truthout--2020-10-27--Mutual Aid Is Essential to Our Survival Regardless of Who Is in the White House

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a crisis in the U.S. in early 2020 , people all over the country started coordinating to deliver groceries and prescriptions to vulnerable people , making and distributing masks and hand sanitizer , and raising money for people who were losing jobs and ineligible for unemployment benefits .
By the time the uprising against anti-Black racism and police violence brought people into the streets in early summer , the concept of “ mutual aid ” had gained significant traction in the media , and it was visible on the streets as people operated street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other free food and water , and defended each other from cops and white supremacists .
COVID-19 mutual aid projects are ongoing , and as social movement groups prepare for the possibility of a contested election next week along with increasing strikes , street protests and occupations of public space , activists are gearing up to support each other .
“ Mutual aid ” is one term used to describe collective coordination to meet each other ’ s needs , usually stemming from an awareness that the systems we have in place are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ systems , in fact , have often created the crisis , or are making things worse .
We see examples of mutual aid in every single social movement , whether it ’ s people raising money for workers on strike , setting up a car pooling system during the Montgomery Bus Boycott , putting drinking water in the desert for migrants crossing the border , training each other in emergency medicine because ambulance response time in poor neighborhoods is too slow , raising money to pay for abortions for those who can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prisoners .
These are mutual aid projects .
They directly meet people ’ s survival needs , and are based on a shared understanding that the conditions in which we are made to live are unjust .
There is nothing new about mutual aid — people have worked together to survive for all of human history .
But capitalism and colonialism created structures that have disrupted how people have historically connected with each other and shared everything they needed to survive .
As people were forced into systems of wage labor and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concentrated , our ways of caring for each other have become more and more tenuous .
Today , many of us live in the most atomized societies in human history , which makes our lives less secure and undermines our ability to organize together to change unjust conditions on a large scale .
We are put in competition with each other for survival , and we are forced to rely on hostile systems — like health care systems designed around profit , not keeping people healthy , or food and transportation systems that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the things we need .
More and more people report that they have no one they can confide in .
This means many of us do not get help with mental health , drug use , family violence or abuse until the police or courts are involved , which tends to escalate rather than resolve harm .
In this context of social isolation and forced dependency on hostile systems , mutual aid — where we choose to help each other out , share things , and put time and resources into caring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ radical act .
One : Mutual aid projects work to meet survival needs and build shared understanding about why people do not have what they need .
Mutual aid projects expose the reality that people do not have what they need and propose that we can address this injustice together .
The most famous example in the United States is the Black Panther Party ’ s survival programs , which ran throughout the 1960s and 1970s , including a free breakfast program , free ambulance program , free medical clinics , a service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and a school aimed at providing a rigorous liberation curriculum to children .
The Black Panther programs welcomed people into the liberation struggle by creating spaces where they could meet basic needs and build a shared analysis about the conditions they were facing .
Instead of feeling ashamed about not being able to feed their kids in a culture that blames poor people ( especially poor Black people ) for their poverty , people attending the Panthers ’ free breakfast program got food and a chance to build shared analysis about Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , met material needs and got people fired up to work together for change .
Recognizing the program ’ s success , FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover famously wrote in a 1969 memo sent to all field offices that “ the BCP [ Breakfast for Children Program ] represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP [ Black Panther Party ] and , as such , is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for.
” The night before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police broke into the church that was hosting it and urinated on all of the food .
The government ’ s attacks on the Black Panther Party are evidence of mutual aid ’ s power , as is the government ’ s co-optation of the program : In the early 1970s , the U.S. Department of Agriculture expanded its federal free breakfast program — built on a charity , not a liberation , model — that still feeds millions of children today .
The Black Panthers provided a striking vision of liberation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves against a violent and racist government , and that they could organize to give each other what a racist society withheld .
During the same period , the Young Lords Party undertook similar and related mutual aid projects in their work toward Puerto Rican liberation .
The Young Lords brought people into the movement by starting with the everyday needs of Puerto Ricans in impoverished communities : They protested the lack of garbage pickups in Puerto Rican neighborhoods , hijacked a city mobile x-ray truck to bring greater tuberculosis testing to Puerto @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hospital to provide health care , and provided food and youth programs for Puerto Rican communities .
Their vision — for decolonizing Puerto Rico and liberating Puerto Ricans in the United States from racism , poverty and police terror — was put into practice through mutual aid .
Throughout the 1960s and ’ 70s , many overlapping movements undertook mutual aid efforts , such as feminist health clinics and activist-run abortion providers , emerging volunteer-run gay health clinics , child care collectives , tenants ’ unions and community food projects .
Although @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the contemporary left , mutual aid didn ’ t start in the ’ 60s , but is an ongoing feature of movements seeking transformative change .
Klee Benally , project coordinator at Indigenous Media Action , argues that mutual aid is an unbroken tradition among Indigenous people across many cycles of colonialism , maintained through traditional teachings that contemporary Indigenous mutual aid projects are working to restore and amplify .
Settlers have long worked to undermine Indigenous people ’ s self-sustaining practices by first destroying food systems and then forcing dependency on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , now , by settler nonprofits .
Indigenous mutual aid efforts are both a matter of survival and a powerful form of resistance to forced dependence on settler systems .
The long tradition of mutual aid societies and other forms of “ self-help ” in Black communities , which , as early as the 1780s sought to pool resources to provide health and life insurance , care for the sick , aid for burials , support for widows and orphans , and public education efforts , is another important example .
These efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by creating Black alternatives .
Long traditions of mutual aid are also visible in working-class communities that have long supported workers on strike so that they could pay rent and buy food while confronting their bosses .
Perhaps most of all , the pervasive presence of mutual aid during sudden disasters of all kinds — storms , floods , fires and earthquakes — demonstrates how people come together to care for each other and share resources when , inevitably , the government is not there to help , offers relief that does not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law enforcement against displaced disaster survivors .
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic , mutual aid projects have worked to help people survive , while pointing out the many ways that laws and law enforcement are making COVID more deadly .
Efforts to raise money for people in prisons so they can buy soap to increase handwashing have gone hand-in-hand with efforts to get states to release people from prisons and cities to defund police .
Bold occupations of housing and public space to demand housing and actions to block housing court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help tenants fight evictions and raise money for people ’ s rent .
Mutual aid is not just volunteerism , it is about exposing and resisting the root causes of crisis conditions .
Mutual aid is essential to building social movements .
People often come to social movement groups because they need something : eviction defense , child care , social connection , health care , or help in a fight with the government about something like welfare benefits , disability services , immigration status or custody of their children .
Being able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often a condition for being politically active , because it ’ s very difficult to organize when you are also struggling to survive .
Getting support through a mutual aid project that has a political analysis of the conditions that produced your crisis also helps to break stigma , shame and isolation .
Under capitalism , social problems resulting from exploitation and the maldistribution of resources are understood as individual moral failings , not systemic problems .
Getting support at a place that sees the systems , not the people suffering in them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move from shame to anger and defiance .
Mutual aid exposes the failures of the current system and shows an alternative .
This work is based in a belief that those on the front lines of a crisis have the best wisdom to solve the problems , and that collective action is the way forward .
Mutual aid projects also build solidarity .
By working together , members of mutual aid projects learn about experiences different from theirs and build solidarity across those differences .
