{"id":45608,"date":"2020-11-04T22:57:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T03:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=45608"},"modified":"2020-11-04T23:16:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T04:16:40","slug":"relaxing-with-joe-biden-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/relaxing-with-joe-biden-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Relaxing With Joe Biden … NOT!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t like to count my chickens before they’re hatched, but at the moment I’m cautiously hopeful for Joe Biden. Keep your fingers, toes, eyes, and all other body parts crossed!<\/p>\n

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In Philadelphia, the day before Election Day.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

I’ve read and heard a lot of people bemoaning the fact that Biden’s lead isn’t the landslide they hoped for. In response, I will quote Bart Simpson: “Au contraire mon fr\u00e8re<\/a>.” If you take into account the shameless<\/a> and even violent<\/a> voter suppression<\/a> seen all over the country, any win is a huge win. Fuck, a tie is huge when you think of all the blue votes required to overcome so much GOP cheating! <\/p>\n

Anyway, if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris truly are in line to be the next president and vice president of the United States, we can all relax. Just kidding! After we catch up on our sleep a bit, we have to bust our asses to dismantle the white supremacist system that enabled a demagogue like Trump to take office and unleash brownshirt<\/a>-style hell. It’s not about trying to change the minds or hearts of diehard racist individuals. They are clearly beyond hope. We need to attack the laws, customs, and institutions<\/a> that are used to inflict self-serving and contradictory<\/a> authoritarianism on others. Check out the next steps I wrote about in this Instagram post and follow the organizations I tagged.<\/p>\n

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And now … we keep working! We\u2019ve won a battle but not the war against white supremacy and minority rule. Among other things, we need to eliminate the electoral college, end voter suppression and sanction states that permit it, restore voting rights, end Citizens United (big money in politics), and mandate automatic voter registration across the country. If you\u2019ve been using @resistbot and other methods to pressure your Democratic elected officials, you should be using it twice as much because now they have no excuse for not taking action. @senschumer … you\u2019ll be hearing from me as usual. Also we have to keep supporting the pipeline for new progressive people to win elections down ballot. Local races have a profound impact on the national level. Support @runforsomethingnow and @sheshouldrun and the @mvmnt4blklives Electoral Justice League among other organizations. Also support AMAZING local groups like @newgeorgiaproject and @detroit_action and @onepennsylvania that have done years of organizing to fight for Black and brown voting rights. … I\u2019m on a call right now hearing about @detroit_action organizing 20k first-time voters and 12k same-day registrations. \ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udffc\ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udffc\ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udffc #wemakemichigan coalition was on the ground all night to make sure #everyvotecounts<\/a><\/p>\n

A post shared by Wendy Brandes<\/a> (@wendybrandes) on