66 Comments

Excellent "election eve" newsletter Robert! Thank you for your steady, realistic and hopeful perspective.

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I got up very early so I could make sure and see the lunar eclipse. Stood out in my yard with my young dog and just watched and breathed while she sat and leaned on my leg. All I could hear was insects, flying squirrels and acorns dropping from the huge oak trees (good mast this year!). What a great way to start election day 2022. I highly recommed finding something that brings you peace to find some focus today. I will be voting when the polls open here even though there isn't much chance that my blue vote means much in Alabama. However, if I do not vote, I know it won't matter. Hang in there. There ARE more of us than there are of them.

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I love that you started your day this way and thanks for sharing and describing it! I plan to take a long walk and watch the sun rise and the birds wake up, geese honk and head south, and breathe in nature. Peace to you from Colorado.

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Heather Cox Richardson said this this today and it describes exactly how I am feeling and I am sharing it with you. “ Finally, for all the uncertainty surrounding tomorrow's election, there is one thing of which I am 100% certain. Far more Americans today are concerned about our democracy, and determined to reclaim it, than were even paying attention to it in 2016. There are new organizations, new connections, new voters, new efforts to remake the country better than it has ever been, and the frantic efforts of the Republicans to suppress voting, gerrymander the country, and now to take away our right to choose our leaders indicates we are far more powerful than we believe we are. No matter what happens tomorrow, that will continue to be true, and I am ever so proud to be one of you. I am also proud of all of you on this site and the community we have built.

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Robert’s letter today and the replies have helped provide me with a calmness I had not expected. I, like many others, have worked diligently on this election. But always with a huge sense of worry(but not doom). Heather and Robert’s letters have re-centered me with the balance I need.. right now! Win or lose today, the battle can and will continue. One thing is for sure ...since 2016, we have had to wake up and be alert to what democracy really means to each and everyone of us.

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Robert, especially, has been a calming influence for me. I haven't wasted much time worrying, and I've turned the radio off a few times when they started talking about the election.

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I read her letter this morning too and that same section really resonates with me.

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I'm expecting a mixed bag of results from this election... Not as good as we'd like, but not as bad for us as the MAGA crowd wants. Probably leading to two more years of "gridlock", but hey!! That's what we've had the last two years, and Biden and the Democrats have accomplished a tremendous amount! Incremental change is not a bad thing, and it IS changing in our direction. Thanks Rob!!

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First thing this morning, I’m off to the polls to be a first time poll monitor. Apparently more than volunteers, but folks from the DOJ will also be present all over the country to do the same. If I see something worrisome, I’ll be calling them. If you see something call: 866-OUR-VOTE.

Here is the DOJ’s announcement and listing of locations they will be on the ground.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-monit or-polls-24-states-compliance-federal-voting-rights-laws

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Glad to read about this plan. Do we know how exactly these polling sites were chosen for monitoring by the DOJ? I've been working on a Dems Hotline in one state for days, and there's been plenty of intimidation reported by poll observers, folks waiting in the voting lines, and folks there as poll greeters, all harassed in one way or another by Republicans. One harasser was the husband of a Republican congresswoman; another was the actual Republican school board candidate, who tore up the caller's advocacy info for his opponent in front of her and then screamed in her face. Yes, intimidation. It's got to be publicized as much as we can get it out there and these people called out for the low-lives they are!!

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Just seeing your reply, Laura. That’s horrible!! I don’t know how the DOJ chose those sites. ALL of it needs, MUST be reported. Sounds pretty concentrated. Was it called in to the hotline (866) OUR VOTE? Every Dem needs that number in their contact list. Teams of lawyers on the other end. Common Cause is organization I worked with to poll monitor.

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Well said as always. Could not agree more. And just to add more inspiration. I flew to Las Vegas Sunday and yesterday took 15 dozen donuts to a large community college in what I call #DonutsforDemocracy. I spoke to over 200 students over 5 hrs. I looked up polling information for 100+. I’ve done alot of GOTV work over the years and I truly believe this is the most impact, high return effort. (I also did it last week in Reno.) This will be my GOTV plan for 2024.

Young people need help navigating voting in the beginning and many just don’t know where to start.

So if anyone can, I’d highly recommend buying a few dozen donuts today and heading to a nearby campus - find a high traffic area. Offer “want a free donut? No catch. Then ask them - hey have you voted yet? Be positive and upbeat. If they have, celebrate. If they haven’t, ask them if they have a plan and do they know their polling location. If not, look it up for them on iwillvote.com.

Here are a few photos from yesterday: https://twitter.com/truthjusticehph/status/1589846624465190912?s=21&t=0HJMnMsk-3j1mcLyyXPHIw

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Thank you Robert, this has been an exhausting election cycle and we are at the point now where we just have to wait. I am taking a media break for the rest of the day, since we won’t know the full results until later in the week. I would be nice if we could all just take a breather after the election and enjoy Thanksgiving, but I appears the ‘24 race is gonna start right after unfortunately.