Solidarity is what builds and connects large-scale movements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizations , groups are urged to be single-issue oriented , framing their message around “ deserving ” people within the population they serve , and using tactics palatable to elites .
Part of why mutual aid groups can build solidarity in the ways they do is because they are mostly volunteer-based groups of people coordinating to work together because they want to see change .
This is very different from the professionalized nonprofit sector .
Historically , social movements were not professionalized like they are now .
Most people in movements have not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; they have done it out of passion and desperation for change .
In the wake of the global uprisings against colonialism and widespread domestic uprisings against war , patriarchy , white supremacy and colonialism in the U.S. in the 1960s and ‘ 70s , government and elites worked to contain threatening social movements in two ways .
First , they criminalized social movement groups that were effectively organizing to defend communities from police and mobilize people for resistance .
Second , they created the system of non-profitization that encourages the formation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from government and philanthropists if they do their work in ways those entities find non-threatening .
The result was the growth of a huge nonprofit sector where much “ social justice ” work now happens , led and/or directed by elite professionals .
Anti-solidarity practices that separate the “ deserving ” from the “ undeserving ” and legitimize the very systems causing harm are pervasive in non-profitized advocacy work .
Prison reform groups are supposed to fight only for “ the innocent ” or “ the nonviolent , ” for example , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about how some people — not all people — don ’ t belong in prison .
This is the opposite of solidarity , because it means the most vulnerable people are left behind : those who were up-charged by cops and prosecutors , those who do not have the means to prove their innocence , those who do not match cultural tropes of innocence and deservingness .
This narrow focus actually strengthens the system ’ s legitimacy by advocating that the targeting of those more stigmatized people is okay .
This pattern of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for movements as non-profitization has taken hold .
Solidarity across issues and populations is what makes movements big and powerful .
Without that connection , we end up with disconnected groups , working in their issue silos , undermining each other , competing for attention and funding , not backing each other up and not building power .
Groups doing mutual aid to directly address real problems in real people ’ s lives tend to develop a multi-issue and solidarity-based approach because their members ’ lives are cross-cut by many different experiences of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out with a narrow goal adopt a wider horizon of solidarity and a wider vision of political possibility if they use the mutual aid model .
An initial goal of serving people impacted by homelessness quickly reveals that racism , colonialism , immigration enforcement , ableism , police violence , the foster care system , the health care system , transphobia , and more are all causes of homelessness or causes of further harm to homeless people .
Solidarity and an ever-expanding commitment to justice emerge from contact with the complex realities of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are built , as people become connected to each other and as one urgent issue unspools into a broader vision of social transformation .
It is not surprising that many people who first came into political activism through COVID mutual aid projects found themselves handing out masks and food at street protests against police a few months later .
Three .
Mutual aid projects are participatory , solving problems through collective action rather than waiting for saviors .
Mutual aid projects help people develop skills for collaboration , participation and decision-making .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to help deliver prescriptions to vulnerable people in their neighborhoods who can risk COVID exposure going to the pharmacy will learn about COVID delivery safety protocols , but they will also learn about meeting facilitation , working across differences , retaining volunteers , addressing conflict , giving and receiving feedback , following through , and coordinating schedules and transportation .
They may also learn that it is not nonprofits or social service agencies who can directly support people , and that many people — including themselves !
— have something to offer .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ tell us we need to have a social worker , licensed therapist , lawyer or some other person with an advanced degree to get things done .
Mutual aid is inherently anti-authoritarian , demonstrating how we can do things together in ways we were told not to imagine , and that we can organize human activity without coercion .
Most people have never been to a meeting where there was not a boss or authority figure with decision-making power .
Most people work or go to school inside hierarchies where disobedience leads to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ learned practices of hierarchy with us even when no paycheck or punishment enforces our participation , so even in volunteer groups we often find ourselves in conflicts stemming from learned dominance behaviors .
But collective spaces , like mutual aid organizing , can give us opportunities to unlearn conditioning and build new skills and capacities .
By participating in groups in new ways and practicing new ways of being together , we are both building the world we want and becoming the kind of people who could live in such a world together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encampments that emerged in 2011 to protest economic inequality , people shared ideas about how to resolve conflict without calling the police .
Occupy brought out many people who had never participated in political resistance before , introducing them to practices like consensus decision-making , occupying public space , distributing free food and engaging in free political education workshops .
Many who joined Occupy did not yet have a developed critique of policing .
Participants committed to police abolition and anti-racism cultivated conversations about why activists should not call the police on each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imperfect , but it introduced many people to new skills and ideas that they took with them , long after Occupy encampments were dismantled by the police .
Mutual aid can also generate boldness and a willingness to defy illegitimate authority .
Taking risks with a group for a shared purpose can be a reparative experience when we have been trained to follow rules .
Organizers from the grassroots network Mutual Aid Disaster Relief ( MADR ) share the following story in their 2018 workshop facilitation guide to illustrate their argument that “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crew of MADR organizers [ after Hurricane Maria ] travelled to Puerto Rico ( some visiting their families , others bringing medical skills ) , they found out about a government warehouse that was neglecting to distribute huge stockpiles of supplies .
They showed their MADR badges to the guards and said , “ We are here for the 8am pickup.
” When guards replied that their names were not on the list , they just insisted again , “ We are here for the 8am pickup.
” They were eventually allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed .
After being let in once , aid workers were able to return repeatedly .
They made more badges for local organizers , and this source continued to benefit local communities for months .
MADR asserts that by taking bold actions together , “ we can imagine new ways of interacting with the world.
” When dominant ways of living have been suspended , people discover that they can break norms — and even laws — that enable individualism , passivity and respect for private property .
MADR asserts that “ saving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the event and aftermath of disaster may require taking bold action without waiting for permission from authorities .
Disaster survivors themselves are the most important authority on just action.
” Mutual aid projects providing relief to survivors of storms , floods , earthquakes , pandemics and fires , as well as those developed to support people living through the crises caused by poverty , racism , criminalization , gender violence and other “ ordinary ” conditions , produce new systems that can prevent harm and improve preparedness for the coming disasters .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it was the existence of food justice efforts that made it possible for many people to eat when the corporate food system , which brings 90 percent of the island ’ s food from off-island sources , was halted by the storm .
Similarly , it was local solar panels that allowed people to charge medical devices when the electrical grid went down .
By looking at what still works in the face of disaster , we can learn what we want to build to prepare for the next storm or fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2018 California fires , the public learned that the fires were caused by Pacific Gas and Electric Company ’ s mismanagement , and then watched as California ’ s government immediately offered the company a bailout , meanwhile failing to support people displaced by the disaster .
In energy , as in other areas of survival , we should be working toward locally controlled , participatory , transparent structures to replace our crumbling and harmful infrastructure .
Doing so helps us imagine getting rid of the undemocratic infrastructure of our lives — the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health care and transportation systems — and replacing it with people ’ s infrastructure .
For social movements working to imagine and build a transition from “ dig , burn , dump ” economies to sustainable , regenerative ways of living , mutual aid offers a way forward .
For good reason , many people feel scared right now .
We face terrifying unknowns about the worsening economic crisis , climate change-induced disasters , rising COVID-19 infections and long-term health problems facing people who survive being infected , ongoing racism and violence at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kinds , and increasing mobilization of armed white supremacist right-wing people and organizations .
