Independent News

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Big Bird. Mr. Potato Head. Dr. Seuss. 

This is not a list of potential Christmas gifts for your young child—it’s a list of things Republicans have gotten very publicly worked up about over the past year. And the reason they’ve gotten so worked up about those things is obvious: to create a distraction from the things Democrats are talking about. Like infrastructure. Voting rights. An expanded child tax credit. Paid family leave.

Republicans keep doing this because it works for them. When Dr. Seuss’ estate announced it would stop publishing six of the children’s author’s books because of their overt racism, one poll found that more Republicans had heard “a lot” about Dr. Seuss than about the House passing the American Rescue Plan, with its $1,400 direct payments to most people and expanded child tax credit that has gone on to dramatically reduce child poverty.

So when Sen. Ted Cruz attacks Big Bird for tweeting about getting his COVID-19 vaccination now that children aged 5 to 11—an age range that canonically includes Big Bird—are allowed to be vaccinated, he knows what he’s doing. It’s a practiced move fully intended not just to cement the Republican opposition to public health and politicize a lifesaving vaccine, but to distract from the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill he voted against and from Democratic efforts to pass a series of other very popular policies to help U.S. families and workers and in particular children.

That’s why Cruz isn’t the only one. He’s been joined in attacking Big Bird’s vaccination by a series of right-wing media personalities and attention-seekers, including Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who really went for maximum notoriety by tweeting: “Big Bird is a communist.” 

This is a ploy. Republicans stir up anger about something extremely minor, but involving children’s culture and some form of progress that Republicans are fighting—although in this case, it’s not even anything new, since Big Bird was shown getting a vaccination all the way back in 1972—and count on their base to get emotionally involved. The same people who love to scream about liberal tears and fragile snowflakes are depending on blind rage about children’s books and TV shows and toys to get themselves electoral advantage.

Meanwhile, Democrats struggle to get media attention on things like an expanded child tax credit that reduced child poverty by 29% almost immediately upon going into effect. Even when CNN covers the financial struggles of a family that is benefitting from the child tax credit, the network doesn’t mention it. We’re talking about children being fed and clothed adequately who were not before, but also struggling families getting to take their first beach weekend in years or sign their kids up for the extracurricular activities their classmates have gotten to do all along. Real changes in children’s lives that will make a lifelong difference to their health and educational outcomes and are bringing joy now, and Republicans are controlling the media story with whining about Big Bird getting vaccinated and Mr. Potato Head becoming do-what-you-want-with-it Potato Head and six Dr. Seuss books that few people were reading anyway ceasing to be published because of their really nasty racism.

Democrats are doing the work. They’re not always doing it as effectively as we might wish, for sure. They’re struggling to get around every single Republican and a small handful of their own who are committed to blocking anything that might strengthen U.S. workers or struggling families or fight climate change. But they’re trying. Republicans are showboating in an effort to distract, and the substance of their showboating distractions, time and time again, boils down to “asshole and proud of it.” That’s it. That’s what Republicans want to govern on. Tax cuts for the wealthiest and just plain being an asshole. Truly these are the worst people on earth. And yes, they’re proud of it.

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● CO-03: Democratic state Sen. Kerry Donovan became one of the highest-profile victims of redistricting this year when she announced on Friday that she was dropping her bid against Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.

Under the old lines, Donovan’s family ranch in the town of Edwards was contained within the 3rd District, but in the new map adopted in September by the state’s redistricting commission and recently greenlighted by the state Supreme Court, her home was moved into the 2nd, which is represented by Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse.

Of course, members of Congress don’t have to live in the districts they serve, but redistricting posed even greater problems for Donovan: The old 3rd voted for Donald Trump by a difficult but still surmountable 52-46 margin, while the new 3rd would have given Trump a wider 53-45 win. In addition, while approximately three-quarters of Donovan’s state Senate district was located in the previous iteration of the 3rd, only about half would be now, meaning fewer voters would be familiar with her.

