THREAD: I talked about rural organizing, deep canvassing, the Democratic party, and the 2020 elections with journalist @zoesullnews Excerpts below.... https://perpatetic.substack.com/p/you-see-a-lot-of-empty-barns

1) It would make it a lot easier for me to organize in a rural area to elect Democrats if this party would take on these industrial giants in the agribusiness world so that farmers and others who are connected to the farm economy can have a larger share of the economic pie.

2) Rural people understand economic power. They're not dummies in recognizing that a lot of important decisions are made by CEOs, investors, & shareholders. They get that and they know that nothing's gonna change unless there’s a fight.

3) We had a script, but after a few minutes, the script becomes an open landscape where you're just exploring with the person on the phone. You share your story as a way of inviting them to share theirs. It becomes really a two-way conversation, which is so rare in politics.

4) One of my takeaways from deep canvassing conversations is that there is just a tremendous amount of pain and struggle. You start touching these nerves. And I don't hear the democratic party speaking to that pain in rural America right now.

5) You see a lot of empty barns with their roofs collapsed. Reminders that, that used to be a small business that supported a family. You could raise a family milking 30 or 40 cows growing some crops on the side. That was prosperous. There was dignity in that, a future in that.

6) D's need to get back to the roots of organizing. Now D's send somone into a community 6 months before an election, who organize the canvasses, phone banks. After election, that person disappears. They're called organizers but I would contend they're not organizing.

7) Organizing is where you sit down & have a conversation at the dining room table to hear where they're at. You get into the community. Try to understand what is the pulse of the community, what people are facing in their daily lives that they need to have solved

8) For D's, organizing means mobilizing our supporters. But we already know our supporters support us, right? So, how about we organize among the people who may not support us & do that deeper work of listening where they're at and what we need to do to reach their needs.