This past Saturday, August 1st marked my two year anniversary as the Projects Organizer for Philly Neighborhood Networks. You have been getting newsletters from me for about half that long and I hope they have been entertaining and informative.
So, I hope you’ll allow me in this newsletter to speak from my heart. I am truly afraid that America cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump and his horde of enablers. This is a criminal enterprise that has done great harm to our people and our institutions, all in an attempt to remain in power.
In a very real sense, everything we love about this country is threatened by increasingly open fascism. And while we certainly need to take to the streets, we cannot make this our only method of protest. We must do it at the ballot box.
Our Patriotic Duty
I know, you read those words and thought it sounds like some MAGA slogan. But maybe that’s part of the problem, that we’ve relinquished our words and symbols to a bunch of flag-waving white nationalists and gun nuts.
I think that you and I are the real patriots, and it is incumbent upon us to do all that we can to end this crime spree by beating this monster at the ballot box – in a drubbing so overwhelming that his humiliation will be apparent to the world, despite his protestations of “fake” results.
2016 demonstrated that Philadelphia voters are the key to winning Pennsylvania. In fact, no Democrat has won the Presidency without the Keystone State since Franklin Roosevelt did it in 1932. I think we can all admit that we are not touting a candidate who can walk in FDR’s shoes; nevertheless, our goal remains the same – to remove the Orange Menace from power. Trump won the state by 44,292 votes; meanwhile, 238,000 Philadelphians stayed home.
Our Task: 81,000 Voters
Philly Neighborhood Networks is a member of a statewide election organizing force called “America Votes”. We have been given a very important task in this election – to turn out 81,000 voters in our NW Philly neighborhoods, in particular, those who did not cast a ballot in 2016.
You Make the Difference
We cannot knock doors this time, so we will do this by having conversations with neighbors by telephone, to ask them to vote for Joe Biden and to encourage them to vote from the safety and convenience of their homes. We will also ask them to talk with their family and friends about how important this election is to the future of our nation, and to them personally.
We also have a new tool that makes phone banking really easy – you simply sign onto the system and it auto-dials for you – as many as 150 dials per hour! This greatly increases our contact rate with voters. You just wait for the beep and start talking to a real person.
You may be uncomfortable talking with strangers, but remember they are your neighbors and they share the same concerns you do. So, be a patriot and take the plunge. You may find out you’re good at it.
Click on the link below and pick a day to make calls – we make our calls every Saturday afternoon and Thursday evening. (I’m happy to accommodate you if another day and time works for you). We will start each phone bank with a 30 minute workshop to walk you through it step-by step until you are comfortable and ready – then you can make calls immediately after our workshop training. Please do your part and sign up for one or more phone banks.
Contributions are not tax deductble as charitable contributions for federal income tax.
You’ve got this,
Tim Brown, Projects Organizer
Learn more about Philly NN on our website.