Campaign Action

Donovan didn’t specifically cite any of these issues in explaining her departure, but she did castigate the commission’s maps, saying they “failed to recognize the complexity of rural Colorado and instead divided communities, protected incumbents and ignored Coloradans’ voice.”

Prior to leaving the race, Donovan had raised huge sums thanks to Boebert’s notoriety, showing up at the top of the list every quarter this year and clocking in a total of $1.9 million as of the end of September. After the commission settled on a final map, though, she suspended her fundraising operation, which still has $614,000 in the bank, at the start of this month. That money could be saved for a future campaign, returned to donors, or given to charity.

Several other Democrats remain in the race, including activist Sol Sandoval, veterinarian Debbie Burnett, and state Rep. Donald Valdez, though none have yet capitalized on the burning desire among progressives to oust Boebert in the way Donovan had.

Redistricting

● IA Redistricting: Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Iowa’s new congressional and legislative maps into law on Thursday, a week after lawmakers passed them almost unanimously. The congressional plan creates three red-leaning districts and one safely Republican seat, which we outlined previously.

Despite the wide bipartisan support it received, the map could face a legal challenge. Iowa law requires the drawing of “reasonably compact districts” that are “square, rectangular, or hexagonal in shape, and not irregularly shaped.” As you can see here, though, the new districts are anything but regular.

● MA Redistricting: Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has signed Massachusetts’ new legislative maps, which passed both chambers last month almost unanimously. A recently introduced congressional map remains pending before lawmakers.

● MT Redistricting: The independent tiebreaker on Montana’s bipartisan redistricting commission voted with Republicans on Thursday to advance the GOP’s proposed congressional map. The plan could still be tweaked before the commission’s Nov. 14 deadline to adopt a final map but is likely very close to final.

The map divides the state into an eastern and a western district, with the latter the more competitive of the two. Compared to the GOP’s initial proposals, the western seat (which would be numbered the 1st) is about a point bluer and would have gone for Donald Trump by a 52-45 margin last year, making it about 3 points redder than Democrats’ preferred plans. The 2nd District, by contrast, would have voted 62-35 for Trump. By and large, the map bears the hallmarks of a nonpartisan plan that doesn’t seek to favor one party over the other.

The state’s lone representative, Republican Matt Rosendale, is certain to seek re-election in the 2nd District, which includes his home in Great Falls. We’ll take a look at the field in the 1st District when the commission completes its work.

● WI Redistricting: A committee in Wisconsin’s Republican-run state Senate has passed the GOP’s proposed congressional and legislative maps, but they’re certain to be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers due to their extreme gerrymandering.

Senate

● IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who recently announced his retirement from the House after Illinois Democrats’ new gerrymandered congressional map left him without a plausible district to run in, now says he’s considering bids for Senate or governor and will “probably” decide by early January.

● PA-Sen: Politico reports that wealthy hedge fund manager David McCormick is being recruited to run for Senate by unnamed “prominent Pennsylvania Republicans,” though McCormick himself has yet to comment. McCormick has reportedly told allies he would “invest millions of his own money into the race” should he run, though one problem he currently faces is the fact that he lives in Connecticut.

Governors

● CO-Gov: A new poll from Democratic pollster Global Strategy Group on behalf of the liberal group ProgressNow Colorado finds Democratic Gov. Jared Polis with a 52-35 lead over University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl, his likely Republican opponent next year. That’s very similar to the 54-34 advantage for Polis that GSG found in June, several months before Ganahl entered the race.

● NY-Gov: Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who previously hadn’t ruled out a bid for governor, now confirms he’s actively considering a campaign and says he’ll decide by the end of the month.

● PA-Gov: Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a vocal Big Lie proponent who’s been considering a bid for governor, has announced that he’s formed an exploratory committee. He did not, however, offer a timeline for making a decision.

● TX-Gov: A new poll from the University of Texas at Austin for the Texas Tribune finds Republican Gov. Greg Abbott leading former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke 46-37 in a hypothetical matchup. The survey, which was conducted online by YouGov, is similar to other polling of this potential race. O’Rourke has been considering a bid for some time but has yet to announce a decision.

