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Right now, Team @PodSaveAmerica is premiering an amazing short film: Dress Rehearsal, about organizing in Wisconsin's Supreme Court race this April 7. Watch! And as it airs—a thread about the broader story of amazing people & groups that created the win. http://www.votesaveamerica.com/dressrehearsal
Democrats win elections based on three-legged stool: great candidates’ campaigns; great independent & grassroots groups; and a strong party. In Wisconsin’s 2020 spring election, we had all three. The result: @judgekarofsky became Justice Karofsky. And Wisconsin became more just.
Any documentary has to focus on a single narrative thread. In @RehearsalDoc, filmmaker David Modigliani zeroes in on virtual organizing. He beautifully showcases 3 groups: @blocbyblocMKE, @VDLF_Action, & @WisDems. The result is deeply inspiring. And there's so much more to tell.
Judge Jill Karofsky defeated an incumbent Wisconsin state Supreme Court justice for only the second time in half a century. That simply wouldn’t have happened without such a stellar candidate, running such a powerhouse campaign. A million thanks to @JudgeKarofsky.
Dress Rehearsal is a film about organizing. Another whole film could be made about the race between the two candidates. Highs and lows, vicious GOP smear ads and triumphant debunkings, intense debates, court battles—all while a sitting judge & single mom. https://www.channel3000.com/the-long-run-for-jill-karofsky/
So many innovations and ingenious adaptations to COVID campaigning—plus an ultramarathoner’s level of pure grit—came directly from Jill Karofsky and her tireless campaign team. Read more in this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/politics/wisconsin-digital-campaign-pandemic.html
That’s the candidate campaign. And then there’s the second leg of the stool: the outside organizations working for change. Holy mackerel. Non-party organizations moved mountains this spring in Wisconsin. The win wouldn’t have been possible without them.
Dress Rehearsal, @rehearsaldoc, focuses on two amazing Wisconsin groups. One is Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, @blocbyblocMKE. You can see ED @Angela_Lang and her team in the film, and read more here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-wins-wisconsin-milwaukee-community-organizing
The second group featured in @rehearsaldoc is Voces de la Frontera (@vldf_action). Their political director, @FabiForRacine, speaks powerfully about relational organizing in Dress Rehearsal. Exec director Christine Neumann-Ortiz wrote more here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/election-wisconsin-latinos.html
BLOC and Voces are essential groups with a particular and vital focus on organizing Black and Latino voters in the Badger State. They’re a part of an extraordinary infrastructure of independent groups that were essential to the win on April 7.
It would take a season of television shows to share all the stories of groups who fought to educate, persuade, and turn out voters in Wisconsin this spring, in nightmare conditions. There’s simply no way to honor their work sufficiently. But I can name a few—an incomplete list.
Labor showed up for this fight. The @wisaflcio and @AFLCIO; @AFSCME & @afscme32; @aftWisconsin, @WEAC, and the @NEAtoday; @IBEW, @WILaborers, @IUOELocal139, @SIEU and @SEIUWI; the Pipe Trades—& more. Working people, organized, are at the heart of the movement—and our victories.
When the GOP fought with lies, A Better Wisconsin Together @ABetterWis fought back with truth, at scale. The @AmericaVotes and @WisVoices tables made our democracy better. @DemRedistrict recognized that the path to fair maps can run through courts.
Organizing! @ForOurFutureWI, @WIOrgTogether, @LIT_WI, @CitizenActionWI, @IndivisibleTeam, @NextGenAmerica, @TurnoutPAC, @wisdom4justice, @WorkingFamilies, @BlueSkyWaukesha, @PPAWI, @WIConservation, @WIProgress—thanks so much to all, staff & volunteers alike. You build democracy.
@OrgEmpowerProj, @American_Bridge, @PrioritiesUSA, @9to5WI, and Souls the Polls. The Wisconsin Opportunities Project. Amazing school referendum campaigns—Vote Yes for MPS and Yes For Our Kids Committee, Racine. And SO, SO MANY MORE.
And the third leg of the stool is the party.
In @RehearsalDoc, you hear from me, and from three colleagues. First: @WisDems' astonishingly, inspiringly effective executive director @NellieBme, a transformative leader, strategist, and manager I'm lucky to work with every day.
In @RehearsalDoc, you hear from me, and from three colleagues. First: @WisDems' astonishingly, inspiringly effective executive director @NellieBme, a transformative leader, strategist, and manager I'm lucky to work with every day.
You'll meet @bkoerth, the @wisdems youth organizing director, and @AustynZarda, regional organizing director in the Greater Northwoods. They're both Wisconsin-grown, national-caliber talent. It is frankly wild how much talent there is on the @wisdems team.
Nellie, Brianna, and Austyn are all part of one of the mightiest teams in American politics... which happens to be housed in the state party in the nation's most critical battleground states. @WisDems is our staff, our county parties, our neighborhood teams—& our members. United.
We're deeply conscious at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin that we are part of an ecosystem. An element within a movement. Without great candidates, we'd lose every race. Without powerhouse independent groups, the conservative movement would always win. But together? We prevail.
The night we learned that we'd won—by which I mean we, Jill Karofsky and all the hundreds of thousands of us who voted and organized and donated and worked—I posted this thread, telling a version of the story I'd just experienced: https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1249869235683196928
In @RehearsalDoc, you hear another lens on the story. It's a terrific piece of filmmaking. I'm so grateful to everyone who was involved—particularly their attention to safety while shooting during a pandemic. Such good work. It'll inspire you. Watch. http://www.votesaveamerica.com/dressrehearsal
And as you watch it, celebrate and lift up both the folks in the film and the many, many more who aren't onscreen—and without whom victory would've been impossible. Elections are like that. This fall's election will be like that. Democracy is like that.
Because of *everyone* involved in the fight, @judgekarofsky will serve on Wisconsin's Supreme Court for at least a decade. A progressive majority is within reach in 2023. And we reminded ourselves, and our country, that—if we put in the work—democracy can win.
