November 2023
We mourn the violence, death, and destruction in Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, Lewiston, and wherever human suffering exists. Yet even as grief, horror, and hopelessness threaten to overwhelm us, we remember we have the power to make a difference. And so we renew and strengthen our resolve to work for a better world, and take heart in knowing that together we can make it happen.
WE MUST FLIP THE HOUSE
Our House of Representatives is likely to be deeply unstable . . . until a new Democratic Congress is sworn in. This MAGA wrecking ball which attacked the Congress two and a half years ago has launched another attack on it this year. The insurrection never ended.
– Simon Rosenberg, Hopium Chronicles, Oct. 2, 2023
Republican-led dysfunction and chaos in the U.S. House of Representatives has been evident since Day One, even bringing government to a complete halt during a time of international and domestic crisis. The unanimous selection (finally) by House Republicans of Speaker Mike Johnson–architect of overturning the 2020 election; supporter of slashing Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid; climate denier; and staunch opponent of abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, unions, and aid to Ukraine–has only cemented the entire GOP caucus’s reputation as MAGA extremists. We must restore sanity and responsible governance by winning back the House in 2024.
The 18 House Republicans from districts that voted for Biden in 2020 (the “Biden 18”) present the best opportunities for doing so. According to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee memo, these so-called moderates have consistently and overwhelmingly voted with their MAGA colleagues 94% of the time. Twelve of them voted for Jim Jordan, including all of the California Republican members. Their unanimous votes for extremist Speaker MAGA Mike–Jim Jordan with a more genteel veneer–only add to the necessity of voting them out.
California, with its wealth of flippable seats, will be the royal road to a blue House in 2024. Five of the Biden-18 are in San Joaquin Valley and Orange County That’s why Airlift is proud to support OC Action and Communities for a New California (CNC), our dedicated partners in Orange County and the Central Valley who helped flip the former Republican stronghold blue in 2018 and successfully defended several contested Democratic seats in 2022. We’ve seen some back and forth over the past few years, which is common in races that are determined by a few hundred to a few thousand votes. Our partners, with their deep ties to their communities, year-round, person-to-person contact, and sophisticated data analysis, excel at engaging and turning out Latino (especially Latina women), Asian-American Pacific Islander, and young ethnic voters to make that crucial difference at the margins.
Consider these key facts:
Two of the five California Biden-18 districts are newly drawn Latino majority districts (CA-13 and 22)
All five districts have large and growing ethnic and working class communities–the focus of CNC and OC Action
The path to victory is clear. We need to convince Latino and Asian-American Pacific Islander voters that the Democratic candidates understand their issues and will fight for them in Congress. The battle won’t be won by slick and expensive television ads devised in Washington D.C. and shown on networks viewed increasingly by older, white voters. The key is personal contact from trusted members of their own community.
OC Action and CNC are led by such people. In 2024, they’ll mobilize tens of thousands of their fellow community members to turn non-voters into voters. OC Action’s canvassing program is focused on speaking with voters in their own language–Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Tagalog, the predominant languages of the important immigrant communities of CA-45, which is currently represented by far-right Congresswoman Michelle Steele. CNC’s program will target Latino voters who lean Democratic but who did not vote in sufficient numbers in 2022 to flip three winnable House seats from red to blue. The votes are there for us to win. We just need to speak to these voters in their own language about issues they care about, such as housing, workers’ rights, and environmental justice.
With your support, Airlift’s California partners can defeat four of the five Biden-18 districts and hold four seats currently held by Democrats. That alone would put us within spitting distance of restoring the Speaker’s gavel to the party that actually believes in governing and solving America’s problems.
It won’t be easy, though, despite the proven incompetence and extremism of the current GOP majority. Tribalism and disenchantment with politics run strong, ignorance and disinformation are rampant, and voter suppression laws in battleground states continue to erode the electorate. With new, radically gerrymandered maps in North Carolina, three House seats won by Democrats in 2022 are widely expected to flip back to red unless federal courts intervene. We will have to fight for every single vote for every single competitive seat in the country.
Let’s do it, with California leading the way.