House

● CA-21: Democrat Angel Lara, a former aide to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has abandoned his bid for California’s 21st Congressional District. While Lara didn’t explain his decision, Democrats recently landed a much more prominent contender in Assemblyman Rudy Salas, whom the party has long tried to recruit to challenge Republican Rep. David Valadao.

● FL-20: Following a recount, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick leads Dale Holness 23.76-23.75, a difference of just five votes. The recount for the Democratic primary in this heavily black South Florida district comes after Holness led by nine votes the day after the election. Despite the recount, this race is far from over, as Politico’s Gary Fineout wrote Wednesday military and overseas ballots can be received into next week, in addition to any litigation that could arise due to the airtight nature of this contest.  

● PA-18: Attorney Steve Irwin, a former head of the Pennsylvania Securities Commission (but, so far as we’re aware, no relation to the Crocodile Hunter), has joined the race for Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, which is open because Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle is retiring. The Democratic primary already includes two other notable candidates, law professor Jerry Dickinson and state Rep. Summer Lee. While redistricting has yet to take place, this Pittsburgh-based seat is all but certain to remain safely blue.

● TX-35: Democratic state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, who’s been considering a bid for Texas’ open (and safely blue) 35th Congressional District, has now filed paperwork with the FEC, though he has yet to announce a campaign.

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Note: due to a family emergency, this week’s cartoon is a “classic” TMW, which is to say, a rerun. 

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Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:

Democrats can’t keep ignoring the culture war. They should fight it — and win 

The GOP’s “culture war” on hot button issues like race in schools is trumping Democrat’s emphasis on economics. It’s time to fight back.

In 2021, Biden-era Democrats like Terry McAuliffe, the party’s tired retread for governor in Virginia, literally tried to talk better mileage with the voters as their climate change and fix-road-and-bridges promises slowly ground through the sausage maker on Capitol Hill. Over the western mountains and at the edge of suburban sprawl in the Old Dominion State, angry voters searching for their pitchforks after imbibing days of propaganda about what their kids are taught about racism didn’t want to hear about fuel efficiency. They were out for blood.

Just like Reagan in 1980, Republican Glenn Youngkin’s “Kill the Bastards” message carried the day in a state that had seemed to be trending Democratic blue for much of the 2010s. Once again, the Democrats showed up to a culture war gunfight brandishing a 2,000-page piece of legislation.

NY Times:

Mark Glaze, Influential Gun Control Advocate, Dies at 51

As the executive director of Everytown for Gun Safety, he took on the National Rifle Association and helped make gun violence a winning issue.

Jeff Stein/WaPo with a balanced, nuanced piece:

Patience and persistence pay off as Biden gets infrastructure deal across finish line

Bipartisan bill would have ramifications across the country and delivers on a campaign promise

Past Democratic and Republican administrations have failed to secure such an infrastructure deal despite growing calls for action from labor leaders, the business community and experts alarmed by degrading public works. Trump had long talked about passing a massive infrastructure package, but his advisers never coalesced around a strategy and “Infrastructure Week” became a running joke among his aides. While those efforts languished, infrastructure problems grew, with the United States eventually ranking behind a dozen other developed countries, raising concerns about safety and the economic competitiveness of the country.

John Harwood/CNN:

Jayapal on why progressives chose pragmatism: ‘We need to keep our eyes on the prize’

Their choices under pressure show the unusual role the progressives are now playing as a self-identified ideological subset of the Democratic caucus. Instead of challenging their party’s priorities, progressives are advancing them; instead of battling their party’s leaders, progressives are helping them cope with intra-party dissidents.

That’s not the role ideological factions within Congress typically play.

Matt Ford/TNR:

Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Isn’t Really a Vaccine Mandate

The new OSHA pandemic regulations that just dropped are a work of semantic art with a conservative Supreme Court in mind

In nearly every statement other than Biden’s, and in many news reports on the matter, the OSHA rule was described as a “vaccine mandate.” But this is not actually correct. The new rule is better understood as a testing mandate with a vaccine exception—and that distinction could be crucial as it works its way through courts of law and public opinion.

