May 3rd, 2023
Dear Friend,
In This Issue
You’re Invited!
Claiming the Mantle of Freedom
Invest in Democracy
Internal Democracy: Learning and Unlearning
We Are/They Are
Upcoming Events
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The Crimson Goes Blue Political Strategy:
- Win critical elections in battleground states for Democrats
- Protect the freedom to vote
- Ensure the integrity of elections
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You’re Invited!
Don’t miss our first Crimson Goes Blue Community Conversation this Thursday May 4th!
Join us on Thursday, May 4, 8pm - 9:30pm (ET)/5pm-6:30 (PT) to watch "Rural Runners" and for a conversation with Chloe Maxmin ’15 and Canyon Woodward ’15 about its lessons for building deep relationships with voters nationwide.
In 2020, Chloe Maxmin, a 28-year-old climate activist, became the youngest woman elected to the state senate in Maine history. Chloe and her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, rewrote the strategy for progressive success in rural America and won two campaigns in red districts where they were expected to lose. Their approach rehumanizes our deeply divided political system, offering hope and a path toward a healthier democracy.
"Rural Runners" follows Maxmin and Woodward on the campaign trail alongside Canyon's rise as a champion ultra-distance runner. Most recently, Woodward was one of the top American male finishers at the UTMB 100-mile race.
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Claiming the Mantle of Freedom
by Janet Singer, CGB Political Director
In a video highlighting the theme of freedom, President Biden officially announced his reelection run last week. He has been a very strong President and has garnered successes that seemed impossible given our current political landscape. The country is far better off than when Biden started his presidency, but his quietly competent style means that his accomplishments are not widely known. In order to bring about a Democratic victory in 2024, we must unite behind him and celebrate the achievements of his administration.
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Under Biden, the economy has improved dramatically, with gas prices coming down, nearly 11 million jobs created, and more people employed in the US than at any time since WWII.
The deficit, which increased every year under Trump, has decreased every year under Biden.
Biden has signed into law:
- The Chips and Science Act, which boosts America’s energy manufacturing industry, lowers the cost of goods, and invests in energy innovation.
- The Inflation Reduction Act, which put us on the path to cutting our emissions by half in 2030 and to net-zero in 2050.
- The Infrastructure Law, the largest investment in public transit in American history, which invests not only in rebuilding roads and bridges but also in a more reliable power grid system.
- The PACT Act, the most significant expansion of veteran benefits in over three decades.
- The first major gun safety legislation passed by Congress in nearly 30 years.
Biden also signed more than a hundred executive orders to invest in the production of clean energy.
Biden took control of the pandemic, and mitigated its effects by enabling easy access to vaccines and testing in addition to providing stimulus checks.
More Americans have health insurance now than at any point in American history.
After the Dobbs decision, Biden issued an executive order protecting reproductive rights to ensure that women have access to lifesaving care, including the right to have an abortion during medical emergencies, and preserving the right to interstate travel in pursuit of medical care.
The Biden administration has fought for the rights of all LGBTQI+ Americans by reversing trans bans on military service, guaranteeing transgender Americans access to government support and services, and strengthening non-discriminatory protections in healthcare, housing, education, and employment.
Under Biden, Kentanji Brown Jackson and the most diverse group of Federal judges in US history have been confirmed.
Biden’s skill and experience helped unite our allies in support of Ukraine. He has facilitated the entry of Finland and Sweden into the NATO alliance.
Biden has pardoned all prior federal offenses for marijuana possession.
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Why do I highlight this long list of accomplishments? Because the chasm between what the Biden administration has done and what the voters know he’s done is wide. And if we want to ensure that Donald Trump or anyone of his ilk never occupies the White House again, it is our job to close that gap by raising awareness of Democratic accomplishments.
It is critical that we frame a narrative which contrasts the benefits deriving from Biden’s achievements with the authoritarian threats to our freedoms coming from Republican candidates. Biden has stood up for our democratic values. Democratic achievements show who Democrats are and what we represent. The accomplishments of Biden’s administration demonstrate his ability to harness the government’s power in support of our values. Biden led with freedom because it is the number one value Americans associate with being American. Democrats need to reclaim it. Let’s make that clear for voters.
