Thread by @RachelBitecofer

1. Friends, yesterday we released a sample ad of what how @StrikePac will message against the GOP. Frustratingly, voters were never approached which the frame of the Rep Party's collapse into extremism in the 2020 cycle aside from work from outside groups like @ProjectLincoln,

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1348741532250222593

2. @MeidasTouch, @votevets & other "super pacs" which are essentially grassroots funded organizations that are making use of the "super pac" designation to electioneer. Organizing as a super pac actually affords groups a great deal of flexibility to perform pro-democracy work

3. so despite the "ewww, yuck!" factor of that designation, not all SP's are, in fact, evil entities (other than the fact that so many of you I wholly support a fully publicly funded system w very strict limits & honestly, a 30 day electioneering window per cycle which would

4. decimate a multi-billion $ industry BUT do a great deal of work to save our democracy & that type of system, by the way, is BY FAR, the norm among western democracies. Ours is literally the Wild West of electioneering systems and if there is 1 "fix all" reform that would have

5. the greatest & most immediate impact on pulling our democracy back from the precipice of our democracy it would be a fully publicly funded, tightly regulated election/campaigning system. We don't have one of those right now & if we ever want to reach the majorities that could

6. create one (these would need to be constitutional amendment level majorities) we need to fix what we can, now, with what we have to work with. And after looking through the options for organizing a political action/research/electioneering capable org, the super pac designation

7. was BY FAR the best for us to use bc it provides max flexibility in what you can use your money to do. And that is imp bc we plan to use your money to do a lot of different types of work. Let me tell you about some of this stuff in a sec. But I want to say, I got the idea of

8. all from watching Lincoln & Meidas, from seeing what they were able to do in 2020 & the speed & efficiency by which they have been able to operate. It has allowed both orgs to be highly effective & that is why, if you notice, I promote them a lot & plan to continue to dop so

9. and of course, I am hoping they will reciprocate & that we will find opps to work together bc I sincerely believe everyone needs to be working together as much as possible if we're to survive this shit show & there will always be areas/things that each pac is doing that is

10. specialized to them & desperately needed. So, what WILL we be doing? As you know, I have long argued that Dems lack strategic organization. That the GOP has a strategic road map, short term & long term, lays out their plans, and executes their plans, whereas the Ds seem to

11. shuffle from cycle to cycle, decade to decade, in a more lackadaisical fashion. There are cute adages about this "I'm not a member of an organized party, I'm a Democrat!" & @MattGrossmann terrific book Asymmetric Politics will explain to the tangible diffs between the parties

12. that will help you understand why this is. Plus, as @KBAndersen explained this morning to @JoeNBC in his 2nd int about his book Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, where we're at here in 2021 is the culmination of events/plans/actions that began w a memo in the 1970s that

13. argued the GOP/conservatives/free marketeers should strategically develop infrastructure, initiatives, branding, messaging, marketing, think tanks, media, etc to mold America in their image. I've spoken many times about how the GOP's establishment of the conservative media

14. ecosystem ended up as a fire burning out of control, consuming the party & now attempting to consume our very democracy (you DEF should read his book & I am going to try to bring him onto the pod). I mention this bc to some extent, @StrikePac is meant to establish some

15. strategic infrastructure for the Left/Dems and to help direct some party building initiatives that cover modernizing messaging (not just via ads but also via work with candidates), an aggressive branding initiative so that the party's brand is not "socialism,"

16. work on voter turnout & persuasive messaging, media work, and a offensive against the GOP's brand which, and this is my particular thing that has driven me nuts for a long time- has never really been a focus of Democratic campaign messaging. This is such an exploitable area,

17. especially within the area of economics/the economy so I am really excited about putting the GOP on defense about their economic record, about their economic policies & its performance record (it destroyed the middle class & now Canada has the largest, healthiest middle class

18. in the world- which lends itself nicely to a "we can see it from our front porch" jokes. Since the Reagan Revolution, which is an economic story we can tell America, the bottom 80% of Americans have lost economic power every decade. They were at their height of economic power

19. before the tax & regulatory changes that were ushered in in the 80s. That said, some economic policies make sense, it's the zealousness by which the GOP prioritizes tax cuts & deregulation- starving (this year- literally) all other economic policy hostage & dismissing modest,

20. centrist reforms as "socialism." The end result is a GOP that is dogmatic & radicalized, unable to govern the country through a public health crisis- between their senate majority & control of the presidency, radicalism in the Rep Party sentenced hundreds of thousands of

21. Americans to death. So @StrikePac endeavors to build an enterprise that modernizes the Dem Party's electioneering capabilities, builds on, expands, and assists Stacey Abram's voter expansion & turnout work (via funding and support, not replacing!) & hopefully, pushing the

22. pendulum back towards democracy. Will be getting a bunch of info up on the website in the next couple of days. So excited to be beginning this adventure with all of you. I sincerely believe we can make a difference.