons achieve their stated goal of stealing elections, and Democrats do not take back the House and, hopefully, the Senate, there will be almost nothing stopping the country from descending into a dictatorship. (Even if Dems do succeed, it will be a hard slog until Trump is gone, and beyond, but there will be reason to hope.)
First, to any doomsayers here who think that it’s too late and there’s nothing that can be done, I say that pessimism is self-fulfilling. It’s possible that, despite hard work, all of us fighting to preserve democracy may fail. But if you think and say that nothing can be done, and do nothing, then failure is guaranteed.
And for the sake of this thread, I will consider that threadshitting.
So here are some things YOU can do to save the country and the world.
VOTE!
The first step is to be registered if you are not already, and to make sure your registration is up-to-date and valid. One technique in the cheater’s playbook is to purge legitimate voters from the rolls. In many places people have gone to the polls only to find out that their name has been removed.
You can go to the official website of your state’s secretary of state to check your registration status, or you can go here: Vote.org, which can do that for any state.
DO NOT go to votesafe.org, which is a scam site set up by Elon Musk to steal people’s data and interfere with the election. It claims to register people, but doesn’t.
Once you have made sure you are registered, check with your friends and family (except the MAGA people) and encourage them to check their status, too.
Also check on where your voting location is. Trumpist election officials have been closing and moving polling places to reduce voter turnout.
Then VOTE EARLY in person, if possible. The best way to prevent large-scale election fraud is for the early results to be as overwhelming as possible. Trump’s attempts at messing with mail-in voting have mostly been thwarted by the courts, but there’s still some uncertainty about how efficiently the USPS will handle ballots. In-person voting on Election Day could be subject to interference in many ways, but early in-person voting will be harder to disrupt.
As with registration, encourage everyone you know to do the same. One way to do that is to participate in a nearby No Kings: Vote Early event on Saturday, Oct. 17.
No Kings: Vote Early is the next step of reclaiming our power after a year of mass mobilizations.
It’s a day of nonpartisan voter participation, being in community with each other, and making sure every eligible voter has a plan, knows their options, and is ready to make their voice count.
JOIN THE FIGHT
Join a resistance organization that is fighting the Trump regime. No Kings, ACLU, 50501, and Indivisible are the ones I’m most familiar with, but there are many, many others. My wife founded an Indivisible group shortly after the 2024 election, and we now have 750 members. We organize rallies, have social activities to help keep our spirits up, send out a weekly newsletter with actions members can take, and more.
There is an Indivisible group in your area. Find them here.
ELECTION PROTECTION
Become a poll worker. Poll workers are the backbone of Election Day, checking in voters, distributing ballots, tallying votes, troubleshooting equipment, and assisting voters to keep things moving smoothly. Many cities and towns face poll worker shortages every election cycle. You can help, and don’t worry, training is provided.
Generally poll workers must be registered voters in their state, but you do not need to be a resident of a city or town in order to be a poll worker there.
The easiest way to sign up in your area is to visit Power the Polls. By inputting your information into their sign-up form, you’ll be directed to how to contact your local election official and learn more about becoming a poll worker.
Hands Off Our Vote is Indivisible’s national program to ensure all eligible voters get to cast their ballot, every ballot is counted, and the results are honored.
Join VoProPros, whose motto is “No Vote Left Behind.” They work to make sure that every eligible ballot is cast and counted. They help voters both before an election (by ensuring they know how to properly cast a ballot), during an election (by helping to staff voter hotlines), and after an election (by helping voters cure ballots to ensure they get counted).
So what are you ALREADY DOING to save the country? And what are you GOING TO DO in the next nine weeks?
I’d always resisted because personally, I HATE being canvassed more than anything in the world, so I imagined that would be the welcome meeting me at every door. (The reality is much more banal: Most people either aren’t home or don’t answer. Of the 25 or so doors we hit today, 4 people answered. 2 of them were not the residents, and they took our flyers and said they’d give them to the voters who lived there. 1 said thank you but was busy watching her child, and the last house was an enthusiastic supporter of the Dems who gave us big props. Yay!)
I consider this election a test case. Let’s vote the bastards out!!