vox--2020-11-27--We know how to prevent up to 40 million people from being evicted. It’s up to Congress to do it.

We know how to prevent up to 40 million people from being evicted .
It ’ s up to Congress to do it .
Share All sharing options for : We know how to prevent up to 40 million people from being evicted .
It ’ s up to Congress to do it .
Seven months into her fight to stay housed , 48-year-old Kimberly is furious .
“ I ’ m angry that people can think so little of human life , ” she told Vox .
In 2016 — after massive floods in her hometown of Houston , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was forced to abandon her cat to stay safe — she thought she ’ d never be in that position again .
She got a job , found a place to live , and rescued three dogs she refers to as her “ fur babies.
” But after Covid-19 hit , she lost hours at her job as a crew trainer at Raising Cane ’ s Chicken Fingers and found herself on the brink of financial collapse .
She fell behind on her rent and when she tried to work with her landlord @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she told Vox that she was served an eviction notice .
Now , the only thing keeping her in her home is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ’ s ( CDC ) national eviction moratorium , which prohibits landlords from evicting qualifying tenants for failing to make rent .
If she ’ s evicted , Kimberly says she has nowhere to go — and will be homeless for the second time in five years .
Kimberly isn ’ t alone .
According to research by the Aspen Institute , nearly 40 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next several months .
The only thing holding back the flood right now is the CDC ’ s eviction moratorium order and a patchwork of state and local protections for renters .
But these moratoriums are only kicking the can down the road .
Chief economist for Moody ’ s Analytics Mark Zandi told the Washington Post that tenants could owe nearly $ 70 billion in back rent by year ’ s end .
And for landlords left holding the bag , there ’ s been little relief , as they ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of government — subsidizing housing for millions even as their own taxes , mortgage payments , and other expenses are due .
The moratorium is an imperfect solution , and one that leaves a number of renters and landlords hanging .
But without Congress passing renters ’ assistance or other stimulus , it ’ s one of the few things helping keep Americans housed .
Kimberly is angry at Congress , at her landlord , at a system that asks for personal responsibility and calls her an essential worker but has no safety @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work and to stay housed .
“ You ’ re endangering our lives , ” she told Vox .
“ You ’ re asking us to stop gathering on Thanksgiving and yet it ’ s somehow okay to put us on the streets ?
” Kimberly , and millions like her , could indeed end up on the streets right as the US rings in the New Year .
That ’ s when the CDC ’ s eviction moratorium expires — leaving countless Americans on the verge of losing their homes , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The CDC ’ s eviction moratorium was an emergency measure ; like a hastily applied bandage over a gaping wound , it was never a holistic solution , but it ’ s what you do to keep yourself alive until you can get to a doctor .
It came together in something of a slapdash way : After a partial eviction moratorium from the CARES Act expired at the end of July , the lack of congressional action left a void of federal protections against eviction .
Some states and localities enacted renters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , experts , advocates , and tenants began sounding the alarm , pointing to the tangible public health risks of evicting people while a highly contagious respiratory disease was still spreading .
On September 4 , the CDC responded to these concerns by invoking its authority under the Public Health Service Act to pass a broad eviction moratorium .
The agency ’ s justification was that evictions could lead to overcrowding and homelessness as those forced to leave their homes searched for alternative housing .
It ’ s hard to follow social distancing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a friend ’ s or family member ’ s house , and it ’ s impossible if you ’ re homeless and are forced to turn to shelters as a last resort .
Here ’ s what it does : Until January 1 , landlords can not force tenants out of their homes due to a failure to pay rent , as long as the tenants legally declare they qualify for protection under the order .
This means tenants have : • used “ best efforts ” to get “ all available ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • are below certain income thresholds • are unable to make rent because of a loss of household income , layoff , or “ extraordinary ” medical expenses • are using “ best efforts ” to make partial payments • and that eviction would make them homeless or force them to crowd into a new home .