Join us on November 14 for U.S. House 2024: California to the Rescue, a “Live from the Frontlines” event featuring David Callahan, Founder of Blue Tent, and leaders from Airlift Partners OC Action and Communities for a New California.
U.S. HOUSE 2024: CALIFORNIA TO THE RESCUE
David Callahan
Founder of Blue Tent and Inside Philanthropy, Co-founder of Demos
November 14, Tuesday, 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET
We have the power to stop the extremism, chaos, and dysfunction of the GOP-led House of Representatives by flipping it back to blue in 2024. Several of California's MAGA-supporting representatives are in districts where Airlift partner groups OC Action and Communities for a New California (CNC) are on the ground in the battleground districts of Orange County and the Central Valley fighting to turn out every vote.
We’ll interview David Callahan, one of the savviest analysts we know, to learn where to invest our political contributions, and hear how the smart money is in California for winning back the House. And we’ll ask Jonathan Paik of OC Action and Hazune Aguilar of Communities for a New California (CNC) about their playbook for unseating MAGA-supporting representatives.
Jonathan Paik, Executive Director of OC Action (left) and
Hazune Aguilar, Strategic Engagement Director of Communities for a New California (CNC)
If you can’t make it, but would like to help OC Action and Communities for a New California - here is the way to donate:
♥ BIG THANKS TO AIRLIFT FROM VIRGINIA! ♥
Thanks to our generous donors, our “Live from the Frontlines” event featuring Dan Pfeiffer raised over $17,000 for CASA in Action, which is organizing tirelessly for the all-important Virginia State Legislature elections next week. Here’s what Director Luis Aguilar wrote us:
I wanted to send my deepest thanks to the entire team at Airlift for organizing and hosting the recent fundraiser to support CASA in Action's election efforts. Your willingness to leverage your platform and bring people together to make a difference is so appreciated. The event was a huge success, and the funds raised will allow us to expand our voter outreach and education programs during this critical election cycle. We simply could not do this important work without allies and partners like you. Thank you for believing in our mission, and for your generosity in supporting us. We are so grateful for your support.
BLACK MALE INITIATIVE OF GEORGIA ACTIVATES BLACK MEN
John R. Taylor III, Co-Founder of Black Male Initiative of Georgia, is a visionary. At 47, he’s been an activist his entire adult life. John grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, “One of the most contaminated and roughest urban communities in the country. My coach said, ‘You can do three practices a day or for the third practice you can do voter registration.” John’s been engaged in activism ever since, and is now a long-time resident of Georgia.
After the 2016 election, John and a group of his colleagues got together:
“We were disappointed in the narrative around Black men–that we were apathetic, disengaged, didn’t care about politics. Blaming us as though Black men were the reason Democrats can’t win, defining us as low-frequency voters. Black men are the second-highest voting group for progressive causes. Black men are not disengaged–they’ve been tossed to the side. The Democratic Party and progressives use the least resources to turn out Black men. They’ve assumed they have us or, more recently, that if they can get Black women, we just come along.”
The desire to change that narrative sparked the founding of Black Male Initiative Georgia in 2019 (and later its c4 Fund BMIF for electoral work, which is where Airlift donations go; John retained the lesson from his high school coach that voting is integral to progress!) BMI Georgia is built around five pillars: Civic Engagement, Mental Health and Wellness, Economic Empowerment, Criminal Justice Equity, and Education.
John knows that Black men, feeling embattled after 30 years of bipartisan support for mass incarceration, are mistrustful of the system. He heard the same things this past election cycle as he heard in the 90s:
“People say, ‘This ain’t going to change nothing. At the end of the day we still going to be locked up in jail’. This is critical for folks to understand, we see both the Democratic and the Republican Party as the opposition. The system is the opposition. So the question becomes, ‘Where are you going to get the most for your community? Somebody who is ideologically and diametrically opposed to you? Or somebody who at face value has rhetoric and a platform that is supposed to speak to your need?’ That realistic outlook builds trust in the community and engenders trust in the progressive movement. We don’t expect progressives to do it for us; we have the responsibility to hold them accountable. Then when we win, it’s not because some benevolent entity did something for us. It’s because we held their feet to the fire.”