What did OSHA actually do? The agency unveiled what is known as an “emergency temporary standard,” or ETS, on Covid-19 vaccination and testing for most companies with more than 100 workers. The ETS is roughly 490 pages long, with fewer than two dozen pages dedicated to the rule itself and the rest devoted to its justification. It requires eligible companies to do a few things to make vaccinations easier for their employees to obtain: provide paid time off so workers can get vaccinated and recover from any side effects, maintain lists of which workers have already been vaccinated, establish a notification system for workers who test positive, and other administrative requirements. It also generally requires employers to tell unvaccinated employees to wear masks.

My unofficial count was 7 Republicans from the Problem Solvers caucus who voted for the bill (out of 13 total R votes). They may actually have solved a problem for once.

Holly Otterbein/Politico:

Democrats sweat midterm fallout from Nevada party crack-up

A bitter feud has divided Dems in a key swing state — and dragged in the national party.

The Nevada feud, which erupted earlier this year when insurgent Sanders supporters took over the state party from allies of the former Senate majority leader, has spiraled into a flurry of resignations, embarrassing headlines and the creation of a fully operating shadow party.

Great. Exactly what we needed. 

Lydia DePillis/Twitter:

It’s past 5pm on a Friday, so I’ve cracked a beer and started reading the reconciliation bill. It starts with the U.S. Forest Service, and I already like this thing rules.house.gov/sites/democrat…

Substantial civil penalties for unfair labor practices! That would be a game changer.

Expected stuff about child care, elder care, workforce development … and I guess here’s the climate conservation corps at $6.9b, lower than the $10b Biden asked for.

Couple billion for replacing super-polluting heavy-duty vehicles with cleaner ones would super-charge efforts to clean up ports in particular: 

afdc.energy.gov/laws/11568

Jordan Weissmann/Slate:

Joe Manchin Might Be a Sentient Brick of Coal, but There’s Still a Chance Democrats Will Pass a Decent Climate Plan

In the end, the Biden administration appears to have little choice but to cave on Manchin’s demands. As one of the party’s 50 votes in the Senate, he technically has the same power as any other Democrat to single-handedly veto the White House’s climate and social spending agenda. But as a moderate from a state practically synonymous with coal mining who has just spent months staring down the rest of his caucus, Manchin can actually lob a credible threat to walk from negotiations if he doesn’t get his way. Just on Wednesday, a thinly sourced rumor that he was planning to potentially switch parties managed to devour a whole news cycle. Manchin called it “bullshit”—but the attention it generated was nothing if not a sign of the power that Mr. Bituminous wields during these talks.

All of which raises a question that’s confounding some progressives: Can Democrats still produce a decent climate bill without crossing any of the red lines Manchin has drawn? Thankfully, the answer may be yes. It will no doubt be disappointing and less ambitious than what the ecological catastrophe we’re facing calls for. But the proposals that are still in play, particularly a massive load of tax credits for renewable energy and electric vehicles, could make unprecedented and meaningful progress toward curbing emissions. Even after the cuts Manchin has demanded, “you’d still have the single biggest action to target climate change that the government has ever done,” John Larsen, an analyst specializing in clean energy policy and markets at the Rhodium Group, told me.

Jonathan V Last/Bulwark:

What’s Wrong with Glenn Youngkin?

About the newest Good Republican.

So why not Youngkin? What makes him dangerous?

All politicians tell lies. It’s part of the job. Donald Trump was never going to build The Wall. Joe Biden was never going to create a public option. Overpromising and underdelivering is a normal—if regrettable—feature of American politics.

What marked Youngkin as still being part of the sickness that has infected the Republican party was his refusal to admit to basic, irrefutable facts concerning the 2020 election. These were not matters of opinion or preference, but raw facts of life. Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. By quite a lot. The election was free and fair. Period. The end.

Glenn Youngkin danced around this fact for a very long time. Then he tried to finesse it. Then he backed away from it again.