Landlords can still evict tenants for other reasons — like “ engaging in criminal activity ” or “ threatening the health and safety of other residents.
” But moratoriums like the CDC ’ s and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act succeeded in stopping many evictions .
Research by ProPublica shows that the CARES Act reduced evictions , and the Eviction Lab found that between the end of the CARES Act moratorium and the beginning of the CDC moratorium evictions rose , indicating that the current federal protection has had real success at keeping many renters in their homes .
In Louisiana , where tenants are protected primarily by the federal moratorium , Hannah Adams , a staff attorney at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services , told Vox that the CDC order has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not the whole story .
Loopholes in the CDC ’ s order have allowed landlords to continue filing evictions .
And since many evictions happen to marginalized individuals without access to legal protection and without knowledge of their rights , some are even being evicted illegally .
While at first the federal moratorium appeared to be a blanket federal order stopping all evictions for nonpayment of rent for covered persons , four days after it went into effect the New Civil Liberties Alliance ( NCLA ) sued the CDC over the order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grab ” and requesting a federal injunction .
A month later , the CDC released a non-binding “ Frequently Asked Questions ” document , which made the controversial claim that the order was not “ intended to prevent landlords from starting eviction proceedings , provided that the actual eviction of a covered person for non-payment of rent ” doesn ’ t happen .
That means that property owners can pursue the process of eviction ( which is usually a lengthy and multi-step endeavor ) up until the actual removal of the tenant .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ so that the final steps needed for evictions can begin as soon as moratoriums are lifted .
Other owners , however , have used “ just the filing of the eviction as a method of harassing tenants and getting them out [ of their homes ] even without judicial action , ” Eric Tars , legal director of the National Homelessness Law Center , told Vox .
Attorneys for indigent defendants in Illinois , Louisiana , and North Carolina told me similar things — people terrified of an eviction record following them around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they officially have to .
Additionally , the CDC told landlords they weren ’ t required to inform tenants of the federal protection , which means many tenants may not know they have the ability to stay in their homes even if they can ’ t continue paying rent .
The CDC declined an interview to discuss the moratorium , stating that it does not comment on ongoing litigation .
Lawrence Wood , a supervisory attorney at Legal Aid Chicago , told Vox that in one of his cases a landlord is seeking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rent .
Wood says the Cook County sheriff isn ’ t carrying out any evictions , and the state ’ s own moratorium prevents people from “ commenc [ ing ] ” eviction proceedings for those who qualify ; but some landlords are dubiously claiming they can still file the paperwork .
Even in a state like Illinois , where the protections are stronger than the CDC ’ s , there are loopholes that allow some renters to fall through the cracks .
Overall , national , state , and local moratoriums were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to policymakers and tenant rights advocates .
But their imperfect protections have been a huge burden for other groups , who feel the government has dumped its obligation to provide a social safety net on them .
“ Everybody ’ s going to suffer ” — renters and small landlords are in a no-win situation The CDC policy prevents people from being evicted if they can ’ t pay rent , but at the end of the day , someone has to pay .
“ I ’ m not sure who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s going to suffer — local governments are going to suffer when taxes can ’ t get paid , banks are going to suffer when they ’ re not getting paid , bondholders are going to suffer .
Everyone ’ s going to feel the pain , ” Greg Brown , senior vice president at the National Apartment Association , which represents over 85,000 members in the rental housing industry and has joined the NCLA ’ s lawsuit , told Vox .
The moratorium doesn ’ t include debt forgiveness , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are accumulating .
These costs are piling up not just for big corporations , private equity , and banks but for average Americans like Marita , a 51-year-old from Weatogue , Connecticut , who ’ s seen her $ 65,000 annual income dry up during the pandemic .
Marita ’ s income used to come from a commercial property she co-owned with her two brothers , but after the two occupying restaurants had to shut down , the building has become a liability as taxes and upkeep costs pile up without the usual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first time in her life , Marita is on food stamps , $ 15,000 in credit card debt , and owes her landlord over $ 11,000 in unpaid rent .