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I’m going to the movies tonight to avoid the frantic coverage by talking heads filling up air time with endless chatter. I can live with the uncertainty of not knowing the outcome until the actual votes are reported. Yes, Robert, I remember 2018. 😊

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While Trump may be planning a "big announcement on November 15," I hope that the Department of Justice is planning an even bigger announcement on November 14! It would be so sweet for an indictment -- or three -- to be handed up to Trump the day before his "bigly" announcement.

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An awesome letter and reminder, thanks Robert. Anecdotally, there was a line waiting when we opened the polls and turnout has been heavy compared to the primary.

The CREW effort is worth supporting.

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Thank you! You are the Captain we need in this storm.

Wait with faith and whatever happens is not the end but the beginning.

How long did black people wait to be free?

How long did black people wait for the right to vote?

How long did women wait for the right to vote?

Where would our country be without the grit and determination of ordinary people to make significant and substantial change?

We can certainly wait and continue to act!

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Way too long, obstructionists never take a break

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Thank you, Robert, for words of sanity. I am keeping my radio off today (do not own a tv). My computer will be only a playtoy today (election day) until this evening, and then I will briefly check in. Maybe. The sun is shining, my dog (the beauteous Beatrice) is eager to go for a walk, and I am tired of listening/reading to people make guesses and try to sound like they have insight into the unknowable.

I see no reason to subject myself to endless breathless repetitions of endless exit polls and prognostications by people who have no better idea than I do about how this is going to roll out. My attendance is neither mandatory or necessary (not even as poll watcher- there are more than enough in my small town in Vermont).

There's tomorrow and there is next week. Then there will be planning on how to define where we landed and what we need to do. Right now: cup of coffee and then a meander with Beatrice.

Have a good morning, everyone.

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Hope you had a good walk with Beatrice, Annie. Power on!

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I just took Natalie (border collie) out for a good run. Enjoy your coffee and meander with Beatrice!

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I rest with the best in Vermont! I think we will do fine.

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When I see someone like Elon Musk behave in ways I don't understand, I ask myself the question "What in that person's life experience brought him to that way of thinking and acting?" Looking up Musk's biography I find he was born in June, 1971, in South Africa as a member of the minority white over-privileged ruling class and grew up during the worst of apartheid. Apartheid ended about a week before his 20th birthday in June, 1991. No wonder he shows anger and revenge at those who don't recognize and bow to his inherent status as an over-privileged white male. It also makes me think that Twitter is unlikely to ever again be a platform for free speech and multicultural perspectives and discussion. At the rate he is upsetting advertisers, celebrities and top influencers it is difficult to see how Twitter survives except perhaps as a far-right increasingly isolated bubble of propaganda. We, the People, all of us this time.

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I deleted my account on the Saturday after he made his purchase. Since then, every move he has made validates my reasons for leaving the blue bird. I hope some enterprising and honorable person (or persons) creates an alternative that we can safely use and that his new toy goes the way of 4chan and other crazy extremist sites. At least when all of them are gathered under one tent, they can be observed much more effectively by those who are monitoring hate crimes and domestic terrorists. I do miss following some of the really GOOD people on Twitter, but since they now seem to be in his cross hairs, that may change soon too.

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He apparently is on the Asperger’s spectrum. Doesn’t explain his cauldron of hate, but might help to explain some inexplicable social moves.

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He got beaten up a lot as a kid. But I also read that he's pissed off that he's not getting the respect he thinks he deserves.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/11/elon-trump-resentment/672030/

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I join with you in suspecting that the entire debacle of right wing-nut Republicanism is about temper-tantrums from white guys in the face of a multi-cultural society. They are apoplectic that with all their money and power, we disregard their authority and soon will ignore them entirely.

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Whatever happens today, let’s remember that truth always wins in the end. Sometimes it prevails in a few minutes, sometimes in hours or days, sometimes over years and sometimes—as with Copernicus and Galileo—it takes centuries. But truth wins, because it is, well, true.

(Tomorrow we can talk about how Democrats could have done a better job at presenting the truth.)

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So pissed that the mountain of emails I got and the numerous interviews I saw, the Republican promise to kill SS and Medicare was rarely mentioned. WTH, Dems. It would have been a shoo in. Will NEVER understand why Dems have such pissy messaging.

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Thank you Robert. Too much to take in. I need to read in short bites. I'm not religious, but. God Save America.

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A morning without The Hubble Report, read by the mellifluent voice of Mr. Robert Hubble, is like a morning without sunshine!!!!

Ok. I am Zen now and will patiently await the results of the 2022 election. And may (Fill in the blank) have mercy on our souls.🤪

Dita Teitelbaum

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Thank you, Robert.

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