Top newsletters on organizing, progressive politics and fighting disinfo

Stay in the know with these amazing newsletters.

There's a lot happening and if you don't move fast, you may miss it (Ferris Bueller). How can you cope with people trying to overload you with nonsense (Steve Bannon)? Stay informed with these newsletters about organizing, progressive politics, fighting disinformation and more.

• The Fundamentals of Organizing
• Tsunami of truth
• Letters from an American
• Popular Information
• Ethnic Media Services
• Disinfo Matters
• Tech Policy Press
• Authoritarian Tech
• The Insider
• DemList
• Other Words

The Fundamentals of Organizing

Explains the fundamentals of community organizing that cross lineage. George Goehl

Excerpt: Telling the story of our wins is not simply a function of communications, but of base-building. Our current base and our could-be base have unlimited options of how to spend their time. That is why the people we organize and want to organize have to be a primary audience for the story of how we won.

Tsunami of truth

Explains current political events in a direct, humorous style. Michael Moore

Excerpt: "The Republicans now hold the House by the smallest of margins. They have what I call an anemic majority. Weak. Incontinent. Impotent. Because they are haters, misogynists, bigots and Democracy-destroyers, they will not last, and their House will not hold.

They only got here today by the skin of their teeth thanks to Supreme Court-approved gerrymandering and voter suppression. They were so battered and beaten in this election, they had to crawl on bloodied hands and knees to barely make it across the finish line. They are in a state of shock over what has happened. They’ve already started fighting each other. A Republican-only civil war has broken out between the Trump wing and the DeSantis wing. I’ve already got my front row seat and am ready to pop the corn."

Letters from an American

Puts current issues in a broader context and explains how it relates to past events. Heather Cox Richardson

Excerpt: New candidates for Democratic leadership in the House are stepping up now that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she is stepping down. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) today launched a bid to become the Democratic leader. Emphasizing continuity from Pelosi, with whom he is close, Jeffries called for working with Republicans “where possible…to deliver results for the American people,” but noted that “the opposing party appears to have no plan to accomplish anything meaningful. If the Republican Conference continues to major in demagoguery and minor in disinformation, their bankruptcy of ideas must be aggressively exposed on an ongoing basis.”

Popular Information

Daily news and analysis that respects you as a citizen. Get in-depth information and perspective on the things that really matter. Judd Legum

Excerpt: The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) has spent billions creating LIV, a new golf tour. Two of LIV's eight tournaments in 2022 were held at Trump-owned golf courses, including the season-ending championship at Trump Doral in Florida. At one event, Trump participated in the pro-am tournament with two of LIV's highest-profile players — Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau — and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of PIF. PIF also funds the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour. In October 2022, the series held an event at Trump's Ferry Point Golf Course in New York. Another LIV event will reportedly be held at Trump's golf course in Virginia in May 2023. The tournaments at Trump's courses doubled as political events, with right-wing luminaries like Tucker Carlson and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in attendance. 

Ethnic Media Services

Ethnic Media Services works to enhance the capacity of ethnic news outlets to inform and engage diverse audiences on broader public issues with the goal of building a more inclusive participatory democracy. - Sandy Close

Excerpt: Despite new laws to keep people from voting and gerrymandering election districts to take away the power of minority communities, the Republican “red wave” that pollsters predicted ahead of last week’s midterms didn’t happen.Ethnic Media Services debriefed six experts on their reactions to the election results and what should be done to prepare for the 2024 election.

Democracy Docket

Democracy Docket is the leading progressive media platform dedicated to providing information, opinion and analysis about voting rights, elections, redistricting and democracy. Marc Elias

Excerpt: On college campuses across the country, the energy for the midterm elections was palpable. After Democrats staved off the red wave last Tuesday, recognition started rolling in for young voters who overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates across the board. According to Tufts University’s day-after estimates, 27% of those aged 18-29 cast a ballot in 2022, the second-highest youth turnout for a midterm election in the past three decades. That figure falls just short of the 31% youth turnout rate in the 2018 midterms. Among this age group in 2022, 63% chose Democratic candidates in U.S House races.