She has no idea how much she owes in late fees — she ’ s afraid to look .
If Marita gets evicted , she told me her only option will be living in a car .
Marita ’ s story is an extreme case — most of the landlords I spoke with were not on the brink of losing their homes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point about the diversity of Americans burdened by this crisis .
Most affordable housing in America is owned by individual investors or “ mom-and-pop ” landlords .
This can be surprising because many people think of rental property owners as being part of giant corporations , but 41 percent of the nation ’ s 48.2 million rental housing units ( not just affordable housing units ) are owned by these mom-and-pop property owners .
Research from the Urban Institute shows that the average rent in small rental properties is less than “ the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ buildings , and large apartment buildings.
” And in 2018 , “ the median income for a two-to-four-unit landlord was $ 67,000.
” Renters of these units are predominantly Black and Hispanic , and they have the lowest median household income when compared to renters of other types of properties .
This means that renters of small properties tend to be poorer and tend to work in industries that were most harmed by Covid-19 — food service , retail , and construction to name a few .
On top of that , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the least capable of absorbing the loss of income from unpaid rent .
Many of these landlords have mortgages of their own , and all of them are required to maintain their properties — which means operating costs continue even as rent payments decline .
This is what has Malcolm Bennett , a broker and real estate agent in Southern California worried .
His firm oversees around 2,000 units , and he knows many of his property managers don ’ t have enough capital to withstand the downturn .
He ’ s right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have access to credit , according to a March survey .
“ We ’ re not in the eviction business ... we need tenants , ” Bennett told Vox , but “ we ’ re the only industry being asked to carry the burden for the pandemic ... that ’ s what the government is for , they should have given relief [ to renters ] .
” A simple solution on the one hand , a patchwork of complicated half-measures on the other The answer to this complicated problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so they can pay their landlords .
Renters want to pay their landlords .
They don ’ t want to owe tens of thousands of dollars in back rent and late fees .
And landlords want to keep their tenants : Eviction is expensive , frustrating , and emotionally fraught ; moreover , finding a replacement tenant can be hard .
Every expert I spoke with , as well as tenants and landlords , believes that rental assistance is the only holistic solution to stopping this crisis .
“ If they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rent then I think they should pay for the rent !
” Laurie , a landlord in Port Richey , Florida , told Vox .
If sufficiently large , rental assistance could effectively stop evictions for nonpayment of rent because ... people could pay their rent .
Rental assistance would reduce pressure for landlords to search for loopholes to evict their tenants officially or pressure their tenants to leave unofficially .
It also ensures that mom-and-pop landlords have the funds they need to keep their buildings operating and keep America ’ s affordable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months , this tsunami on the horizon has been completely predictable and entirely preventable ; we ’ ve known the solution to this for months , [ the problem ] is the lack of political will , ” said Diane Yentel , president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition .
“ We ’ ve been saying for nine months now that it ’ s going take at least $ 100 billion in rental assistance.
” Lobbyists say there ’ s bipartisan support for some rental assistance , but the size @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would include it is uncertain .
Congress has struggled to get the votes necessary to pass a large stimulus package .
In the meantime , advocates say the most obvious — and needed — first step is simply not allowing the federal moratorium to expire on December 31 .
That alone could help stave off a looming eviction crisis in the dead of winter .
And while the executive branch is at it , Mary Cunningham , the Urban Institute ’ s vice president for metropolitan housing and communities policy , recommends clarifying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the eviction process , putting less of the onus on the tenant to prove financial hardship , and increasing enforcement of the order to ensure landlords are following the law .
These changes could help further reduce evictions .
Experts Vox spoke to also suggested enacting tax relief for landlords and passing a law to cloak the credit scores of renters who are evicted during the pandemic .
Another potential boon might be technical assistance to states on how to use existing federal dollars for rental aid .
( Katherine McKay , senior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Financial Security Program , pointed out that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ( TANF ) and various community development funds could be commandeered for this purpose ) .