Authoritarians succeed by creating an atmosphere of crisis and violence as a way to convince millions that only a strongman can restore safety and the American way of life: see, for example, the video the RNC put out immediately after Biden announced. This fabricated atmosphere is used to justify and advocate book bans, permitless carry of concealed weapons, abortion bans, suppressive voting rules, and more. Even the most moderate of today’s Republicans have been, at best, silent as their frontrunners whittle away at democratic rights and bodily and intellectual freedoms. And then Republicans have the nerve to claim the mantle of freedom.
But the Republicans controlling their Party underestimate the pro-democracy force that is fiercely fighting to retain our rights and freedoms. Bill Clinton said that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line, but that is no longer true. One of the main reasons Democrats have won so many important races since 2016 is that we have united behind our candidates. For those who wished for a younger candidate, that will come in 2028. The Democrats have a very deep bench of talented, forward-thinking, appealing leaders to take us into the future: Pete Buttigieg, Gretchen Whitmer, Joycelyn Benson, Jared Polis, Gina Raimondo, JB Pritzker, Tim Ryan, Josh Shapiro, Raphael Warnock, Colin Allred, Deval Patrick, Corey Booker, Wes Moore, Mark Kelly, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Amy Klobuchar, Roy Cooper, Mitch Landrieu, Phil Murphy, and Stacey Abrams to name a few. A great presidential candidate will rise from these ranks. In our current polarized environment, with the structural advantage the Electoral College gives to Republicans,
this election will be close in the battleground states.
It is up to us to make the case for a second term for Biden, considering both Biden’s achievements and the grim alternative. We are on the right side of the issues. We will be on the right side of history. We are part of the resistance. We have been told since college that we have a role in making the future brighter and better. Crimson Goes Blue will continue to provide opportunities to do just that. So
let’s get to work.
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Invest in Democracy: Donate to the New Q2 Crimson Goes Blue Portfolio
Check out our new Q2 Crimson Goes Blue Portfolio now live at https://www.crimsongoesblue.org/donate. Your donation is an early, high-impact investment in the following priorities:
Win Back the House: In 2022, Democrats lost the U.S. House of Representatives by just 6,675 votes. We will need to net only five seats to regain the majority in 2024. This fight is winnable, so this quarter's Crimson Goes Blue Portfolio is investing early in swing district incumbents - in Illinois, Ohio, New Mexico, New York, and North Carolina - where our collective efforts can make the biggest impact.
Block GOP Control in Virginia: Voting this November will determine whether Virginia falls under the full control of the GOP. Democrats need to win back state legislature seats lost in 2021 in order to flip the GOP-controlled House of Delegates, keep our majority in the State Senate, and prevent extremist legislation from reaching the Republican governor's desk.
Mobilize Voters in Battleground States: Our Q2 Portfolio supports organizations working to build grassroots infrastructure in North Carolina and get a pro-choice initiative on the ballot in Ohio, which will boost turnout for key U.S. Senate and House races in 2024.
Click here to learn more and donate.
We research. You give. Together we protect our democracy.
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Internal Democracy: Learning and Unlearning
by Faulkner Fox ‘85
I’ve been thinking about the legacy of a Harvard education. I bet we can all remember at least one great thing we still hold close. Just last week, a friend who’s been taking her 11th grader to look at colleges said she was shocked to learn about “shopping period” at Brown, and how cool it was to visit classes before you had to definitively sign up.
“We had that,” I said. “Even after I graduated, I looked at syllabi of courses I never took and read some of the assigned books.” Where are those syllabi? I bet I still have them somewhere. I bet I’d find things I want to read now—almost 40 years after graduating.
Some of what I learned at Harvard, though, I’m still trying to unlearn. I keep trying because it’s hurting me and the people around me.
Last month I went to Baton Rouge, a city I’d only ever been to briefly and long ago. This time I was there to see a play by a Nigerian playwright and professor at LSU. I got to town with a few hours to spare so I started walking around, something I love to do. Almost immediately, I started judging. LSU’s buildings are kind of ugly. Look at that oil refinery ruining the river. Oh my God, is every person in this town going to the LSU baseball game?