What this revealed was that Youngkin was not willing to say that 2+2=4. And that if his voters demanded that he pretend that 2+2=🍌, then he would do it.

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In the news today: A sitting U.S. senator is picking a fight with a Muppet because the Muppet tweeted about vaccinations and, apparently, that counts as “propaganda” to the toad-breathed kultureklowns who believe Trump secretly “won” an election he lost, books about racism are the real racism, and making the smallest concessions to public health during a pandemic that’s killed 700,000 Americans counts as “socialism.”

It’s not Sesame Street that’s breaking new ground here, though. It’s Republicanism that’s changed. Ted Cruz couldn’t stand up to Donald Trump, so instead he’s directing his impotent frustrations at an imaginary bird that teaches children how to read and express emotions ‘n stuff.

Here’s some of what you may have missed:

• Anti-vaccination Ted Cruz takes on Big Bird

• Border Patrol ‘shadow police unit’ has helped cover up abuses for years, human rights groups say

• Guess which city is about to have a majority LGBTQ city council?

• U.S. launches private group sponsorship program for Afghan refugees. Will it help?

• It’s about time: Set those clocks back, and enjoy an extra hour of Black music

Community Spotlight:

• Community Spotlight: Making the political personal is more effective than you may think

• Post-mortem on Virginia General Election 2021 – Canvasser’s Edition

• My baby boy gets his first dose of the COVID vaccine today

Also trending from the community:

• What scares the shit out of Republicans?

• Book banning attempts: The current attack on our schools’ libraries (and librarians)

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by Nick Nguyen and Carmen Scurato

This story was originally published at Prism.

So far the Facebook Papers have led to dozens of stories about how the company knew it was failing to remove hate speech, misinformation, and calls to violence in languages across the globe. As much as this focus on Facebook’s global harm is vital, we shouldn’t overlook the role that the social media language gap plays in harming communities within the United States.

On a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed online platforms’ failure to curb the spread of misinformation that wasn’t in English. While companies like Facebook and YouTube have made a few inroads to address the problem in English, they’ve allowed misinformation to spread unchecked in other languages—with disastrous results. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, disinformation campaigns targeted marginalized communities to suppress voter turnout. And during the pandemic, cruel disinformants have blanketed the Latino community with blatant falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine. The community already makes up a higher percentage of the essential workforce, and Latino people are four times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than the general population.

Oliver’s report of how the targeting of misinformation at diaspora communities in the United States is “exacerbated by the fact that there aren’t alternative sources of news” for these communities in their own languages isn’t a new revelation. This vital gap is one that our organizations, Viet Fact Check and Free Press, have long been fighting to fill. Those efforts include pushing social media platforms to crack down on misinformation not in English: Viet Fact Check has drawn attention to YouTube’s indifference to Vietnamese-language misinformation, and Free Press—along with the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the Center for American Progress—has urged Facebook to remedy the way the spread of Spanish-language conspiracy theories and other lies are fueling hate and discrimination.

We’ve examined how election and health misinformation have harmed our respective communities in the United States. The results confirm a clear pattern of neglect; while the platforms still have a ways to go in enforcing their own policies in English, it is far worse in other languages. Even though YouTube banned InfoWars, it ignored the Vietnamese-American version of Alex Jones for months—the company only took action after John Oliver’s segment aired. And despite our efforts to directly flag Spanish-language posts with explicit calls to violence, Facebook’s moderators relied on a shoddy translation to English to justify their inaction. To put it simply, these companies are not doing nearly enough to keep our people safe.

Facebook and YouTube roadblocks

Public pressure and awareness of this issue are critical to finding a path forward, but they’re not enough. Our efforts to engage directly with the platforms have been frustrated at every turn—both YouTube and Facebook have failed to be transparent about the full extent of the problem. Facebook is also systematically shutting down access to academics and researchers studying the way misinformation spreads across the platform.