It is difficult to have any faith that , no matter who is in the White House , we will see a massive redistribution of wealth , immediate action to stop climate change , an end to policing , borders and war , and universal housing , health care or child care .
Under these conditions , we need mutual aid to survive and to build resistance movements of hundreds of millions of people who can fight to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives and build a world we can survive .
This article is adapted from the new book , Mutual Aid : Building Solidarity During This Crisis ( and the Next ) .

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a crisis in the U.S. in early 2020, people all over the country started coordinating to deliver groceries and prescriptions to vulnerable people, making and distributing masks and hand sanitizer, and raising money for people who were losing jobs and ineligible for unemployment benefits. By the time the uprising against anti-Black racism and police violence brought people into the streets in early summer, the concept of “mutual aid” had gained significant traction in the media, and it was visible on the streets as people operated street medic teams at protests, offered each other free food and water, and defended each other from cops and white supremacists. COVID-19 mutual aid projects are ongoing, and as social movement groups prepare for the possibility of a contested election next week along with increasing strikes, street protests and occupations of public space, activists are gearing up to support each other.
“Mutual aid” is one term used to describe collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually stemming from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them. Those systems, in fact, have often created the crisis, or are making things worse. We see examples of mutual aid in every single social movement, whether it’s people raising money for workers on strike, setting up a car pooling system during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, putting drinking water in the desert for migrants crossing the border, training each other in emergency medicine because ambulance response time in poor neighborhoods is too slow, raising money to pay for abortions for those who can’t afford them, or coordinating letter-writing to prisoners. These are mutual aid projects. They directly meet people’s survival needs, and are based on a shared understanding that the conditions in which we are made to live are unjust.
There is nothing new about mutual aid — people have worked together to survive for all of human history. But capitalism and colonialism created structures that have disrupted how people have historically connected with each other and shared everything they needed to survive. As people were forced into systems of wage labor and private property, and wealth became increasingly concentrated, our ways of caring for each other have become more and more tenuous.
Today, many of us live in the most atomized societies in human history, which makes our lives less secure and undermines our ability to organize together to change unjust conditions on a large scale. We are put in competition with each other for survival, and we are forced to rely on hostile systems — like health care systems designed around profit, not keeping people healthy, or food and transportation systems that pollute the Earth and poison people — for the things we need. More and more people report that they have no one they can confide in. This means many of us do not get help with mental health, drug use, family violence or abuse until the police or courts are involved, which tends to escalate rather than resolve harm.
In this context of social isolation and forced dependency on hostile systems, mutual aid — where we choose to help each other out, share things, and put time and resources into caring for the most vulnerable — is a radical act.
Three Key Elements of Mutual Aid
One: Mutual aid projects work to meet survival needs and build shared understanding about why people do not have what they need.
Mutual aid projects expose the reality that people do not have what they need and propose that we can address this injustice together. The most famous example in the United States is the Black Panther Party’s survival programs, which ran throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including a free breakfast program, free ambulance program, free medical clinics, a service offering rides to elderly people doing errands, and a school aimed at providing a rigorous liberation curriculum to children. The Black Panther programs welcomed people into the liberation struggle by creating spaces where they could meet basic needs and build a shared analysis about the conditions they were facing. Instead of feeling ashamed about not being able to feed their kids in a culture that blames poor people (especially poor Black people) for their poverty, people attending the Panthers’ free breakfast program got food and a chance to build shared analysis about Black poverty. It broke stigma and isolation, met material needs and got people fired up to work together for change.
People have worked together to survive for all of human history. But capitalism and colonialism created structures that have disrupted how people have historically connected with each other.
Recognizing the program’s success, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover famously wrote in a 1969 memo sent to all field offices that “the BCP [Breakfast for Children Program] represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP [Black Panther Party] and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for.” The night before the Chicago program was supposed to open, police broke into the church that was hosting it and urinated on all of the food. The government’s attacks on the Black Panther Party are evidence of mutual aid’s power, as is the government’s co-optation of the program: In the early 1970s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture expanded its federal free breakfast program — built on a charity, not a liberation, model — that still feeds millions of children today. The Black Panthers provided a striking vision of liberation, asserting that Black people had to defend themselves against a violent and racist government, and that they could organize to give each other what a racist society withheld.
During the same period, the Young Lords Party undertook similar and related mutual aid projects in their work toward Puerto Rican liberation. The Young Lords brought people into the movement by starting with the everyday needs of Puerto Ricans in impoverished communities: They protested the lack of garbage pickups in Puerto Rican neighborhoods, hijacked a city mobile x-ray truck to bring greater tuberculosis testing to Puerto Rican communities, took over part of a hospital to provide health care, and provided food and youth programs for Puerto Rican communities. Their vision — for decolonizing Puerto Rico and liberating Puerto Ricans in the United States from racism, poverty and police terror — was put into practice through mutual aid.
Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, many overlapping movements undertook mutual aid efforts, such as feminist health clinics and activist-run abortion providers, emerging volunteer-run gay health clinics, child care collectives, tenants’ unions and community food projects. Although this moment is an important reference point for the contemporary left, mutual aid didn’t start in the ’60s, but is an ongoing feature of movements seeking transformative change. Klee Benally, project coordinator at Indigenous Media Action, argues that mutual aid is an unbroken tradition among Indigenous people across many cycles of colonialism, maintained through traditional teachings that contemporary Indigenous mutual aid projects are working to restore and amplify. Settlers have long worked to undermine Indigenous people’s self-sustaining practices by first destroying food systems and then forcing dependency on rations given at forts and missions and, now, by settler nonprofits. Indigenous mutual aid efforts are both a matter of survival and a powerful form of resistance to forced dependence on settler systems.
The long tradition of mutual aid societies and other forms of “self-help” in Black communities, which, as early as the 1780s sought to pool resources to provide health and life insurance, care for the sick, aid for burials, support for widows and orphans, and public education efforts, is another important example. These efforts have addressed Black exclusion from white infrastructures by creating Black alternatives. Long traditions of mutual aid are also visible in working-class communities that have long supported workers on strike so that they could pay rent and buy food while confronting their bosses. Perhaps most of all, the pervasive presence of mutual aid during sudden disasters of all kinds — storms, floods, fires and earthquakes — demonstrates how people come together to care for each other and share resources when, inevitably, the government is not there to help, offers relief that does not reach the most vulnerable people and deploys law enforcement against displaced disaster survivors.
Mutual aid is not just volunteerism, it is about exposing and resisting the root causes of crisis conditions.
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, mutual aid projects have worked to help people survive, while pointing out the many ways that laws and law enforcement are making COVID more deadly. Efforts to raise money for people in prisons so they can buy soap to increase handwashing have gone hand-in-hand with efforts to get states to release people from prisons and cities to defund police. Bold occupations of housing and public space to demand housing and actions to block housing court entrances have gone along with work to help tenants fight evictions and raise money for people’s rent. Mutual aid is not just volunteerism, it is about exposing and resisting the root causes of crisis conditions.
Two. Mutual aid projects mobilize people, expand solidarity and build movements.