But most of the other proposals floating around would either be too limited or too slow to help many people .
Take the idea of tax relief , for example : Not only are most states and localities — the entities that would be offering the tax breaks — already strapped financially because of the pandemic , but people in the real estate industry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very convoluted and operate on too long of a timeline to help mom-and-pop landlords .
The only real solution is rental assistance from the federal government .
“ You know , I lose my home , I lose everything .
I lose my dignity , I lose my pride , ” Marita told Vox .
Advocates are worried nothing could happen by the end of the year .
If they ’ re right , it will be a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe for tens of millions of families in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen .

We know how to prevent up to 40 million people from being evicted. It’s up to Congress to do it.
Share All sharing options for: We know how to prevent up to 40 million people from being evicted. It’s up to Congress to do it.
Seven months into her fight to stay housed, 48-year-old Kimberly is furious.
“I’m angry that people can think so little of human life,” she told Vox.
In 2016 — after massive floods in her hometown of Houston, Texas, left her homeless and she was forced to abandon her cat to stay safe — she thought she’d never be in that position again. She got a job, found a place to live, and rescued three dogs she refers to as her “fur babies.”
But after Covid-19 hit, she lost hours at her job as a crew trainer at Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers and found herself on the brink of financial collapse. She fell behind on her rent and when she tried to work with her landlord to set up a repayment plan, she told Vox that she was served an eviction notice. Now, the only thing keeping her in her home is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) national eviction moratorium, which prohibits landlords from evicting qualifying tenants for failing to make rent.
If she’s evicted, Kimberly says she has nowhere to go — and will be homeless for the second time in five years.
Kimberly isn’t alone. According to research by the Aspen Institute, nearly 40 million Americans could face eviction over the next several months. The only thing holding back the flood right now is the CDC’s eviction moratorium order and a patchwork of state and local protections for renters.
But these moratoriums are only kicking the can down the road. Chief economist for Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi told the Washington Post that tenants could owe nearly $70 billion in back rent by year’s end. And for landlords left holding the bag, there’s been little relief, as they’ve been forced to take on the role of government — subsidizing housing for millions even as their own taxes, mortgage payments, and other expenses are due.
The moratorium is an imperfect solution, and one that leaves a number of renters and landlords hanging. But without Congress passing rental assistance or other stimulus, it’s one of the few things helping keep Americans housed.
Kimberly is angry at Congress, at her landlord, at a system that asks for personal responsibility and calls her an essential worker but has no safety net for people who are fighting to work and to stay housed.
“You’re endangering our lives,” she told Vox. “You’re asking us to stop gathering on Thanksgiving and yet it’s somehow okay to put us on the streets?”
Kimberly, and millions like her, could indeed end up on the streets right as the US rings in the New Year. That’s when the CDC’s eviction moratorium expires — leaving countless Americans on the verge of losing their homes, even as Covid-19 cases continue to surge.
The CDC eviction moratorium, explained
The CDC’s eviction moratorium was an emergency measure; like a hastily applied bandage over a gaping wound, it was never a holistic solution, but it’s what you do to keep yourself alive until you can get to a doctor.
It came together in something of a slapdash way: After a partial eviction moratorium from the CARES Act expired at the end of July, the lack of congressional action left a void of federal protections against eviction. Some states and localities enacted renters protections, but fearing a national emergency, experts, advocates, and tenants began sounding the alarm, pointing to the tangible public health risks of evicting people while a highly contagious respiratory disease was still spreading.
On September 4, the CDC responded to these concerns by invoking its authority under the Public Health Service Act to pass a broad eviction moratorium. The agency’s justification was that evictions could lead to overcrowding and homelessness as those forced to leave their homes searched for alternative housing. It’s hard to follow social distancing orders if you have to double-up at a friend’s or family member’s house, and it’s impossible if you’re homeless and are forced to turn to shelters as a last resort.