We’ve run into roadblocks when speaking with staff at the two companies. No one has acknowledged whether anyone is in charge of moderating content that’s not in English within the United States. In our interactions, the companies tried to portray misinformation in other languages solely as an international issue and therefore none of our concern. Meetings that we pursued for months turned into basic presentations that did little to address whether YouTube or Facebook have built any systems to protect people from misinformation in languages other than English. We kept asking questions, but it was clear the companies were stalling and we wouldn’t get any straight answers.

As misinformation escalates about crucial matters like COVID-19 vaccines, a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue identified major gaps in Facebook’s fact-checking program when it comes to other languages. The report found that a higher number of fact checkers are dedicated to English, leaving the same viral content to spread in other languages. The platforms have refused to share any details about what they’re doing to limit the spread of toxic content in other languages. Facebook and YouTube’s responses to a series of letters sent by Sen. Ben Ray Luján, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and dozens of other members of Congress were evasive, incomplete, and just plain disrespectful.

Most recently, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen provided documents detailing why the safety of our communities is not a priority, testifying before Congress about the company’s profits-before-people approach: “It seems that Facebook invests more in the users that make more money, even though the danger may not be evenly distributed based on profitability.” The disparity in moderation practices across languages reflects Facebook’s tunnel vision when it comes to prioritizing growth and profits. And this isn’t the first time Facebook’s failures and unwillingness to protect its users has come to light. Months before Haugen came forward, Sophie Zhang, a Facebook data scientist, spoke publicly about her work combating fake accounts and political unrest in other parts of the globe, while leadership at Facebook looked the other way simply because there was little risk of a public relations blowback. The Facebook Papers are further confirmation of the company’s inability to prevent hate and misinformation in other parts of the globe.  

In other words, Facebook spends little time and effort protecting users who don’t directly contribute to the company’s profits or to negative press coverage in the United States.

Keeping all communities safe

In the face of mounting evidence, it’s clear these companies have no interest in solving this problem on their own. Solutions to misinformation require that platforms like Facebook and YouTube reject business models that are designed to profit from attention, regardless of how users and their wider communities are affected.

The way misinformation has been allowed to spread on social media is a perfect storm of willful neglect, social engineering, and prioritization of profit. The platforms constantly collect our personal and demographic data to hyperpersonalize our news feeds and video recommendations. Misinformation is created to appeal to the anxieties and vulnerabilities of specific groups with stunning accuracy to drive more clicks, more comments, and therefore more views. This engagement in turn feeds the algorithms designed solely to spread content regardless of whether or not it’s truthful. As we’ve seen in recent days, the lack of oversight and even the most basic investment in content in other languages creates a vulnerability that allows bad actors to profit—often flouting the rules the platforms claim to enforce for everyone.

To fully understand the cost of this disinformation on a democratic and open society, we need more clarity on how these algorithms determine what we see. Right now, Facebook and YouTube don’t train their algorithms to tell the difference between a truth and a lie. Every click is an amplifier of content that will keep us more engaged. And when clicks and engagement translate directly to dollars, the problem is greater than people posting lies online. The system is built for disinformers—and if their content is compelling enough, it can quickly reach millions. This engagement turns into ad dollars for the platforms and accelerates audience engagement. Our communities suffer because lies create profits.

So what’s next? If the platforms want to operate on a global scale, then language shouldn’t be a barrier to keeping communities safe. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission must work together to adopt a privacy framework that protects the civil rights of people living within our multilingual and diverse democracy.

Platforms must also produce regular transparency reports and allow access to independent researchers seeking to understand the depth and breadth of the harms caused by these companies’ engagement-driven business model. Legislation addressing some of these issues already exists in Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Doris Matsui’s Algorithmic Justice and Online Platform Transparency Act.

Now more than ever, it should be obvious that language discrimination hurts all people in the United States. The health and safety of our communities is not something that should get lost in translation.

Nick Nguyen is a Viet Fact Check co-founder and PIVOT board member.

Carmen Scurato is the associate legal director and senior counsel at Free Press and Free Press Action.