Mutual aid is essential to building social movements. People often come to social movement groups because they need something: eviction defense, child care, social connection, health care, or help in a fight with the government about something like welfare benefits, disability services, immigration status or custody of their children. Being able to get help in a crisis is often a condition for being politically active, because it’s very difficult to organize when you are also struggling to survive. Getting support through a mutual aid project that has a political analysis of the conditions that produced your crisis also helps to break stigma, shame and isolation. Under capitalism, social problems resulting from exploitation and the maldistribution of resources are understood as individual moral failings, not systemic problems. Getting support at a place that sees the systems, not the people suffering in them, as the problem can help people move from shame to anger and defiance. Mutual aid exposes the failures of the current system and shows an alternative. This work is based in a belief that those on the front lines of a crisis have the best wisdom to solve the problems, and that collective action is the way forward.
Mutual aid projects also build solidarity. By working together, members of mutual aid projects learn about experiences different from theirs and build solidarity across those differences. Solidarity is what builds and connects large-scale movements. In the context of professionalized nonprofit organizations, groups are urged to be single-issue oriented, framing their message around “deserving” people within the population they serve, and using tactics palatable to elites.
Part of why mutual aid groups can build solidarity in the ways they do is because they are mostly volunteer-based groups of people coordinating to work together because they want to see change. This is very different from the professionalized nonprofit sector. Historically, social movements were not professionalized like they are now. Most people in movements have not been paid to be part of resistance; they have done it out of passion and desperation for change. In the wake of the global uprisings against colonialism and widespread domestic uprisings against war, patriarchy, white supremacy and colonialism in the U.S. in the 1960s and ‘70s, government and elites worked to contain threatening social movements in two ways. First, they criminalized social movement groups that were effectively organizing to defend communities from police and mobilize people for resistance. Second, they created the system of non-profitization that encourages the formation of professionalized groups that can compete for money from government and philanthropists if they do their work in ways those entities find non-threatening. The result was the growth of a huge nonprofit sector where much “social justice” work now happens, led and/or directed by elite professionals.
Anti-solidarity practices that separate the “deserving” from the “undeserving” and legitimize the very systems causing harm are pervasive in non-profitized advocacy work. Prison reform groups are supposed to fight only for “the innocent” or “the nonviolent,” for example, and to do their work by lobbying politicians about how some people — not all people — don’t belong in prison. This is the opposite of solidarity, because it means the most vulnerable people are left behind: those who were up-charged by cops and prosecutors, those who do not have the means to prove their innocence, those who do not match cultural tropes of innocence and deservingness. This narrow focus actually strengthens the system’s legitimacy by advocating that the targeting of those more stigmatized people is okay.
This pattern of anti-solidarity incentives and practices has been devastating for movements as non-profitization has taken hold. Solidarity across issues and populations is what makes movements big and powerful. Without that connection, we end up with disconnected groups, working in their issue silos, undermining each other, competing for attention and funding, not backing each other up and not building power.
Groups doing mutual aid to directly address real problems in real people’s lives tend to develop a multi-issue and solidarity-based approach because their members’ lives are cross-cut by many different experiences of vulnerability. Sometimes even groups that start out with a narrow goal adopt a wider horizon of solidarity and a wider vision of political possibility if they use the mutual aid model. An initial goal of serving people impacted by homelessness quickly reveals that racism, colonialism, immigration enforcement, ableism, police violence, the foster care system, the health care system, transphobia, and more are all causes of homelessness or causes of further harm to homeless people. Solidarity and an ever-expanding commitment to justice emerge from contact with the complex realities of injustice. This is exactly how movements are built, as people become connected to each other and as one urgent issue unspools into a broader vision of social transformation. It is not surprising that many people who first came into political activism through COVID mutual aid projects found themselves handing out masks and food at street protests against police a few months later.
Three. Mutual aid projects are participatory, solving problems through collective action rather than waiting for saviors.
Mutual aid projects help people develop skills for collaboration, participation and decision-making. For example, people engaged in a project to help deliver prescriptions to vulnerable people in their neighborhoods who can risk COVID exposure going to the pharmacy will learn about COVID delivery safety protocols, but they will also learn about meeting facilitation, working across differences, retaining volunteers, addressing conflict, giving and receiving feedback, following through, and coordinating schedules and transportation. They may also learn that it is not nonprofits or social service agencies who can directly support people, and that many people — including themselves! — have something to offer. This departs from expertise-based social services that tell us we need to have a social worker, licensed therapist, lawyer or some other person with an advanced degree to get things done.
Mutual aid is inherently anti-authoritarian, demonstrating how we can do things together in ways we were told not to imagine, and that we can organize human activity without coercion. Most people have never been to a meeting where there was not a boss or authority figure with decision-making power. Most people work or go to school inside hierarchies where disobedience leads to punishment or exclusion. We bring our learned practices of hierarchy with us even when no paycheck or punishment enforces our participation, so even in volunteer groups we often find ourselves in conflicts stemming from learned dominance behaviors. But collective spaces, like mutual aid organizing, can give us opportunities to unlearn conditioning and build new skills and capacities.
By participating in groups in new ways and practicing new ways of being together, we are both building the world we want and becoming the kind of people who could live in such a world together.
Mutual aid is inherently anti-authoritarian, demonstrating how we can … organize human activity without coercion.
For example, in the Occupy encampments that emerged in 2011 to protest economic inequality, people shared ideas about how to resolve conflict without calling the police. Occupy brought out many people who had never participated in political resistance before, introducing them to practices like consensus decision-making, occupying public space, distributing free food and engaging in free political education workshops. Many who joined Occupy did not yet have a developed critique of policing. Participants committed to police abolition and anti-racism cultivated conversations about why activists should not call the police on each other. This process was inconsistent and imperfect, but it introduced many people to new skills and ideas that they took with them, long after Occupy encampments were dismantled by the police.
Mutual aid can also generate boldness and a willingness to defy illegitimate authority. Taking risks with a group for a shared purpose can be a reparative experience when we have been trained to follow rules. Organizers from the grassroots network Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) share the following story in their 2018 workshop facilitation guide to illustrate their argument that “audacity is our capacity”:
When a crew of MADR organizers [after Hurricane Maria] travelled to Puerto Rico (some visiting their families, others bringing medical skills), they found out about a government warehouse that was neglecting to distribute huge stockpiles of supplies. They showed their MADR badges to the guards and said, “We are here for the 8am pickup.” When guards replied that their names were not on the list, they just insisted again, “We are here for the 8am pickup.” They were eventually allowed in, told to take whatever they needed. After being let in once, aid workers were able to return repeatedly. They made more badges for local organizers, and this source continued to benefit local communities for months.
Mutual aid projects produce new systems that can prevent harm and improve preparedness for the coming disasters.
MADR asserts that by taking bold actions together, “we can imagine new ways of interacting with the world.” When dominant ways of living have been suspended, people discover that they can break norms — and even laws — that enable individualism, passivity and respect for private property. MADR asserts that “saving lives, homes, and communities in the event and aftermath of disaster may require taking bold action without waiting for permission from authorities. Disaster survivors themselves are the most important authority on just action.”
Mutual aid projects providing relief to survivors of storms, floods, earthquakes, pandemics and fires, as well as those developed to support people living through the crises caused by poverty, racism, criminalization, gender violence and other “ordinary” conditions, produce new systems that can prevent harm and improve preparedness for the coming disasters. When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, it was the existence of food justice efforts that made it possible for many people to eat when the corporate food system, which brings 90 percent of the island’s food from off-island sources, was halted by the storm. Similarly, it was local solar panels that allowed people to charge medical devices when the electrical grid went down.
