4/24/21 Cuties, film, and US politics in 2020

Here is the link to my April 24, 2021, Twitter thread, reflecting again on the Maïmouna Doucouré film Cuties and what it meant in the United States in 2020.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

1/31/21 reactions to news about QAnon conspiracy theorists

Here is the link to my January 31, 2021, Twitter thread reacting to recent news about QAnon, applied to my understanding of the history of America's conspiracy theorists.

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8/23/20 why American liberals shouldn't leverage sex paranoia and scandal

Here is the link to my August 23, 2020, Twitter thread about why the history of sex paranoia continues to prove that when liberals use sex paranoia for their own purposes, it does not help them -- or the people they're claiming to serve -- in any way at all.

This is one of my favorite threads that I've ever written.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

6/5/20 thoughts on the social and political uses of COVID in America

Here is the link to my June 5, 2020, Twitter thread about some of my opinions regarding the social and political ways people in America had been using and leveraging the COVID pandemic.

Interestingly, I still pretty much agree with everything I've said in this thread.

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3/7/20 review of the 2020 caucus day for US Senate

Here is the link to my March 7, 2020, Twitter thread review of the 2020 Colorado US Senate caucus day.

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2/4/20 review of a 2020 Colorado caucus training

Here is the link to my February 4, 2020, Twitter thread review of a 2020 caucus training for Colorado's House District 5 Democrats.

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1/29/20 review of a 2020 Women and Families Wednesdays lobby day

Here is the link to my January 29, 2020, Twitter thread review of a lobby day I attended at the Colorado State Capitol with Women and Families Wednesdays, on behalf of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

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1/25/20 review of a 2020 Denver Dems Central Committee meeting

Here is the link to my January 25, 2020, Twitter thread review of a Denver Democrats Central Committee meeting.

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12/15/19 discussion about voting for, versus criticizing, Democratic candidates

Here is the link to my December 15, 2019, Twitter thread discussion -- in reaction to a Washington Post editorial by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards -- about the need to vote for Democrats while also remaining critical of each Democratic candidate and official's political platform.

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12/13/19 discussion about US Senate seats up for election in 2020

Here is the link to my December 13, 2019, Twitter thread listing of the websites for the state democratic parties in the states with Senate seats up for election that were currently held by Republicans.

I'm particularly proud of this thread.

As I've discussed in previous posts, I was really worried by the fact that, through 2019 and 2020, the Democrats were so focused on the presidential elections that they seemed not to be paying attention to any other races -- in particular all the races for Congress.

While I, like everybody else, knew that the presidential race was of the utmost importance, I wanted to inspire people to think a lot more about down-ballot races.

I chose one thing to focus on, which was flipping the US Senate from Republican to Democratic control. And I figured the best way to start to inspire people to do this was by pushing the state democratic parties in states where US Senate seats could be flipped from Republican to Democrat.

I myself donated money on a monthly basis to some, but not all, of these state democratic parties. Also, on and off throughout 2020, I retweeted as much stuff as I could from these state democratic parties, in order to keep giving these states more exposure.

As I've also mentioned before, my fears didn't really play out as badly as I thought they would.

The Democrats definitely hemorrhaged a lot of seats in the US House. And that was simply due to the fact that they weren't paying good enough attention to those elections. However, the Democrats kept control of the House, if only barely. Also -- I didn't push for more visibility and thought on the House elections, simply because even I didn't think they were in terrible danger.

Also, even though people really didn't pay attention to US Senate races, the Democrats essentially still won control of the Senate -- though the story of how that control was eventually won was really complex and did, eventually, happen because Democrats nationwide pitched in on the runoff effort in Georgia.

In my home state of Colorado, we did flip our Republican seat to a Democrat. The only other seat the Democrats won, however, before the Georgia runoff, was the Arizona seat -- which, strangely, I neglected to mention at all in this thread, and which, therefore, I really never mentioned at all throughout all of 2020!

I have said this in previous posts as well. But my big fear is that in 2022, the Democrats aren't going to be as prepared as they need to be, not only to defend every Democratic seat in Congress, but to do their very best to flip every Republican-controlled seat in Congress. Because if we don't flip every Republican seat in Congress in 2022, there's a very good likelihood, each of those seats will become controlled by an ultra-conservative, white-supremacist Republican. And that could spell very bad news, if not a total collapse, for democracy in America.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

10/19/19 review of a Denver Democrats PCP training

Here is the link to my October 19, 2019, Twitter thread review of a Denver Democrats training for Precinct Committee People.

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9/19/19 review of a Denver Democrats rules committee meeting

Here is the link to my September 19, 2019, Twitter thread review of a meeting of the Denver Democrats' rules committee.

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9/15/19 proposal of a "swear jar" for Democrats

Here is the link to my September 15, 2019, Twitter thread discussion, proposing a "swear jar" idea for Democrats.

The idea was that, each time a Democrat felt the need to tweet about high-ranking folks in the Republican Party, they would instead research a swing district in their state, tweet about that swing district, and donate some money to that district.

Throughout 2019 and 2020, my worry about the 2020 elections was that Democrats were too focused on the presidential election. My fear was that the Republicans would exploit that focus. I worried that they would catch the Democrats off guard and gain seats in Congress.

Eventually, my fears were founded and unfounded.

The Democrats actually won enough seats in the Senate that they now, as of 2021, essentially have control of the Senate. And, even though the Democrats lost a lot of seats they simply should not have lost in the House, they still have control of the House. So my fears of the Republicans succeeding enough that they would keep control of the Senate and gain control of the House were wrong.

However, the Democrats simply should not have lost the seats we lost in the House in 2020. We lost them because we didn't pay attention to them. And, in districts we could have turned from Republican to Democrat, including here in Colorado, we not only didn't flip those seats, but we allowed some really extremist and ultra-conservative folks to take those seats.

I'm really hoping the Democrats, in Colorado and nationwide, form a good election strategy for 2022.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

9/4/19 discussion about a political meeting that didn't happen

Here is the link to my September 4, 2019, Twitter thread discussion about a meeting of the Colorado Democrats' outreach committee not happening.

I wanted to include this thread in this "table of contents" for a number of reasons.

I had been attending other Democratic Party meetings over the past few months. But I hadn't done any threads about them. I was just in such an uncertain place with the party that I didn't really feel like devoting my social media time to them.

Also, as I've mentioned before, even though I had been elected to the Colorado Democrats' outreach committee, it was really hard for me to get any information about the committee's meetings. And after I was finally given the info to attend the meetings, and I attended a few meetings, the meetings suddenly stopped happening. This thread marks the points where the meetings stopped happening.

And I think this shows something else -- namely, that the Colorado Democrats wondered a lot why they lost some key elections in Colorado in 2020 -- despite the fact that, admittedly, we won some very important races, like the US Senate seat.

But my feeling is, I definitely was not the only person so alienated by the Colorado Dems over the years. And, honestly, the Dems could have had a lot more of us volunteers to help them to win some more key races in 2020 if they had stopped alienating so many of us in the preceding years.

I do sometimes feel, though, like there are some folks within the Colorado Democrats who want to alienate volunteers, regardless of what it means for the success of the party.

Finally, I wanted to include this thread because I mention my efforts to get back involved in studying more spiritual things -- specifically Theosophy.

Slowly, over the following years, I have gotten back into studying more spiritual topics. I think this is important, as I think spiritual -- not religious -- actions are going to be just as important as physical, social, and political ones, in helping get our world into better shape.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.