Disinfo Matters

Looks beyond fake news to examine how manipulation of narratives, rewriting of history and altering our memories is reshaping our world. We are currently tracking the war in Ukraine. Natalia Antelava

Excerpt: Propaganda warfare is increasingly shaping narratives, policies and lives around the world. ‘Kanye drank the Kool Aid’: Connecting the dots between antisemitism and white nationalism

Tech Policy Press

Tech Policy Press is a nonprofit media and community venture intended to provoke new ideas, debate and discussion at the intersection of technology and democracy. It publishes opinion and analysis to advance a pro-democracy movement in tech and tech policy. Justin Hendrix is a Democracy Fellow at the Emerson Collective

Excerpt: One of the reasons for concern in the short term is that Musk's drastic layoffs may affect the platform's ability to counter disinformation or incitement to violence following the midterm elections next week. Eddie Perez, a board member at the OSET Institute wrote for Tech Policy Press about five ways Musk's changes at Twitter could impact the midterms. In a flurry of zany posts last week, Elon Musk tweeted that Twitter can be thought of as a “collective, cybernetic super-intelligence” because it consists of “billions of bi-directional interactions per day.” Dr. Joe Bak-Coleman, an expert on complexity and collective behavior, unpacked this claim. 

Authoritarian Tech

Weekly newsletter on how people in power are abusing technology. It clarifies how authoritarians muddy the conversation with biometrics, surveillance and other technologies.

Excerpt: This is not the first time that Apple has made product or system adjustments in apparent response to pressure from Beijing. In 2018, reporters at Hong Kong Free Press found that the company had implemented special rules for what kinds of words people could have engraved on an iPhone when requesting the service from inside mainland China and Hong Kong. If you wanted to name your phone after Liu Xiaobo, the Falun Gong, or even Xi Jinping, Apple’s automated system would politely inform you that these terms were “inappropriate.” 

The Insider

Informed citizens are our democracy’s best defense. The Brennan Center crafts innovative policies and fights for them in Congress and the courts. Brennan Center

Excerpt: The 2022 election is almost over, about one week after the last ballots were cast. It was a surprising and in many ways inspiring result. Despite inflation, fears of crime, and a toxic political atmosphere, voters took the issue of the health of our democracy seriously. Massive efforts by voting rights groups, election officials of both parties, and law enforcement made a big and visible difference. A few key trends will help shape politics going forward.

DemList

A free national daily political column and resource site dedicated to the mission of educating and informing Democrats, allies and followers about the issues, politics and the players. A central resource that connects people to the who, what and where of Democratic events and activism. - Kimberly Scott

Excerpt: Despite the economic woes, albeit inherited, of an unpopular current president, voters chose instead to reject the Trump/MAGA brand and its associated division and political violence. According to exit polls, 58% of voters held an unfavorable view of Trump, likely disrupting what should have been a Republican red-wave victory. Trump made more than 250 primary endorsements, uplifting the candidacy of extremist, anti-abortion candidates who failed miserably in battleground races, costing the GOP control of the US Senate. Of the 37 general election Senate, House, and gubernatorial endorsements Trump made in battleground contests, only 14 prevailed on November 8 -- a dismal 38% success rate.

Other Words

Covers politics, policy, and social issues from a progressive perspective in a non-partisan manner. Articles are written by experts from the Institute for Policy Studies and a dozen or so partner non-profits, and authentic voices in local communities. - Peter Certo

Excerpt: HOW LOW-INCOME VOTERS SHAPED THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS. Americans across the spectrum voted to raise wages, expand health care, and protect abortion rights. These issues have a common thread.

Take Away: Understand the tricks of the dark side. May the 'force' be with you!

Deepak
DemLabs

Image Credit: Star Wars by George Lucas

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