By looking at what still works in the face of disaster, we can learn what we want to build to prepare for the next storm or fire. In the wake of the devastating 2018 California fires, the public learned that the fires were caused by Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s mismanagement, and then watched as California’s government immediately offered the company a bailout, meanwhile failing to support people displaced by the disaster. In energy, as in other areas of survival, we should be working toward locally controlled, participatory, transparent structures to replace our crumbling and harmful infrastructure.
For social movements working to imagine and build a transition from “dig, burn, dump” economies to sustainable, regenerative ways of living, mutual aid offers a way forward.
Doing so helps us imagine getting rid of the undemocratic infrastructure of our lives — the extractive and unjust energy, food, health care and transportation systems — and replacing it with people’s infrastructure. For social movements working to imagine and build a transition from “dig, burn, dump” economies to sustainable, regenerative ways of living, mutual aid offers a way forward.
For good reason, many people feel scared right now. We face terrifying unknowns about the worsening economic crisis, climate change-induced disasters, rising COVID-19 infections and long-term health problems facing people who survive being infected, ongoing racism and violence at the hands of law enforcement of all kinds, and increasing mobilization of armed white supremacist right-wing people and organizations. It is difficult to have any faith that, no matter who is in the White House, we will see a massive redistribution of wealth, immediate action to stop climate change, an end to policing, borders and war, and universal housing, health care or child care. Under these conditions, we need mutual aid to survive and to build resistance movements of hundreds of millions of people who can fight to stop the systems of extraction that govern our lives and build a world we can survive.
This article is adapted from the new book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next).
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
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truthout--2020-10-28--Biden Slams Trump for Stranding Omaha Rallygoers in Near-Freezing Temperatures

Democratic candidate for president Joe Biden lashed out at President Donald Trump on Wednesday , making strong criticisms against the president for a campaign event that he held in Omaha , Nebraska , on Tuesday night , which resulted in the stranding of thousands of rallygoers in near-freezing temperatures .
Trump wrapped up his event at Eppley Airfield in Omaha , departing on Air Force One around 9 p.m .
The plan had been for buses , provided by his campaign , to transport thousands of rally participants to their vehicles , parked three to four miles away .
Strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blistering windchill conditions , as law enforcement and campaign volunteers struggled to organize the chaotic situation on the ground .
At least 30 individuals required medical attention of some kind , and seven were taken to the hospital .
According to several reports , the buses could not navigate the two-laned airport roads , resulting in one-way traffic that left thousands waiting for hours in the bitter cold .
Some Trump supporters , not willing to wait any longer , started walking the long trek to their vehicles , which exacerbated the problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with the crowd not fully clearing out until around 12:30 a.m. local time .
The Trump campaign took no responsibility for the mishap , claiming that it had provided enough buses for the event and blaming local road closures for what transpired .
“ We always strive to provide the best guest experience at our events and we care about their safety , ” Trump deputy national press secretary Samantha Zager explained in a statement .
However , a local volunteer with the campaign offered a contrasting view of what happened , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign officials on how to manage the exodus of supporters after the rally .
Nebraska State Sen. Megan Hunt , a Democrat , criticized the president for what had happened , saying in a tweet that it exemplified how the president truly felt about his base of supporters .
“ Supporters of the President were brought in , but buses weren ’ t able to get back to transport people out .
It ’ s freezing and snowy in Omaha tonight .
He truly does not care about you , ” Hunt said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over what took place , recognizing that those who attended Trump ’ s rally on Tuesday included “ older Americans and children .
He added that the event “ captures President Trump ’ s whole approach in this crisis ” as well , referring to the coronavirus pandemic .
Trump “ makes a lot of big pronouncements , but they don ’ t hold up , ” Biden said .
“ He gets his photo op and then gets out .
He leaves everyone else to suffer the consequence of his failure to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like he just doesn ’ t care much about it .
”

“It seems like he just doesn’t care much about it,” Biden said of Trump leaving thousands out in the cold.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden lashed out at President Donald Trump on Wednesday, making strong criticisms against the president for a campaign event that he held in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday night, which resulted in the stranding of thousands of rallygoers in near-freezing temperatures.
Trump wrapped up his event at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, departing on Air Force One around 9 pm. The plan had been for buses, provided by his campaign, to transport thousands of rally participants to their vehicles, parked three to four miles away.
Strong winds and low temperatures combined to create blistering windchill conditions, as law enforcement and campaign volunteers struggled to organize the chaotic situation on the ground. At least 30 individuals required medical attention of some kind, and seven were taken to the hospital.
According to several reports, the buses could not navigate the two-laned airport roads, resulting in one-way traffic that left thousands waiting for hours in the bitter cold. Some Trump supporters, not willing to wait any longer, started walking the long trek to their vehicles, which exacerbated the problem.
The confusion lasted for several hours, with the crowd not fully clearing out until around 12:30 am local time.
The Trump campaign took no responsibility for the mishap, claiming that it had provided enough buses for the event and blaming local road closures for what transpired.
“We always strive to provide the best guest experience at our events and we care about their safety,” Trump Deputy National Press Secretary Samantha Zager explained in a statement.
However, a local volunteer with the campaign offered a contrasting view of what happened, saying little guidance was given to local campaign officials on how to manage the exodus of supporters after the rally.
Nebraska State Sen. Megan Hunt, a Democrat, criticized the president for what had happened, saying in a tweet that it exemplified how the president truly felt about his base of supporters.
“Supporters of the President were brought in, but buses weren’t able to get back to transport people out. It’s freezing and snowy in Omaha tonight. He truly does not care about you,” Hunt said.
Biden himself expressed dismay on Wednesday over what took place, recognizing that those who attended Trump’s rally on Tuesday included “older Americans and children. He added that the event “captures President Trump’s whole approach in this crisis” as well, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump “makes a lot of big pronouncements, but they don’t hold up,” Biden said. “He gets his photo op and then gets out. He leaves everyone else to suffer the consequence of his failure to make a responsible plan. It seems like he just doesn’t care much about it.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
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truthout--2020-10-28--Trump May Become First Republican to Lose Texas Since 1976, New Polls Suggest

With less than a week until Election Day 2020 , the path to reelection for President Donald Trump appears to be narrowing , while his Democratic opponent , former Vice President Joe Biden , is expanding into states that candidates from his party haven ’ t made serious attempts to win in several decades .
The last time a Democratic candidate for president won in Georgia was in 1992 , and the last time one was victorious in Texas was in 1976 .
Yet Biden ’ s campaign , which initially planned to focus on 17 battleground states back in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of its resources to court voters in these two states .
“ The resources that we have , have given us an opportunity to continue with an expansive map , ” Biden campaign national state director Jen Ridder said to ABC News .
There ’ s a good reason to make such a brazen move .
The states that Biden ’ s team had focused on winning in the spring — including the ever-important battleground states of Michigan , Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , North Carolina , Arizona and Florida — look likely , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his favor , come election day .
Texas and Georgia , meanwhile , have also shown signs of shifting from their traditionally “ red state ” statuses to possibly going “ blue ” this year .
The Cook Political Report , noting several polls that demonstrate this change , placed Texas in the column of “ tossup ” states this week , a move that most election analysts might have thought improbable at the start of 2020 .
Cook also considers Georgia to be a tossup state in this year ’ s race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a post for the site , noted that the race across the U.S. in general is currently Biden ’ s to lose , as The Cook Political Report currently says he has probably wrapped up around 290 Electoral College votes .