Prism is a BIPOC-led nonprofit news outlet that centers the people, places, and issues currently underreported by national media. We’re committed to producing the kind of journalism that treats Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other invisibilized groups as the experts on our own lived experiences, our resilience, and our fights for justice. Sign up for our email list to get our stories in your inbox, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about. With the help of other campaign workers and notes, we address how to improve and build better campaigns or explain issues that impact our party.

For people who remember in-person Nuts & Bolts panels at Netroots Nation—and trust me, I missed having a fifth and sixth the last two years—we put forward candidates there who talked about their experience so they could go back over their results and discuss what they would do differently, and the campaign moments they were most proud of looking back at their race. A few years ago, I sat in a panel discussing the outcome of elections. On the panel were a few fantastic political scientists, myself, and a few activists. I said at the time, and I still mean it: Political science is often not a science, it’s an art. The ability to understand the electorate and what can motivate them doesn’t come from a data perspective at all times, and some of the most effective campaigners in history have been people who were, well, not exactly steeped in college-level science coursework. Even with that being true, everyone will tell you that we learn something from every election. I’m not talking about “hot takes” or forecasting for the future immediately. I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of campaigning we learn in every single race.

Identify your strongest volunteers and support system

A win is a win, a loss is a loss. The discussion of issues that motivated people and the candidate who ran will always come up and should come up when you look at election results. Something else that should be addressed? Who were the volunteers and support system that put in the most work? Who was most effective at reaching voters?

A few state parties and county parties around the country have established an award system that rewards volunteers who work the hardest. It can be a plaque, a nice public recognition at a party dinner, or their place on a wall as “Volunteer of the Year.” Identifying successful volunteers also helps candidates in the next cycle know where to start, to recognize what motivated volunteers in successful campaigns, and gives staff a reason to look at how they can involve the right community to build their election efforts.

Outside groups and their success

There are many Democratic organizations that put a lot of work into an election. They can help raise money, build name recognition, or help drive a topic narrative. Campaigns should remember which groups have a loud voice among supporters, but donors should especially pay attention.

In the last 24 hours of the Virginia campaign, I received 13 emails asking me to donate to the McAuliffe campaign. Outside activism groups in Virginia built up war chests in the year beforehand, and when the time was coming down to the wire, they weren’t busy trying to burn money in a fire— they were out spending the money they had, or they had already spent it in the best way possible.

Outside organizations are often a better investment to win races, especially if you invest early before you have a candidate. You give a district or a state an opportunity to build up the voter base they need to win.

Go through campaign finance reports

One of the most underappreciated acts that donors should pay attention to is the campaign finance report. After an election, whether a candidate wins or loses, take a look at the campaign finance report once it is available. You can learn a lot about the district. What does it take to win, financially? Did a campaign that lost raise too little money? Did they spend the money they had poorly? Did a campaign that spent significantly less prevail over a campaign with a large amount of money in the bank? Did someone raise funds by asking repeatedly for money and then let it sit in the bank through an election cycle? 

These are all questions that donors should make themselves aware of so that they know how they should invest in the next election. If you know the answers to some of these questions, you can ask a future campaign more informed questions before you give money and have better insight as to what it takes to win an election near you. 

What lessons do you take from an election win or loss?

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The entire raison d’être of the Republican Party is now to scare white people into voting for them so they can continue to wield power (on behalf of billionaires, of course) with the backing of a craven minority of the U.S. population.

Indeed, the only problems conservatives seem interested in solving are ones that clearly do not exist. A killer virus is on the rampage and the planet is overheating like Donald Trump’s toilet seat on the McRib’s annual rerelease date? Meh. Oh, but wait! Here’s a new buzzword that sounds super scary! We’ve thoroughly focus-grouped this, so we know it will fill every hog-shit lagoon in Iowa with white people’s blazing hot fear-diarrhea. (By the way, I’m a white native Midwesterner, so I don’t want to hear it. Come at me, bro!)

