This year’s midterm elections are an important opportunity on many fronts: election years are tipping points for authoritarian regimes. Working-class champions have historic support across the country. And we can use this momentum to strengthen our movements for the long haul, especially by flanking Black political power.
And white people have a crucial role to play in organizing our own!
Join SURJ next week on Wednesday, September 9 at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT at our webinar, “From Minneapolis to Memphis to Mississippi: white people’s work to fight for racial justice in elections” to hear more about how we fight for the best possible political terrain this year and our movement’s vision for the years to come.
We’re shifting from primaries into general election mode, and that means we’re engaging multiple parts of our strategy. Across our movements, since Trump took office the first time, we’ve been describing the dual nature of our collective work as block and build. This means stopping the MAGA movement from gaining more power and putting the most aligned candidates we’ve got into office while growing our movement to win big changes.
To win the change we desperately need, we must do both– block and build– and we must develop the political nuance to be able to do them at the same time.
In the primaries, we worked to advance candidates whose platforms most aligned with ours. Because of decades of organizing, the progressive left is in a historic position this year to have enough power in Congress to do things like defund ICE, fund Medicare for all, show up for trans kids, and more.
In the general election, it’s SURJ’s responsibility to organize strategic majority-white districts to keep up the momentum from the primaries to win the House, and take on more block work, especially as the US Senate is up for grabs.
We are working to build a multiracial democracy where our government funds the things our communities need instead of enriching billionaires and enacting white supremacist policies. To build enough power to get there, we must break the Republican trifecta at the federal level and end the rapid authoritarian consolidation.
And, we don’t have to do it all. We are part of a collective movement that is aligned and united behind the block and build strategy. Our partners across the country are not only holding down other elections, they’re also organizing to shift the political will for us to win on our most important issues (like massive shifts in public opinion on ICE and sending bombs to Israel).
Because of ingrained racism in this country’s institutions, white communities have outsized power in elections. And with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act this year, this is even more stark, especially in the South. To show up to do our part with accountability, this year we’re stopping MAGA where we need to, advancing working-class fighters where we can, and growing power for our movements to build for the long haul.
Can you join SURJ at a phonebank to do your part in this work?
In solidarity,
SURJ
Showing Up for Racial Justice
PO Box 1376
Buffalo, NY 14205
United States