Roughly speaking. Supposing we see ourselves as a democracy, it comes off as weird anyone would “plot” a candidate’s loss. In such a system, the only thing we can do is gain popular opinion. Unless we’re implying we don’t actually see things that way.
Biden did continue just about all of Trump’s most infamous policies. The border camps are still open, he continued to build the wall, Cop Cities are still built, the 61 political prisoners in Atlanta are still locked up under RICO charges that the Segregationist-In-Chief could’ve pardoned away… “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”; no matter who wins.
Those 61 prisoners were prosecuted under state law, which the president cannot pardon or commute. It is part of the reason that the business record investigation against Trump has outsized consequences. It was done at the state level, so even if he is reelected there is no question of him pardoning himself.
Likewise with Cop City, it is funded by the Atlanta City Council and private entities. The federal government is not involved from what I can tell.
The vast majority of Americans both already know how they feel about Trump and Biden and live in a solidly red or blue state. If you do want to focus on Biden, volunteer with phone banking or canvassing so that your efforts are directed to where they’ll actually matter and be organized in line with their messaging. Personally, I’d say you’re better off focusing on local races where you have more of an opportunity to come at it from a different angle and cut through people’s fortified positions. And as another user said, focus on mobilization, it’s easier to get someone who already agrees with you to register and make a plan than to convince someone to change their whole worldview.
There are also strategies outside of electoralism, such as protests and counter-protests. You can join an organization and form tactics and strategies to subvert the right’s actions, and engage with direct action to build trust and community that could be important in the future. Form strategies while being realistic about your goals and capabilities and coordinate with others.
Who’s really going to be swayed by a phone bank? My democratic rep keeps robocalling me and sending text messages and I honestly find it more annoying than anything. This does not work in 2024.
If someone canvassing (or a potential solicitor) knocks on my door I’m either not going to answer it or ask them to leave because I’m busy and don’t want my time taken up.
Fair, and people in swing states get inundated with ads as it is. Mostly I’d say it’s more useful for mobilization than persuasion, like if you get a text reminding you when voting day is maybe someone makes it when they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Ideally, volunteers could mean quality over quantity, less automated spam asking for money and instead actual humans responding to concerns and answering questions. Even more ideally, that could be paired with voters’ concerns being elevated and the party actually responding to them. The goal is to improve the quality of the campaign’s voter outreach, in whatever form that outreach takes.
I’m not a fan of Biden myself but I still think it’s worth discussing general electoral strategies.
There are a few types of people that get targeted based on a voter profile, if my tiny amount of phone banking experience matches. There are the people who are probably going to vote for your party, but need a reminder because they are disengaged. Then there are swing voters that actually are on the fence and use a little information about your candidate. Like, most people don’t know much about Biden’s infrastructure package, so list off some projects nearby.
Long shot here: Donate to charities which help people in need in predominantly Trump held districts.
Less of a long shot: Volunteer for organizations like Vote Forward to try to reach folks. We’re all human beings at the end of the day, and appealing to people can’t hurt.
I’m very curious how giving money to Trump supporters would hurt Trump? Some people are giving their last dollar to Trump and depend in charity at this point. Wouldn’t throwing money at local charities just further enable them?
I know I’ve been asking myself if I want to stick around to see what happens, but I dunno if I have the courage to turn the gun on myself. I’d drink myself to death, if I had any booze around.
turning off voters is the biggest reason why we don’t vote imo in this environment and there’s nothing you can do about shitty choices that the democrats will give us; but there’s things you can do to overcome the other institutional part of it; aka gerrymandering:
setup free voting ride shares with free filling snacks in gerrymandered states that will pick each person up from home; drop them off at their polling station; pick them up from there; and then drop them off at home w/o having to wait for everyone to finish voting. the lines are VERY long and take hours in heavily gerrymandered places like houston texas and people hate voting already; so making them wait or skip dinner to vote is a non-starter.
setup free voting phone number and/or website that will help register you to vote (not just tell you what you need to do) on your behalf and include the option to mail you a pre-filled envelope and stamp if paper registration is required. advertise it HEAVILY on all forms of media everywhere and make it clear it’s not from the government.
then, assign a case worker to every client to ensure that the registration was completed and followup on the problems that gerrymandered places usually create to suppress votes. also get lawyers or people familiar with election laws to file inquiries on each voter’s behalf each time a gerrymandered place manages to find a reason to disqualify a voter or an employer refuses to let them off to vote and use that case worker to manage it.
expect it to fail the first few times because people hate talking about politics so they won’t listen for the first few cycles.