DEAR DEMOCRATS

by Ruth A. Sheets



Hey Guys!  What are you doing?  Who is advising you as to how you are reaching out to your fellow Democrats ONLINE and in other media?  What I can say is, you all need new advisors.  If others are as frustrated as I am, you all/we as Democrats are in trouble.



I receive between 100 and 200 emails per day from various Democratic candidates and organizations.  If they provided something new or interesting or compelling, they would be worth the time to read them.  Most of them DON’T.  They whine, beg, exaggerate, guilt, threaten, and otherwise dys the Democrats who choose to open them.  They are filled with fake polls, fake petitions, “breaking” notices that contain news sometimes from weeks in the past. 



I get two messages next to each other; one says Mitch McConnell is winning (STUNNED) and the other that he is losing (AMAZING!).  Who is your audience?  Do you think if a person skips the first, they will be moved by the second?  That’s insane!   I get it that candidates can’t collude with PACs and should not, but maybe the Party together needs to make some decisions about the messages sent out and a set of formats.



Candidates need to state their positions, not make their whole message a disparagement  of their opponents.  We already know their opponents are mostly sycophants and rich white men (and a few women).  Where do you stand on the issues of the day?  What will you do to make life better for those on the margins?  What will you do to make this nation more fair?  I get it that these are fund-raisers, but I’ll give you a hint, trying to guilt someone into supporting you is not a good look and probably not as successful as some other strategies.  Find those other strategies!



Organizations, we don’t need more than one message from you a day.  Also, if we have given to your group or are monthly givers, it is not kind to keep acting like we haven’t given enough, so you can pound us every day.  My reaction is to stop my contributions to your organization, and plan to do that for one of those I supported until the comments like, “You don’t care” or “We’re sorry, goodbye, Ruth, you’re for Trump?”  When I receive these messages, I dismiss them out of hand and determine not to waste my money on such garbage when I could support organizations that are actually doing something to help this country beyond emailing for money.



It sounds as though Democrats have been employing Republican strategists, perhaps believing that if they won so many seats over time, they must know something.  They did know something.  They knew how to cheat and lie, and to sew defeat and helplessness in Democrats, particularly people of color and white women.  Well, times have changed.  These groups are “woke” and don’t need the threats of complete and utter destruction to get them moving.  They need direction and ways people can make a meaningful difference.  If all your organization has is its ability to email people for money and you are doing nothing to produce real action, get out of the way, join with a group that is actually working for a more just nation. 



Nearly every week, I am confronted with a new organization spouting a lot of junk that everybody already knows, then begs for money.  It seems to me if you want money, you should be giving evidence of what you are actually doing with the money beyond fundraising for something, often not clear. 



It is going to be really hard to defeat Republicans this fall.  They are doing everything they can to keep Democrats from voting.  They have all the billionaires to whom they gave a half trillion dollars, just in the three months of the pandemic.  They are a bottomless pit of money.  We can’t compete with that, so we have to be smarter.  Republicans think money solves everything.  Well, it hasn’t solved the problem of police killing Black Americans, or maybe that is exactly what their money was designed to allow.  It didn’t solve COVID19 and didn’t save the lives of 113,000 people the virus has taken so far.  In neither case did money serve the American people. 



How can we do smarter?  We can:

- force the media to see us and our candidates and every time we are seen, we need to have a unified message.  I like REPUBLICANS DON’T CARE, but I suspect better ones can be found, and every time, the interviewee needs to be able to back up the statement; REPUBLICANS DON’T CARE, they’re OK with your employer putting you at risk for their profits.  They regularly underfund the Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA). OR, REPUBLICANS DON’T CARE; they are OK with ripping kids from their parents and putting them in cages. 

- as a party, heavily support groups that are on the ground getting voters registered and checking to see who is being purged and informing the people of their new status as purged, then helping them fix it.

- only draw up REAL petitions and polls that are going to the people, agencies, or political bodies they claim to be for.  Getting people to sign petitions and complete polls that are only a front for fundraising is shabby and should be beneath us. 

- stop asking stupid questions on polls.  When I find one that asks me who I voted for in 2016, I ditch it because I know it’s not real.  When I read questions like “Are you OK with employers stealing your money?” I know it’s fake and just for the donation.  Stop this BS and if you want to conduct a poll, make it for real with intelligent questions that don’t presuppose the answers (or change the answers around to be sure the responder knows what the pollster is looking for – as if we can’t tell from the first question).  Then stop the “Submit and Donate” crap.  A poll with stupid questions requiring a donation is just wrong.  Stop it!  

- make sure that Breaking News” is just that.  Using that message for something everyone has known for a week or more makes what follows suspect. 

- avoid sending the same message more than once a day.  Democrats are not stupid and if your message seems worthy, they will check it out or set it aside  for later.  They don’t need to be hit with it over and over.  Then your message has become spam and should be ignored.

- tell candidates, if you are approaching people not in your state or district, you had better introduce yourself and where you stand on about 5 important issues immediately.  It would be best to send different messages to your constituents or potential constituents and the rest of the world.  I get messages all the time from people I have never heard of and I am not always sure where they are from, and generally don’t care. 

- remind everyone the US Post Office is mentioned in the Constitution.  Instead of crying that my 19015 post office is going to close, yell THE U.S. POST OFFICE IS IN THE CONSTITUTION, AND CONGRESS HAS AN OBLIGATION TO FUND IT AND STOP PLAYING GAMES WITH IT!!  

- stop the outrageous language:  “we’re stunned, shocked, terrified.”  Is that the message we want out there.  Dems are easily stunned, shocked, terrified by the things Republicans are doing?  Really?  We know them and their tactics.  They are not stunning, shocking, or terrifying. They are destructive, anti-American, unconstitutional, inhumane, unpatriotic.  We should rely on these words instead when commenting on Republican actions and stop the hyperbole. 

- remember that we have been conditioned to know that there is very little Republicans will not stoop to in order to obtain and keep power and money.  This week’s Georgia primary is the perfect example.  In white (Republican) areas of Atlanta, there were no lines, just voters moving in an out of the voting place.  In Black communities, the machines were broken and lines were 3 to 4 hours long, and in a pandemic that hits Black and other communities of color harder than white communities.  Message sent, message received!  The Republican project is devoid of meaningful ideas, so sabotage is the strategy.  Keep finding and reporting such incidents, and they are frequent.



I hope you Democratic organizations and campaigns will step forward and put your resources in places that will really help us revive our democracy.   It is important we tell all Americans that the Republican Party needs to be set aside until its members have time to grow up and get some positive character traits that will allow them to serve the American people instead of robbing us of our rights, our tax dollars (for their pet projects), our freedom, and our voice.