Democracy strikes back in Ohio....and 2024!
Read David Pepper's new book "Saving Democracy." I'm giving away 20 copies.
The Empire Strikes Back was always my favorite Star Wars movie, but we need to make sure that 2024 becomes Democracy Strikes Back, with wins up and down the ballot for Democratic candidates, issues, and values.
Last night Ohio struck a powerful blow, defeating “Issue 1” which was cynically designed to make it harder for a pro-reproductive rights state Constitutional amendment to pass. Issue 1 was a hypocritical, anti-majoritarian effort by Ohio Republicans—who had literally outlawed August special elections, then decided to put one on anyway when they thought it would benefit them. Nope! Massive voter turnout, including 98% voting NO on Ohio State campus, defeated this initiative. For more on this, there was a great Pod Save America interview with Desiree Tims of Innovation Ohio about this vote. The interview was recorded just before the special election so the outcome was not known yet, but it described the issue really well and what Innovation Ohio is doing to assist voters going forward.
This summer I have been reading the new book Saving Democracy by David Pepper, a former Ohio Democratic Party state chair. Pepper was one of the people involved in defeating Issue 1, so I hope he’s celebrating today. I really want you to read his new book—so much so that I will be giving away 20 copies to Democracy OTL subscribers. [See details at the end of this post, it’s not complicated.]
David Pepper makes three main points that are absolutely crucial for victory in 2024, because make no mistake, we will need MASSIVE voter registration and turnout to overcome structural barriers. We cannot afford to have 4 more years of T***p or his lackeys, so we need the insurance policy of a Biden victory in North Carolina. T***p needs our state in his win column to win, and we can BLOCK him by working for a Biden win here.
The 3 points that stand out to me from Pepper’s book are:
Republicans have been on offense for a long time, and Democrats need to massively go on offense now. The book describes what that means, starting with….
State houses are important! Yes I know, it’s hard to make state legislatures seem vibrant and sexy. They are not, but that does not matter. They are where decisions are made about our lives, see for example the battle for reproductive rights in the post-Roe era; voting rights, election rules, and district maps; how the entire state budget is spent; and so much more. We need to make sure that we care about state house and senate races, and help others care about it too and vote for Democrats.
Pepper wants you to activate your whole existing “footprint,” your personal network, to defend democracy. This can mean asking everyone you know if they have registered to vote and helping them do so; registering areas that get overlooked like apartment buildings or college dorms, and so much more. That is a lot of what the whole book is about. Get creative! In Ohio, as Secretary of State, Sherrod Brown got McDonald’s to put voter registration forms on their tray liners. We need that kind of innovation x 1000. Yes, we need big existing groups to coordinate—and on top of that, how much more powerful could we be if everyone thought about how to also activate their personal networks in new ways?
I am working on my own plan for 2024 now! I know several groups I will be supporting, which I will write up in their own posts.
Please read David Pepper’s new book! It is uplifting and above all, actionable. Saving Democracy is available from Amazon—I believe it’s a print-on-demand book so it is not available in every bookstore. (As an author myself I get it, print-on-demand is the way to go for an independent publication.)
If you will commit to reading the book, I will be happy to buy you one, up to 20 books total. This offer is for subscribers to my Democracy OTL Substack, so please sign up for your free subscription if you don’t already subscribe.
Then email me at democracyotl@gmail.com with your name, address and phone number, and I will order you a copy of Saving Democracy to be shipped directly to you from Amazon. I won’t give your contact information to anyone else, other than Amazon for this specific order. I am committing to buying 20 books and we’ll see how it goes! I’ve already given out a dozen copies to friends and I really hope you are interested. (Please do not use my email for anything other than this offer. I’ll protect your personal information, and I ask you to do the same for me.)
This is a worthy investment because I believe Saving Democracy will light a fire under you and help you become an even more powerful Democracy Defender in 2024. It is an all-hands-on-deck moment and we need YOU!