It takes a lot of work to rebuild trust. But it pays off. John notes that the Democratic Party’s typical 3-5 contacts per voter during election cycles is insufficient. BMI Georgia contacts people 10-14 times year-round, building relationships through conversations about community members’ concerns:
“Black men are typically not interested in a transactional conversation where you ask them right out of the box ‘Hey, are you registered to vote?’ That just shows your hand because the way we see it folks show up every election cycle and disappear till the next. They make promises but they don’t produce. So for us it’s more about ‘Have you eaten today? How’s your family doing? What are the big issues facing you right now? Is there anybody in the community already helping you? If you had a magic wand, if you could change anything in your community what would it be?’”
This level of engagement is what builds trust and a re-invigorated community with a renewed interest in voting. As John points out, “By the end of 2022, we had knocked on over half a million doors. We were instrumental in the Warnock campaign and a host of municipal, state-wide, and district races.”
John is particularly passionate about the importance of the organization’s Mental Health Pillar in bringing about deep community and political change:
“When we started having conversations with Black men on how they were doing, nobody was doing well. What's it like to be treated with fear and suspicion by everybody? Imagine how it would feel if you never had a good night’s sleep in your life because you never felt safe. We don’t have the luxury to get upset and say how we feel, because that’s a death sentence.”
John recounted how in the previous three weeks, he had taken out the office trash four times. Each time at the dumpster (which they share with a police station), officers asked him, “What are you up to?” Inwardly he’s thinking, “I’m up to dumping my trash!”
John goes on: “I have a10-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 5-year-old, and I literally had a police officer on the verge of pulling a gun on me because I was dumping trash. I’m a 47-year-old, 6’4”, 300-pound Black guy, so I know he sees me as a threat.”
Constant community experiences like this (and worse) led BMI Georgia to start Speed Therapy: “It’s like Speed Dating but the focus is on finding a therapist,” explains John.
“It’s absolutely amazing. Each participant gets 3-5 minutes to sit at a table and talk to a counselor. They talk to as many as they can to get a feel for them. At first we had to drag brothers into the room and then we had to drag them out. If you come across someone you’re comfortable with, we will pay for the first session. We want you to go to counseling.”
If hurt people hurt people, then healing people help heal the world.”
This core ethos is central to BMI Georgia’s success in transforming the lives of Black men, their communities, and the entire state, personally and politically. Thank you, John!
EXERCISE YOUR POWER
I know the news is packed with reasons for worry . . . I know we are all exhausted, and dispirited, and weakened by the toxins of constant anxiety. I know all of that, and I am telling you that the answer… is in taking simple, focussed, needed actions anyway. . . Let’s do the work and encourage others to do the same. Yes, we’re scared. Doesn’t matter. All that matters is what we do. Our deeds, not the polls, determine our future. Never forget it. And act accordingly.
–Jessica Craven, Chop Wood, Carry Water.
Here are some great ways to act accordingly:
Donate by Check. Set up automatic payments to Airlift with the Bill Pay service at your bank, or send a check directly to: Airlift, PO Box 617, Corte Madera CA 94976
Donate Online at ActBlue. Just click the button, and click again to Make it Monthly!
For Tax-Deductible Giving. Email Ruth Jaeger at ruth@airlift.fund.
Spread the word! Tell your friends and family about Airlift and our events. Share this newsletter and our website.
Thanks!
Airlift is an all-volunteer organization. Less than 2% of all proceeds go to expenses, the rest goes to our partner groups.
FIELD NOTES
Elections Now! Many Airlift Partners are not just getting ready for 2024, but are in the thick of local, state, and special elections on the ballot next week! They’ve been busy getting out the word on all things voting, endorsing candidates, and reaching people everywhere to drive turnout. Every election matters!
Down Home North Carolina joins lawsuit challenging SB747, aka “a "jumbo jet of voter suppression." Read more.
Black Male Initiative Georgia joins this dynamic summit, "Today's Investment, Tomorrow's Vote: Youth Empowered," on the need to invest in young people beyond collegiate settings.
Down Home North Carolina and Carolina Federation, in collaboration with other grassroots progressive NC groups, hold “Roots of Power,” their first statewide convention.