It turned out that I knew next to nothing—about Baton Rouge, LSU, Louisiana, or my fellow human beings. Later that day, I attended the most riveting and sophisticated discussion I’ve ever attended anywhere (and I go to a lot of these) about race, capitalism, and the legacy of enslavement. At LSU. In Louisiana. Why in the world was I surprised by this? Having gone to Harvard is at least part of the answer.
I’m from a mill town in Virginia, and I balked at the regional elitism I encountered at Harvard and later at Yale, where I went to graduate school. When I moved to Durham, North Carolina, in the early ‘90s to become a grassroots activist, I noticed when out-of-state volunteers seemed to arrive with that same elitism. And yet here I was, thirty years into my own activism, exhibiting that exact elitism myself in Baton Rouge!
Those of us who want to do democracy work, who want—for example—to persuade American citizens to vote, have got to unlearn the entitlement part of our Harvard education. Sure, some of us first learned entitlement long before we got to Harvard. But even if we already had plenty of practice viewing ourselves as the best and brightest, that attitude was likely amplified at Harvard.
It’s hard to unlearn arrogance, and it’s not something that only has to be done once. It’s ongoing work. I believe it’s also an ethical obligation. I’m sure everybody in Crimson Goes Blue knows it’s important to listen to our partners on the ground when we show up in a new town to volunteer. How else would we know the local election rules, where the Early Vote sites are, where to deposit completed voter registration forms? I’m suggesting that we also consider engaging—right now in 2023—in a different kind of preparation for 2024 election work: a deep dive into unlearning assurance in the correctness of our assumptions.
In my opinion, this isn’t optional for people who want to protect democracy. Otherwise, we could show up in a new town with all kinds of unexamined prejudices, prejudices we may have actually been taught at the New England alma mater we all share.
I’d like to suggest that those of us (and I really hope it’s all of us reading this newsletter plus all our friends!) who plan on doing election work in 2024 spend time now promoting internal democracy in our own minds. We can’t do this entirely from home, on our own, even if we have the best syllabi. We need practice and training. People can tell when you’re judging them, when you think you know more than they do, even if you don’t say it out loud. To be effective canvassers, we need practice in not doing this. I believe this work, this unlearning, could be one of the most important—and ethical—things we do as Harvard grads.
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We Are/They Are
Share the message with your classmates, friends and neighbors!
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The Biden Department of Justice is suing Tennessee for discrimination against transgender youth for its new law banning gender-affirming therapies, stating that “The right to consider your health and medically-approved treatment options with your family and doctors is a right that everyone should have, including transgender children, who are especially vulnerable to serious risks of depression, anxiety and suicide.”
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The Republican-controlled Montana State Legislature voted along party lines to block transgender Democratic Representative Zooey Zephyr from entering the House chamber because she told the Republican majority that they would have “blood on their hands” for passing legislation denying gender-affirming care to transgender youth. Zephyr has been relegated to sitting in the public gallery or hallway outside the chamber to represent her constituents’ interests–effectively silencing their voice in the chamber.
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Under Biden’s leadership, the number of Americans who have signed up for medical insurance through healthcare.gov increased by 50%, and costs were reduced due to expanded health care assistance under the Inflation Reduction Act. The percentage of Americans with health insurance hit an all-time high in 2023.
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As part of their pretend strategy to deal with the debt limit, House Republicans passed a bill last week instituting a work requirement for most Medicaid recipients, which may leave more than 600,000 of the nation's most vulnerable citizens without health insurance.
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Online Event Location: Register + Donate
Join Sen. Tina Smith, Vice Chair of the DSCC + Force Multiplier
Suggested donation $100. Your generosity is appreciated. Together, we can make an impact.
Your donation will benefit Senators Tammy Baldwin (WI) + Sherrod Brown (OH) + Jacky Rosen (NV) + Jon Tester (MT)
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Crimson Goes Blue Ohio Action Team Meeting - Tuesday, May 9 at 2pm ET/11am PT
Online Event Location: Sign up here
Join us at 2pm for the first Ohio team meeting of the 23/24 season. Meet the other Ohio CGB'ers, discuss the competitive races we'll be working on, and the prochoice ballot measure we're gathering signatures for. Register here
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For a full list of events, see our Calendar at the Crimson Goes Blue Website.
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Crimson Goes Blue
Please forward this newsletter to your friends in the Harvard alumni community who might be interested in Crimson Goes Blue.
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