So what are YOU willing to do about it?

In about 18 months or so it will be time to begin removing many of the remaining sedition-supporting elected officials from the federal government. So are you willing now to commit some of your time to volunteer in the 2022 mid-terms?

No competitive races in your area? No problem, you can volunteer to anonymously text or make phone calls from your computer, or even write postcards to help finish taking out the garbage all over the country. Like in Wisconsin, to end Ron Johnson's political career. Or Pennsylvania, maybe to elect the great John Fetterman (google him).

So I'd be interested in seeing who here is willing to commit to stepping up. 

I think it's futile. The 2020 election should have resulted in the mass removal of Republicans from office, at all levels. Instead, the Gang Of Perverts actually gained House seats, and held on to most of their vulnerable Senate seats.

I mean, look at Georgia. The Republican incumbents were two rich grifters. They're both scum. Yet, we barely won--probably thanks to the antics of the Orange Asshole. Shouldn't any Republican who runs for office now or in the next ten years lose by a 50:1 margin? Yet, people still vote for them. In droves.

So I can't imagine picking up the phone and having a conversation like this: "Hello sir, I'm calling on behalf of the Democratic--" "DEEP STATE MAGA MAGA MAGA HILLARY SENT EMAILS TRUMP IN 2024 STOP THE STEAL KILL ALL MEXICANS!!!!" "Uh, yes, sir, but I was wondering if you would consider voting for Wally Wonderful the Democrat instead of Evil Edward the Republican this time around." "WHY THE %^%$#$ SHOULD I?????" "Because the Republicans are evil assholes and everything they do hurts you, me, and the entire country." (silence) "Duh, I guess you're right! Thanks! I'm voting Democrat for the rest of my life!"

Not bloody likely.

Apparently, you've never volunteered in a campaign before. So I'll explain, based on the knowledge I've gained since 1968.

Contacting potential voters, whether in person, on the phone, by mail, or now by text, is about IDENTIFYING AND MOTIVATING THE PEOPLE ON YOUR SIDE, or at least those leaning your way. Getting them to commit to vote, getting them to make a plan to vote, and maybe getting them to volunteer. When you run into someone on the other side, you do not try to persuade them. You just say have a nice day and discontinue.

It worked for the Democrats in Georgia, didn't it? It worked for the Republicans in Florida, because they were willing to canvas in person in spite of Covid.

Make sense now?

So, is Kevin saying we should work to defeat every living Republican candidate until none are left, even if they are not "sedition-supporting"?  A one-party country is desirable?

I hang up (or close the door, or don't answer the door) on any and all political solicitors.  

I don't campaign for anybody. 

I do participate in social action causes with my church groups--world hunger, human trafficking, medical missions, womens' rights in backward countries, e.g. education, genital mutilation of young girls.  

BTW, the idiot who sat in Pelosi's desk is getting a ration of sh*t from our republican governor and pretty much every legislator, local and national, rep or dem.   Actually, I think that guy and the rest who mobbed the Capitol that day may have done us all a favor.  I admit being astounded to see such acts being committed.  I'm more educated than I was the day before it happened.

Candy

Actually, I have volunteered four times. The most recent time was when I did door-to-door for the Hillary Disaster Campaign in 2016. I was living in a small conservative town in Oregon at the time. Person after person I talked to said yeah, that scumbag Trump is a joke and I'm definitely voting for Hillary and yes I'm registered to vote and yes I intend to vote as soon as I can (we have mail-in balloting in OR). Occasionally, I would run into someone who as soon as they discerned I was stumping for Hillary, would say "Wait jest a minnit while ah gits mah shotgun"--or sic the dogs on me. But this was the exception. I would say that out of several hundred people I talked to over a three-week period, at least nine out of ten said they were definitely going to vote, and would vote for Hillary.

Our godforsaken little shit town actually went 54-46 for Trump. So much for what people will tell you when you talk to them about politics.

You can't say that the Democratic efforts to get out the vote in Georgia--or Republican efforts to get out the vote in Florida---"worked," because we have no idea what would have happened if those efforts hadn't been made. It's quite possible they made a difference; it's also quite possible that everybody already had their minds made up and it was all a bunch of hot air. Correlation vs. causation all over again.

So will it make a difference if we all get on the phones and start bugging people in 2022? Maybe. And yes, even "maybe" makes that worth doing, at least to some extent. I just can't see my having a three-minute conversation with someone changing their intentions in any significant way. Whatever "motivation" someone needs to vote Democrat---well, they either already have it or they don't, and won't get it from some random schmuck on the phone. Such motivation should already exist, in the form of the horror of Republican rule and the desire to get those bastards out of power.

No, Kevin is not saying that. Kevin is saying that those Republicans--98% of them--who have either actively supported Trump/sedition or tacitly approved it by their silence should be removed from office.

Does that preclude their replacement with more principled Republicans, who embody and practice the positive aspects and values of what used to be the GOP, a mostly honorable party in the past though with a fundamentally obsolete, incorrect, and antiquated view of American society? Of course not. They would be a vast improvement on the things that are occupying office now.

Does that preclude the formation of a third political party, or a fourth or a fifth? This could happen because of the GOP splitting between the reasonable folks and the QAnon bunch. Or it could happen because conservatives form a new party altogether (remember the Tee Hee Party or whatever it was called?).

And no, I don't really like one-party rule. But there's been a stark contrast between the times when the Republicans controlled things and when the Democrats have. If one party wields more power than the other, our country is far, far, far better off if that party is the Democrats. And by "our country," I mean the people, not billionaires and huge corporations.

Candy has never heard of all the Republicans on the Lincoln Project.

Republicans are going to have some big problems with redistrcting for 2022.   The 2010 Census saw a wave of Republican governors take hold of blue states which allowed them to massviely gerrymander those states in foavor of Republican candidates up until now.   Despite that  Democrats still won the majority of House seats anyway (barely).  

Now with the 2020 census Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maine, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, and others will go back to their default district mappings which will make those districts more in proportion to the populations of those states.   Translation - good news for Democrats;  bad news for Michelle Bachman wannabes in Pennsylvania.

I've said all along districts should be drawn by bi-partisan committees.   I didn't get much love for that idea when the GOP was in charge.  I bet I will now. 

You don't understand how assiduous the Republican party is and intends to be about preventing people from voting and/or makig sure their votes don't count. They and Trump acknowledge that that's the only way they can stay in power. And if they feel that power slipping away, they'll just subvert democracy that much more blatantly and criminally. There's nothing they won't do.

Pundits like to say that Trump is an aberration. The opposite is true. His anti-democratic, pro-fascist views are mainstream Republican doctrine. That's why they LUVVVV him so much.

So I have complete confidence that "stop the (expletives) from voting" will continue to be the unofficial Republican party slogan for quite some time to come. We fix gerrymandering here and there, they'll just come up with some other scheme to nullify people's votes. They're much, much better at criminality than we are.

You are making this all too complicated.

Did you know that research has shown that getting someone to make a voting plan increases their likelihood of voting by about 9%? And do you know what happens when you get low-propensity voters to the polls 9% more often? You get control of the United States Senate.

So are you willing to commit to volunteer in some form in the next elections? (And you thought I was joking when I said I was going to be your stalker.)