But he has a rare opportunity to win Texas , too .
“ Texas is a state that Biden doesn ’ t need to win , but it is clear that it ’ s more competitive than ever , ” Walter wrote , adding that “ recent polling in the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 2-4 point race ” between the two candidates , with Trump just slightly ahead in most surveys .
That matches the aggregate of polls collected at RealClearPolitics , which finds Trump leading Biden in Texas by an average of 2.6 percentage points .
That lead , however , is within the margin of error for all five polls observed .
In Georgia also , Trump is ahead of Biden within the RealClearPolitics collection of polls , but by a razor-thin margin , leading on average by 0.4 percent .
The numbers for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states he won in 2016 .
While he barely eked out a win in both Wisconsin and Michigan , an ABC News/Washington Post poll released this week has Biden leading Trump by 17 points in the Badger State , while showing he ’ s ahead by 7 points in the Great Lakes State .
Those numbers may be anomalies , some analysts caution , showing a wider split than what voters ’ opinions may actually be .
Yet , in general , polling in those two states have shown Biden with a growing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ School poll published on Wednesday showed the Democrat ahead by 5 points in Wisconsin , for instance ) .
Nationally , many polls show Biden with a significant lead over Trump , with 51 percent of respondents in a recent Economist/YouGov poll saying they intend to vote for the former vice president , and only 40 percent saying they plan to support the incumbent president .

The Cook Political Report placed formerly solidly Republican Texas and Georgia in the “tossup” column this week.
With less than a week until Election Day 2020, the path to reelection for President Donald Trump appears to be narrowing, while his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, is expanding into states that candidates from his party haven’t made serious attempts to win in several decades.
The last time a Democratic candidate for president won in Georgia was in 1992, and the last time one was victorious in Texas was in 1976. Yet Biden’s campaign, which initially planned to focus on 17 battleground states back in May, is now considering spending some of its resources to court voters in these two states.
“The resources that we have, have given us an opportunity to continue with an expansive map,” Biden campaign national state director Jen Ridder said to ABC News.
There’s a good reason to make such a brazen move. The states that Biden’s team had focused on winning in the spring — including the ever-important battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida — look likely, if narrowly, to be trending in his favor, come election day. Texas and Georgia, meanwhile, have also shown signs of shifting from their traditionally “red state” statuses to possibly going “blue” this year.
The Cook Political Report, noting several polls that demonstrate this change, placed Texas in the column of “tossup” states this week, a move that most election analysts might have thought improbable at the start of 2020. Cook also considers Georgia to be a tossup state in this year’s race.
Political analyst Amy Walter, writing in a post for the site, noted that the race across the U.S. in general is currently Biden’s to lose, as The Cook Political Report currently says he has probably wrapped up around 290 Electoral College votes. But he has a rare opportunity to win Texas, too.
“Texas is a state that Biden doesn’t need to win, but it is clear that it’s more competitive than ever,” Walter wrote, adding that “recent polling in the state — both public and private — shows a 2-4 point race” between the two candidates, with Trump just slightly ahead in most surveys.
That matches the aggregate of polls collected at RealClearPolitics, which finds Trump leading Biden in Texas by an average of 2.6 percentage points. That lead, however, is within the margin of error for all five polls observed.
In Georgia also, Trump is ahead of Biden within the RealClearPolitics collection of polls, but by a razor-thin margin, leading on average by 0.4 percent.
The numbers for Trump are less encouraging, particularly in states he won in 2016. While he barely eked out a win in both Wisconsin and Michigan, an ABC News/Washington Post poll released this week has Biden leading Trump by 17 points in the Badger State, while showing he’s ahead by 7 points in the Great Lakes State.
Those numbers may be anomalies, some analysts caution, showing a wider split than what voters’ opinions may actually be. Yet, in general, polling in those two states have shown Biden with a growing lead. (A Marquette University Law School poll published on Wednesday showed the Democrat ahead by 5 points in Wisconsin, for instance).
Nationally, many polls show Biden with a significant lead over Trump, with 51 percent of respondents in a recent Economist/YouGov poll saying they intend to vote for the former vice president, and only 40 percent saying they plan to support the incumbent president.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-10-28--Barrett and GOP Threaten Health Care for Millions, Democrats Say

Less than week ahead of the election , Democrats and progressive groups are returning to a familiar theme and hammering Republicans on health care in the wake of the Senate vote on Monday to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court .
If Barrett joins the court ’ s conservative majority in striking down the Affordable Care Act in a landmark case scheduled to be heard shortly after the election , nearly 250,000 South Carolinians would lose their health coverage and 900,000 with pre-existing conditions would lose insurance protections .
That ’ s the message to South Carolina voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenging Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in a tight race that could help flip the Senate to Democratic control .
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis , a longtime opponent of the Affordable Care Act who is trailing Democrat Cal Cunningham in the polls even as Cunningham grapples with a sexting scandal , displayed his support for stripping health coverage from millions of people by voting to confirm Barrett , according to Piedmont Rising , a grassroots group in North Carolina .
“ If Amy Coney Barrett helps to overturn the Affordable Care Act , more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coverage , protections for 1.7 million with a pre-existing condition will be terminated , and affordable access to essential health services , such as a COVID vaccine or reproductive health care , will be gutted , ” said Piedmont Rising Executive Director Casey Wilkinson on Monday .
As early as November 10 , the Supreme Court will consider a case at the center of the GOP ’ s years-long and deeply unpopular campaign to sabotage and dismantle the Affordable Care Act .
In the case , Republican attorneys general and the Trump administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struck down because the high court ruled in an earlier case that the law ’ s “ individual mandate ” requiring all Americans to have health insurance was unconstitutional .
Democrats argue the law has improved health care for millions and should remain .
With the addition of Barrett , the Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative majority .
If the right-wing justices agree with the GOP and strike down the Affordable Care Act , about 23 million people would lose health coverage , about 15 percent more than was estimated before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 220,000 people , according to the Center for American Progress .
While the GOP wants the entire law overturned , 8 in 10 adults say they do not want the Supreme Court to throw out the Affordable Care Act provisions protecting health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions , including a majority of Republicans , according to a Kaiser Family Foundation ( KFF ) poll released on October 16 .
The coronavirus pandemic has only heightened anxiety around losing the protections , which bars insurance companies from denying coverage to people with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Many Americans worry about what could happen to them if insurance companies were able to discriminate against family members with pre-existing conditions , and that ’ s why the issue has become a flashpoint in the election , ” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said in a statement .
“ Now COVID could become a pre-existing condition , potentially adding to their anxiety.
” A clear majority of adults polled — 58 percent — say they do not want the Supreme Court to overturn the entire landmark health law , a 10-point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ However , three-fourths of Republican voters still want to see the entire law overturned after years of hearing President Trump and party leaders rail against it , which suggests GOP voters do not fully understand that the pre-existing conditions protections would be thrown out as well .
During the hearings , Barrett refused to answer questions from Democrats on how she would rule on the Affordable Care Act case , but advocates say Barrett ’ s record indicates that she is hostile toward the health care law — including its popular protections for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ side , Democrats are now going on the offensive as the election nears , slamming Republicans for rushing to confirm Barrett instead of passing relief legislation for millions of people suffering economically due to the pandemic .
