Daily Dems Doing the Work, Making Noise and Fighting Back Day 42

Some nuance today...

Today I’m gonna ask you to bear with me. Some of these electeds are objectively amazing all around.

And some of them are not. But it’s important to praise electeds when they do something right even if that’s not all the time.

The goal is, that when you praise them for doing the right thing, they’ll do it more often

As the saying goes “you can catch more bees with honey than vinegar”

That said, that’s not where we’re starting.

Rep Betty McCollum (MN-04)

Spent her weekend doing door to door Get Out the Vote for MN State House DFL candidate for HD 40B, David Gottfried. The election is Tuesday, and we MUST win to tie the State House.

I love this so much. Local elections matter way more than we give them credit for and seeing a Rep that knows that too, is such a big deal. We need every Rep and every Senator to do this in their own state and local elections!

Speaking of Reps working at the state level…

Rep Hank Johnson (GA-04)

Joined GA State Rep Ruwa Romman (HD-97) at her weekly huddle yesterday. He explained to their constituents what’s happening at the federal level and how we fight back. I love this a lot.

I think state and federal electeds working together is so important, now more than ever. This mess started at the local and state levels, so we can’t ignore what’s happening, or the people who are fighting for things to be better there.

Rep Jake Auchincloss (MA-04)

Went on CNN’s State of the Union. He discussed a held a town hall he held in the reddest part of his district, a part that has never voted Republican before, but this election, actually voted for DT.

His constituents were most concerned about how DT and Vance spoke to Zelenskyy in the Oval. and Auchincloss does not mince words in this video (or the post) regarding how he and his constituents feel about that.

We have to make sure to lift up all Dems who are saying the right thing in the right tone as much as possible, so they get the praise they deserve and the ones who aren’t quite there shape up.

Rep Ro Khanna (CA-17)

Will be hosting town halls on Sunday, March 23, the very end of recess, in CA-41 and CA-22. We’ve been hearing about various Dem reps making the offer, but I believe he is the first one to officially schedule the events. He will be in:

Bakersfield: 11:30am-1pm

Corona: 4:30-6pm

Anaheim: 7-8:30pm

If you are in either of these districts, make sure to RSVP so you can get in the door

I am so glad he’s doing this, and I hope to see many more announcements from many more electeds throughout the week.

And while people are at these town halls, they can ask why Khanna went on Fox News today and not only said he agrees with Fetterman, which is bad enough, but actually was also against the Dem Caucus collectively not standing when DT entered the joint address. Which is bizarre, considering that is the one form of resistance that Jeffries and the rest of leadership did plan.

This is where we get into nuance. The fact that he is holding these town halls MUST be praised, but at the same time, that interview today is awful and needs to be called out. We have to be able to do both, it can’t just be one or the other.

And the same goes for the next rep…

Rep Tom Suozzi (NY-03)

Was on Face the Nation with R Rep Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01). They co-chair the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Committee, and there’s some real hope in what they’re saying, to me, at least.

Fitzpatrick seems to have actual morals, that if he’s just pushed a little more, I think he’s, by far, our best chance for finding a backbone in the Republican House.

And Suozzi was very quick to call him and Margaret Brennan out when they said something incorrect. My favorite example is how she said border crossings are down under DT and he immediately said that they were down under Biden too.

Is he more centrist than most progressives would like? Sure. And I wish he hadn’t voted to censure, but, given his district, I’m a bit ore understanding (he replaced Scamtoast when he was expelled.)

And I do think, the more calls he gets and town halls he holds, the more we can get him to lean in and fight harder.

And I think this because at a town hall this week he said he’s no longer that willing to find common ground

He’s so good in these more conservative spaces, and we need to cheer him on for that work as much as possible.

Sen Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)

Has a podcast. Did you know that? I didn’t. He released his newest episode 5 days ago, but I only learned about it now because of this post. The episode is called “With Amici Like These'“ and is all about judicial lobbying. It’s not that long either, so you probably have the time to give it a listen.

I kind of wish on the Senate website they had a playlist of sorts for all the podcasts of members. I’m sure he’s not the only Dem Senator with one, but he’s the only one I know about.

DNC Vice Chair David Hogg

Was doing Get Out the Vote canvassing for Gay Valimont yesterday. For anyone who was concerned that the DNC wasn’t focusing on the Florida special Congressional elections, I hope this alleviates some (hopefully all) of those fears.

I hope my audience that is able to understand nuance is louder than my audience that isn’tt, because this post is very nuanced and we have to be, but not everyone is willing to accept that quite yet.

It’s gonna be interesting to see how this is received.

Our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!