Here’s what it does: Until January 1, landlords cannot force tenants out of their homes due to a failure to pay rent, as long as the tenants legally declare they qualify for protection under the order. This means tenants have:
used “best efforts” to get “all available” rent and housing assistance from the government
are below certain income thresholds
are unable to make rent because of a loss of household income, layoff, or “extraordinary” medical expenses
are using “best efforts” to make partial payments
and that eviction would make them homeless or force them to crowd into a new home.
Landlords can still evict tenants for other reasons — like “engaging in criminal activity” or “threatening the health and safety of other residents.” But moratoriums like the CDC’s and the one passed by Congress in the CARES Act succeeded in stopping many evictions. Research by ProPublica shows that the CARES Act reduced evictions, and the Eviction Lab found that between the end of the CARES Act moratorium and the beginning of the CDC moratorium evictions rose, indicating that the current federal protection has had real success at keeping many renters in their homes.
In Louisiana, where tenants are protected primarily by the federal moratorium, Hannah Adams, a staff attorney at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, told Vox that the CDC order has been a “godsend.”
But that’s not the whole story. Loopholes in the CDC’s order have allowed landlords to continue filing evictions. And since many evictions happen to marginalized individuals without access to legal protection and without knowledge of their rights, some are even being evicted illegally.
While at first the federal moratorium appeared to be a blanket federal order stopping all evictions for nonpayment of rent for covered persons, four days after it went into effect the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) sued the CDC over the order, calling it an “unprecedented power grab” and requesting a federal injunction. A month later, the CDC released a non-binding “Frequently Asked Questions” document, which made the controversial claim that the order was not “intended to prevent landlords from starting eviction proceedings, provided that the actual eviction of a covered person for non-payment of rent” doesn’t happen.
That means that property owners can pursue the process of eviction (which is usually a lengthy and multi-step endeavor) up until the actual removal of the tenant. And some have taken advantage of this so that the final steps needed for evictions can begin as soon as moratoriums are lifted.
Other owners, however, have used “just the filing of the eviction as a method of harassing tenants and getting them out [of their homes] even without judicial action,” Eric Tars, legal director of the National Homelessness Law Center, told Vox. Attorneys for indigent defendants in Illinois, Louisiana, and North Carolina told me similar things — people terrified of an eviction record following them around will frequently leave after receiving notice before they officially have to.
Additionally, the CDC told landlords they weren’t required to inform tenants of the federal protection, which means many tenants may not know they have the ability to stay in their homes even if they can’t continue paying rent.
The CDC declined an interview to discuss the moratorium, stating that it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
Lawrence Wood, a supervisory attorney at Legal Aid Chicago, told Vox that in one of his cases a landlord is seeking to evict a woman for nonpayment of rent. Wood says the Cook County sheriff isn’t carrying out any evictions, and the state’s own moratorium prevents people from “commenc[ing]” eviction proceedings for those who qualify; but some landlords are dubiously claiming they can still file the paperwork. Even in a state like Illinois, where the protections are stronger than the CDC’s, there are loopholes that allow some renters to fall through the cracks.
Overall, national, state, and local moratoriums were a needed step in the right direction, according to policymakers and tenant rights advocates. But their imperfect protections have been a huge burden for other groups, who feel the government has dumped its obligation to provide a social safety net on them.
“Everybody’s going to suffer” — renters and small landlords are in a no-win situation
The CDC policy prevents people from being evicted if they can’t pay rent, but at the end of the day, someone has to pay.
“I’m not sure who ends up holding the bag, everybody’s going to suffer — local governments are going to suffer when taxes can’t get paid, banks are going to suffer when they’re not getting paid, bondholders are going to suffer. Everyone’s going to feel the pain,” Greg Brown, senior vice president at the National Apartment Association, which represents over 85,000 members in the rental housing industry and has joined the NCLA’s lawsuit, told Vox.
