Do You Know Claude?
Claude is awesome...be like Claude
Yesterday, we looked at the importance of saving responsible media, and how that intersects with saving both democracy and the whole United States. Today, let’s look at what one man (with help) is doing by using media to help save the whole shebang.
Claude Taylor operates Mad Dog PAC, which has, as the beginning of its Mission Statement:
Mad Dog PAC was founded with a simple goal in mind:
Fight Fascism. Stop Trump.
He also, with his girlfriend, runs Room Rater on Twitter. They not only rate backgrounds of people who appear on air (Don Boy Trump always gets a zero out of ten) but also sell products. A few samples:
Mad Dog PAC has been putting up billboards around the country, currently up (and growing) in Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. In addition to billboards, there are trucks that drive around, say, Mar-a-Lardo, or a criminal courts building. Here are just a few samples:
(All images used with Claude’s kind permission.)
I bring this to your attention for several reasons. First, billboards are a spectacular idea. There are a ton of idiots who generally don’t read, or watch, any legitimate media sources, but they drive. (Generally, trucks with oversized wheels to make up for things that are smaller… but I digress.) These billboards are eye catching, and have few enough words to register with the idiots. Now, Claude didn’t invent billboards – that was a guy named Jared Bell who put up the first billboard in 1835 for Barnum & Bailey’s circus. But Claude took some great ideas, and determined prime locations, and went to work. If you want to support his work, you can help here. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a small dollar donor to Mad Dog PAC. (They only take funding from small donors.)
The second reason is that there is likely something YOU can do to bring attention either to why Convicted Felon Trump is a disaster, or why we need to elect Democrats up and down the ballot. And I’m talking here about out of the box ideas. Be like Claude: get an idea and run with it. It doesn’t have to be huge like the Mad Dog billboards. If you’re new to this, start small. Here are a few initial ideas.
Something really simple: when you go to get coffee, they ask your name. Tell them your name is “Vote November 5th.” When they call your name, ask them to yell it louder. I guarantee that there is someone else in that coffeeshop you’ll be able to speak with. And hey, you will get a voter.
Maybe you’d be willing to talk to ten, JUST 10, of your neighbors. Indivisible has a program if you live in the states of Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. In addition, the following Congressional Districts: CA-13, CA-22, CA-27, CA-40, CA-41, CA-45, ME-02, NE-02, NJ-07, NM-02, OR-05, VA-02, WA-03, and WA-08. They will be expanding the program over time, so you may be able to join if you are in a different area. Sign up here.
While I am not a fan of social media for political knowledge, I am cognizant that many people do get all their information from those sites. So post truth. Interact with the people who respond. Make sure that like-minded people are committed to voting in November, and question those who challenge you. Here’s something you can post.
Simplest of all? Call one person and make sure that they’re going to vote in November, and that they understand the stakes. If it’s your own child, and they are either a rising high school senior, a college student, or in their early 20’s, make sure they are registered in the right place. And then, make sure they actually vote: that age group is the least likely to vote, and hey, it’s YOUR KID. And oh, the next day, call someone else. You’ll get the hang of it. It is easier than you think.
The point is, there is something that you can do on any given day to reach out to low-information voters, to potential voters, to non-voters, to get them talking, get them thinking, get them voting.
Before I got cancer, my greatest one-on-one tool for meeting voters where they were was the sauce aisle in the local supermarkets. (Yes, all of them.) I would hang out in the sauce aisle, holding a jar of red sauce. When someone started looking at sauces, I’d ask them if they had tried the one I had. We’d talk sauce, and then I’d say: “By the way, do you know there is an election coming up?” From there, anything was possible. Now that I’m well enough to be out (masked) again, I have taken this back up.
I have, for years, and still do, carry a voter registration station in the back of my car. Clipboards, forms, pens. While nowadays you can easily register voters online, and I do, forms are awesome because you have their information and can follow up on new voters: Make sure they received their card, know where to vote, get the information they need, and even get a ride to the polls if they need it. As an aside, I registered my first voter for this cycle last weekend. At the Wegmans.
I was trying to be Claude before I knew of Claude. The idea that one person can make a difference.
Please join me!
If you found this interesting, please share this post with your friends. They can be like Claude, too.