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois , who is facing off with Republican Mark Curran for his Senate seat , called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ’ s push to confirm Barrett a “ partisan power grab ” that his GOP colleagues would come to “ regret ” in a series of tweets .
The messaging is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Barrett ’ s confirmation .
In addition to her presumed opposition to the health care law , the new justice is also seen as a threat to LGBTQ rights , voting rights , racial justice and reproductive rights .
Advocates are urging voters to vote out Republicans who supported a hypocritical push to confirm the new justice before voters have a say at the polls .
“ Vote them out , whether your opportunity comes in the next few days or in two years , because they don ’ t care about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president of the progressive group People for the American Way , in a statement .
“ Any senator who voted to confirm Barrett voted to undo the Affordable Care Act and protections for preexisting conditions.
” Democrats and their allies are also hoping to sway undecided voters nervous about losing their health care during a public health crisis .
“ To the American people , this is not a legislative or political game , ” said Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire during a recent panel with Protect Our Care , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Care Act from Republican attacks .
“ And to any of them who thought it might be before the pandemic — boy , do they understand the importance of health care now.
” Graham , who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee , called the Affordable Care Act a “ disaster ” and called for its repeal during his opening statement at Barrett ’ s confirmation hearings .
Still , Graham insisted the Republican push to dismantle the Affordable Care Act was irrelevant to Barrett ’ s confirmation because she is a judge , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writing is on the wall .
“ The Republican presidential platform calls for nominating judges who will reverse the Affordable Care Act , ” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse , a Democrat from Rhode Island .
Graham , a well-known incumbent who has embraced Trump , is now centering his efforts to confirm Barrett in his reelection campaign but has been losing ground to Harrison for weeks .
Harrison held a two-point lead over Graham in one recent poll , and the race remains a tossup .
“ We are in a fight for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an interview on Fox News on Monday after the confirmation vote .
“ Help me .
Help all of us keep our seats.
” Democrats must add four seats to their caucus to win control of the Senate – and only three if Joe Biden is elected president and Kamala Harris is awarded the tie-breaking vote as vice president .
Graham , Tillis and several other Republicans are considered vulnerable to losing their seats .
The poll tracking site FiveThirtyEight estimates that Democrats have a 74 percent chance of winning a majority .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and he should be , ” said Guy King , a spokesman for Harrison ’ s campaign , in a statement on Monday .

Less than week ahead of the election, Democrats and progressive groups are returning to a familiar theme and hammering Republicans on health care in the wake of the Senate vote on Monday to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
If Barrett joins the court’s conservative majority in striking down the Affordable Care Act in a landmark case scheduled to be heard shortly after the election, nearly 250,000 South Carolinians would lose their health coverage and 900,000 with pre-existing conditions would lose insurance protections. That’s the message to South Carolina voters coming from Jaime Harrison, a Democrat challenging Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in a tight race that could help flip the Senate to Democratic control.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, a longtime opponent of the Affordable Care Act who is trailing Democrat Cal Cunningham in the polls even as Cunningham grapples with a sexting scandal, displayed his support for stripping health coverage from millions of people by voting to confirm Barrett, according to Piedmont Rising, a grassroots group in North Carolina.
“If Amy Coney Barrett helps to overturn the Affordable Care Act, more than 600,000 North Carolinians will lose their coverage, protections for 1.7 million with a pre-existing condition will be terminated, and affordable access to essential health services, such as a COVID vaccine or reproductive health care, will be gutted,” said Piedmont Rising Executive Director Casey Wilkinson on Monday.
As early as November 10, the Supreme Court will consider a case at the center of the GOP’s years-long and deeply unpopular campaign to sabotage and dismantle the Affordable Care Act. In the case, Republican attorneys general and the Trump administration argue that the entire law must be struck down because the high court ruled in an earlier case that the law’s “individual mandate” requiring all Americans to have health insurance was unconstitutional. Democrats argue the law has improved health care for millions and should remain.
With the addition of Barrett, the Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative majority. If the right-wing justices agree with the GOP and strike down the Affordable Care Act, about 23 million people would lose health coverage, about 15 percent more than was estimated before COVID-19 pummeled the country and killed more than 220,000 people, according to the Center for American Progress.
While the GOP wants the entire law overturned, 8 in 10 adults say they do not want the Supreme Court to throw out the Affordable Care Act provisions protecting health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, including a majority of Republicans, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll released on October 16. The coronavirus pandemic has only heightened anxiety around losing the protections, which bars insurance companies from denying coverage to people with current or chronic health issues.
Democrats and their allies are hoping to sway undecided voters nervous about losing their health care during a public health crisis.
“Many Americans worry about what could happen to them if insurance companies were able to discriminate against family members with pre-existing conditions, and that’s why the issue has become a flashpoint in the election,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said in a statement. “Now COVID could become a pre-existing condition, potentially adding to their anxiety.”
A clear majority of adults polled — 58 percent — say they do not want the Supreme Court to overturn the entire landmark health law, a 10-point increase since this time last year. However, three-fourths of Republican voters still want to see the entire law overturned after years of hearing President Trump and party leaders rail against it, which suggests GOP voters do not fully understand that the pre-existing conditions protections would be thrown out as well.
During the hearings, Barrett refused to answer questions from Democrats on how she would rule on the Affordable Care Act case, but advocates say Barrett’s record indicates that she is hostile toward the health care law — including its popular protections for pre-existing conditions. With polling on their side, Democrats are now going on the offensive as the election nears, slamming Republicans for rushing to confirm Barrett instead of passing relief legislation for millions of people suffering economically due to the pandemic.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who is facing off with Republican Mark Curran for his Senate seat, called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s push to confirm Barrett a “partisan power grab” that his GOP colleagues would come to “regret” in a series of tweets.
Sen. McConnell spent 5 straight days on the Senate floor jamming through the Barrett nomination. Five days for a partisan power grab. But no time for meaningful, bipartisan #COVID19 relief. His priorities are crystal clear. — Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) October 27, 2020
The messaging is meant to increase turnout among Democrats angry about Barrett’s confirmation. In addition to her presumed opposition to the health care law, the new justice is also seen as a threat to LGBTQ rights, voting rights, racial justice and reproductive rights. Advocates are urging voters to vote out Republicans who supported a hypocritical push to confirm the new justice before voters have a say at the polls.
“Vote them out, whether your opportunity comes in the next few days or in two years, because they don’t care about you,” said Ben Jealous, president of the progressive group People for the American Way, in a statement. “Any senator who voted to confirm Barrett voted to undo the Affordable Care Act and protections for preexisting conditions.”
Democrats and their allies are also hoping to sway undecided voters nervous about losing their health care during a public health crisis.
“To the American people, this is not a legislative or political game,” said Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire during a recent panel with Protect Our Care, a group that works to protect the Affordable Care Act from Republican attacks. “And to any of them who thought it might be before the pandemic — boy, do they understand the importance of health care now.”
Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the Affordable Care Act a “disaster” and called for its repeal during his opening statement at Barrett’s confirmation hearings. Still, Graham insisted the Republican push to dismantle the Affordable Care Act was irrelevant to Barrett’s confirmation because she is a judge, not a lawmaker. Democrats say the writing is on the wall.
“The Republican presidential platform calls for nominating judges who will reverse the Affordable Care Act,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island.