The moratorium doesn’t include debt forgiveness, and billions in back rent and late fees are accumulating. These costs are piling up not just for big corporations, private equity, and banks but for average Americans like Marita, a 51-year-old from Weatogue, Connecticut, who’s seen her $65,000 annual income dry up during the pandemic.
Marita’s income used to come from a commercial property she co-owned with her two brothers, but after the two occupying restaurants had to shut down, the building has become a liability as taxes and upkeep costs pile up without the usual accompanying rent payments.
Now, for the first time in her life, Marita is on food stamps, $15,000 in credit card debt, and owes her landlord over $11,000 in unpaid rent. She has no idea how much she owes in late fees — she’s afraid to look.
If Marita gets evicted, she told me her only option will be living in a car.
Marita’s story is an extreme case — most of the landlords I spoke with were not on the brink of losing their homes — but her story illustrates an important point about the diversity of Americans burdened by this crisis.
Most affordable housing in America is owned by individual investors or “mom-and-pop” landlords. This can be surprising because many people think of rental property owners as being part of giant corporations, but 41 percent of the nation’s 48.2 million rental housing units (not just affordable housing units) are owned by these mom-and-pop property owners.
Research from the Urban Institute shows that the average rent in small rental properties is less than “the median for single-family rentals, medium-size apartment buildings, and large apartment buildings.” And in 2018, “the median income for a two-to-four-unit landlord was $67,000.” Renters of these units are predominantly Black and Hispanic, and they have the lowest median household income when compared to renters of other types of properties.
This means that renters of small properties tend to be poorer and tend to work in industries that were most harmed by Covid-19 — food service, retail, and construction to name a few. On top of that, the landlords they rent from are some of the least capable of absorbing the loss of income from unpaid rent. Many of these landlords have mortgages of their own, and all of them are required to maintain their properties — which means operating costs continue even as rent payments decline.
This is what has Malcolm Bennett, a broker and real estate agent in Southern California worried. His firm oversees around 2,000 units, and he knows many of his property managers don’t have enough capital to withstand the downturn. He’s right: More than half of mom-and-pop landlords don’t have access to credit, according to a March survey. “We’re not in the eviction business ... we need tenants,” Bennett told Vox, but “we’re the only industry being asked to carry the burden for the pandemic ... that’s what the government is for, they should have given relief [to renters].”
A simple solution on the one hand, a patchwork of complicated half-measures on the other
The answer to this complicated problem is refreshingly simple: Give renters money so they can pay their landlords. Renters want to pay their landlords. They don’t want to owe tens of thousands of dollars in back rent and late fees. And landlords want to keep their tenants: Eviction is expensive, frustrating, and emotionally fraught; moreover, finding a replacement tenant can be hard. Every expert I spoke with, as well as tenants and landlords, believes that rental assistance is the only holistic solution to stopping this crisis.
“If they’re going to make us not charge them rent then I think they should pay for the rent!” Laurie, a landlord in Port Richey, Florida, told Vox.
If sufficiently large, rental assistance could effectively stop evictions for nonpayment of rent because ... people could pay their rent. Rental assistance would reduce pressure for landlords to search for loopholes to evict their tenants officially or pressure their tenants to leave unofficially. It also ensures that mom-and-pop landlords have the funds they need to keep their buildings operating and keep America’s affordable housing stock solvent.
So what’s the problem?
“For nine months, this tsunami on the horizon has been completely predictable and entirely preventable; we’ve known the solution to this for months, [the problem] is the lack of political will,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “We’ve been saying for nine months now that it’s going take at least $100 billion in rental assistance.”
Lobbyists say there’s bipartisan support for some rental assistance, but the size and timing of a relief package that would include it is uncertain. Congress has struggled to get the votes necessary to pass a large stimulus package.
In the meantime, advocates say the most obvious — and needed — first step is simply not allowing the federal moratorium to expire on December 31. That alone could help stave off a looming eviction crisis in the dead of winter.