We’re less than a year out from a former Republican pr*sident’s attempt to overthrow a free and fair election, and since that date, Republicans have been furiously flushing that off-the-charts outrage down the memory hole while elevating utter nonsense. And based on Tuesday night’s results in Virginia, it worked like a charm—because too many of the people who grew up in lily-white redoubts (like the one that briefly succored me before spitting me out) fall for stupid shit like the following.

Exhibit 1: The biggest problem in Florida right now is not rampant death. It’s kids getting cranky over wearing masks. Pfft. Wake the fuck up, cuck

Wednesday on Fox & Friends—which is what the Algonquin Round Table would have looked like if they’d all written for the Walmart Sunday circular instead of The New Yorker—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis trotted out a little girl who doesn’t like wearing masks in school. Uh-huh. I hated being served creamed corn during hot lunch and I couldn’t even get an audience with the principal. But I guess the world has changed.

Anyway, the student is a second-grader in Palm Beach County named Fiona Lashells, and she was suspended for 36 days for not wearing a mask. Her mother, who is in no way influencing her, told Tampa’s The Free Press that Fiona “has been steadfast in her unwavering decision to not back down to tyranny and lunacy, vowing to do everything she can for every child going through these lawless mandates.” 

Yeah, sure she did. Ever thus to sensible public health measures, huh? Per Crooks and Liars:

When the cameras cued on DeSantis and the child, the governor prompted her and said, “Go ahead.” …

Fiona on cue said, “I’m not wearing a mask because you touch it, and you have germs on your hand, and then you put it on your face and breath all the germs.”

The co-host agreed, “That’s right.”

Yup, that totally checks out. Let’s be afraid of the fake oppression of 7 year olds, not a virus that’s killed nearly 60,000 Floridians. We’ve got our priorities sorted out, that’s for sure.

The video, if you really want to see it, is at the above link.

Exhibit 2: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican (duh), is warning parents that Biden could send them to Guantanamo Bay if they keep protesting at school board meetings

(This fake controversy is a response to a Department of Justice memo intended to address violence and violent threats toward teachers and school board members.)

BRNOVICH: Just because parents are exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out against critical race theory or even vaccine mandates does not make them domestic terrorists, and if we allow the Biden administration to continue this, God forbid, you’re going to end up with Mom and Pop at Gitmo. Think about how outrageous that is, Harris, to think about.

HARRIS FAULKNER (HOST): That is outrageous. Could that really happen?

No, Harris. It couldn’t really happen. But really nice journalamism there. Just aces. If there’s a Pulitzer Prize for weakest follow-up question, you’re a lock.

Exhibit 3: Greg Gutfeld, whose Fox News “comedy” show is to comedy what the Exxon Valdez was to ducks, thinks we’re teaching white kids that they’re “bad.” Because … well, isn’t it fucking obvious?

Reported via Media Matters for America:

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): So the—while the media and the Democrats were focused on microaggressions, parents were experiencing macroaggressions through education. Politics is a tug of war, as you know, between the people who go too far and the people who don’t go far enough. Right now, it’s the leftists that are realizing how far they’ve gone and they need—somebody needs to pull them back in.

And you see that how that they’ve turned, you know, the police into defunding and demoralizing the police and now you have this CRT stuff and you know, being white at birth is bad. So, they’re the one that have gone too far. It’s now time for the Republicans to pull that back in.

I’ve been white my whole life, and I never thought being white at birth was bad. Being white kind of sucks now sometimes because I get tired of apologizing for my relatives. But, no. The messages I grew up with did not lead me to believe I was “bad.” Quite the opposite. I got loads of unearned merit for no discernible reason. And so I guess at the very first sign that that dynamic might be changing, I should freak the fuck out. But I don’t—because I choose not to be a frightened, delicate little snowflake who can’t bear to see traditionally marginalized people make strides. That doesn’t make me extraordinary in any way, of course. It just makes me not an asshole. That’s a very, very low bar. 

So, yeah, this is what Fox News does. While one party tries to deliver meaningful change to hundreds of millions of Americans through President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, the other is busy freaking out its core constituency so billionaires can keep their loot.

I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves, but you have to have shame to begin with for that to mean anything.

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