Graham, a well-known incumbent who has embraced Trump, is now centering his efforts to confirm Barrett in his reelection campaign but has been losing ground to Harrison for weeks. Harrison held a two-point lead over Graham in one recent poll, and the race remains a tossup.
“We are in a fight for our life,” Graham said during an interview on Fox News on Monday after the confirmation vote. “Help me. Help all of us keep our seats.”
Democrats must add four seats to their caucus to win control of the Senate – and only three if Joe Biden is elected president and Kamala Harris is awarded the tie-breaking vote as vice president. Graham, Tillis and several other Republicans are considered vulnerable to losing their seats. The poll tracking site FiveThirtyEight estimates that Democrats have a 74 percent chance of winning a majority.
“Lindsey Graham is scared right now, and he should be,” said Guy King, a spokesman for Harrison’s campaign, in a statement on Monday.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-10-28--White House Press Release Wrongly Claims Trump Has Defeated COVID

The White House ’ s Office of Science and Technology Policy ( OSTP ) published a news release on Monday asserting that the Trump administration had put a stop to the coronavirus pandemic — a dubious claim given that the nation is seeing its highest rates of new cases being reported since the crisis began .
In a release titled “ Trump Administration Releases Science and Technology Accomplishments from First Term , ” the OSTP purported that President Donald Trump had achieved many feats when it came to promoting science .
“ President Trump has solidified America ’ s standing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation the world has ever seen… .
We have achieved a proud record of results , and under President Donald Trump ’ s leadership , science and technology will continue to inspire us , unite us , and guide us to ever great progress , ” OSTP Director Kelvin Droegemeier said .
Among the Trump administration ’ s supposed accomplishments , the document celebrated the president and his staff for “ ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
” “ From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic , the Administration has taken decisive actions to engage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry , and government to understand , treat , and defeat the disease , ” the release said .
Those comments , however , come within just a few days of the coronavirus pandemic reaching its highest levels yet , in terms of new diagnoses being made , demonstrating that the accolades are wildly incorrect .
The seven-day average of new cases being reported daily is at an all-time high , showing 68,767 new infections as of last Sunday , according to Johns Hopkins University ’ s tracking of the virus .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back in July .
On both Friday and Saturday , more than 83,000 new cases were reported , with Saturday ’ s total being the highest single-day number of new diagnoses recorded since the pandemic began ( Friday being the second-highest ) .
The Trump administration ’ s claims that the virus has been defeated are patently false for another reason : Members of his own executive staff continue to get infected with coronavirus .
Most recently , at least five members of Vice President Mike Pence ’ s staff have tested positive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the continued focus on the pandemic in the news , deriding the media as “ losers ” earlier this week for reporting on the record-high rates .
Trump also called the reports on the growing number of infections “ a Fake News Media Conspiracy ” in a tweet on Monday .
The president ’ s angst has been noted in his campaign stops as well , where he has made it a point to belittle the media for reporting on the pandemic , oftentimes by repeatedly saying “ COVID ” into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s grievances have been noticed by former President Barack Obama , who , while campaigning on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden , suggested Trump was upset in part because the virus was getting more media attention than him .
“ What ’ s his closing argument ?
That people are too focused on Covid , ” Obama recently opined .
“ He said this at one of his rallies .
Covid , Covid , Covid , he ’ s complaining .
He ’ s jealous of Covid ’ s media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed accomplishments in promoting science during his four years in office have previously been questioned by a number of notable and reliable sources , including Scientific American , which , for the first time in its 175-year history , endorsed a presidential candidate ( Biden ) in reaction to the anti-science approach Trump has demonstrated .
“ The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people — because he rejects evidence and science , ” the publication ’ s editors wrote in September in explaining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Beyond the “ most devastating example ” of coronavirus , Scientific American also cited the president ’ s refusal to accept climate change as a reason for its unusual decision to speak out against a second Trump term .
“ In his ongoing denial of reality , Trump has hobbled U.S. preparations for climate change , falsely claiming that it does not exist and pulling out of international agreements to mitigate it , ” the editors wrote .
“ The changing climate is already causing a rise in heat-related deaths and an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extreme flooding .
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As of Sunday, the seven-day average for daily new coronavirus cases being reported was at its highest this year.
The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published a news release on Monday asserting that the Trump administration had put a stop to the coronavirus pandemic — a dubious claim given that the nation is seeing its highest rates of new cases being reported since the crisis began.
In a release titled “Trump Administration Releases Science and Technology Accomplishments from First Term,” the OSTP purported that President Donald Trump had achieved many feats when it came to promoting science.
“President Trump has solidified America’s standing as the most scientifically and technologically advanced nation the world has ever seen…. We have achieved a proud record of results, and under President Donald Trump’s leadership, science and technology will continue to inspire us, unite us, and guide us to ever great progress,” OSTP Director Kelvin Droegemeier said.
Among the Trump administration’s supposed accomplishments, the document celebrated the president and his staff for “ending the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Administration has taken decisive actions to engage scientists and health professionals in academia, industry, and government to understand, treat, and defeat the disease,” the release said.
Those comments, however, come within just a few days of the coronavirus pandemic reaching its highest levels yet, in terms of new diagnoses being made, demonstrating that the accolades are wildly incorrect.
The seven-day average of new cases being reported daily is at an all-time high, showing 68,767 new infections as of last Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracking of the virus. The last time numbers were that high was back in July.
On both Friday and Saturday, more than 83,000 new cases were reported, with Saturday’s total being the highest single-day number of new diagnoses recorded since the pandemic began (Friday being the second-highest).
The Trump administration’s claims that the virus has been defeated are patently false for another reason: Members of his own executive staff continue to get infected with coronavirus. Most recently, at least five members of Vice President Mike Pence’s staff have tested positive for COVID-19.
Trump has expressed frustration over the continued focus on the pandemic in the news, deriding the media as “losers” earlier this week for reporting on the record-high rates. Trump also called the reports on the growing number of infections “a Fake News Media Conspiracy” in a tweet on Monday.
The president’s angst has been noted in his campaign stops as well, where he has made it a point to belittle the media for reporting on the pandemic, oftentimes by repeatedly saying “COVID” into the microphone while making his complaints. Trump’s grievances have been noticed by former President Barack Obama, who, while campaigning on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, suggested Trump was upset in part because the virus was getting more media attention than him.
“What’s his closing argument? That people are too focused on Covid,” Obama recently opined. “He said this at one of his rallies. Covid, Covid, Covid, he’s complaining. He’s jealous of Covid’s media coverage.”
The Trump administration’s supposed accomplishments in promoting science during his four years in office have previously been questioned by a number of notable and reliable sources, including Scientific American, which, for the first time in its 175-year history, endorsed a presidential candidate (Biden) in reaction to the anti-science approach Trump has demonstrated.
“The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people — because he rejects evidence and science,” the publication’s editors wrote in September in explaining its unusual decision to endorse a candidate.
Beyond the “most devastating example” of coronavirus, Scientific American also cited the president’s refusal to accept climate change as a reason for its unusual decision to speak out against a second Trump term.
“In his ongoing denial of reality, Trump has hobbled U.S. preparations for climate change, falsely claiming that it does not exist and pulling out of international agreements to mitigate it,” the editors wrote. “The changing climate is already causing a rise in heat-related deaths and an increase in severe storms, wildfires and extreme flooding.”
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