And while the executive branch is at it, Mary Cunningham, the Urban Institute’s vice president for metropolitan housing and communities policy, recommends clarifying the order to restrict landlords from beginning the eviction process, putting less of the onus on the tenant to prove financial hardship, and increasing enforcement of the order to ensure landlords are following the law. These changes could help further reduce evictions.
Experts Vox spoke to also suggested enacting tax relief for landlords and passing a law to cloak the credit scores of renters who are evicted during the pandemic. Another potential boon might be technical assistance to states on how to use existing federal dollars for rental aid. (Katherine McKay, senior program manager at the Aspen Institute’s Financial Security Program, pointed out that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and various community development funds could be commandeered for this purpose).
But most of the other proposals floating around would either be too limited or too slow to help many people. Take the idea of tax relief, for example: Not only are most states and localities — the entities that would be offering the tax breaks — already strapped financially because of the pandemic, but people in the real estate industry like Bennett suspect the program would be very convoluted and operate on too long of a timeline to help mom-and-pop landlords.
The only real solution is rental assistance from the federal government.
“You know, I lose my home, I lose everything. I lose my dignity, I lose my pride,” Marita told Vox.
Advocates are worried nothing could happen by the end of the year. If they’re right, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe for tens of millions of families in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic.
And none of it had to happen.


vox--2020-11-27--Black Lives Matter helped shape the 2020 election. The movement now has its eyes on Georgia.

The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor set off protests like the nation has never seen — more than 15 million people marched in the name of justice for Black lives this summer .
So it ’ s no surprise that the rallying cry out on the streets was still on voters ’ minds when they cast their ballot in November .
According to preliminary data from AP VoteCast , a comprehensive survey conducted for the Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago , roughly a fifth of all voters said the racial justice protests were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the election .
But just like Americans ’ views on wearing a mask or social distancing , the protests have become a politically divisive issue — 53 percent of those voters went for Biden , 46 percent voted for Trump .
Some conservative voters focused on the small percentage of looting and vandalism associated with the unrest , calling the protests “ childish , ” according to interviews conducted by the New York Times , while progressives and first-time voters were inspired by the movement to make radical change .
In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and protests shaped the results of the election : Many organizers worked to get people out to vote , with Black voters turning out in droves , despite obstacles of voter suppression .
Black voters also helped flip key battleground states like Georgia and Pennsylvania to elect Joe Biden , while voters in cities across the country approved ballot measures on police accountability .
Still , despite these wins , there is much work to be done , according to both activists and Democratic voters .
Patrisse Cullors — one of three women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi — says this work must remain constant and varied .
“ We are going to use protests , ” Cullors told Vox .
“ We ’ re also going to use our power , and the halls of power to make sure change happens.
” This includes launching a political action committee to raise funds to elect and defeat candidates — a big step for a grassroots organization like Black Lives Matter .
Meanwhile , organizers in cities and towns across the country — the movement has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mobilize local communities in the fight against police violence .
I spoke with Cullors about how the protests impacted the elections , how Americans can address the political divide in this country , and what to expect from the organization in the new Biden-Harris administration .
Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity .
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the presidential election .
Democrats flipped key battleground states .
Tell me about the impact the Black Lives Matter movement , and the protests this summer , had on getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wanted to galvanize the energy from the streets this summer and move it to the ballot box .
Just through our massive , multi-million dollar Get-Out-The-Vote efforts , we ’ ve texted 6 million new voters .
We partnered with the Hamilton casts to make absentee ballot instructional videos .
We worked with a live creative agency called Trap Heals , where we did Get-Out-The-Vote drive-in events in California , Michigan , and Georgia .
We also started a “ Dear White People ” campaign , looking at the way in which the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Matter in a negative light , so we started to run ads across the Midwest to combat the demonization of Black Lives Matter .
Most of our work during this election cycle was very much hands-on .
Through our PAC , we signed 6,000 volunteers for 10,000 shifts to phone-bank in battleground states .
We ’ ve knocked on thousands of doors in Miami-Dade , Philadelphia , and Atlanta to bring registered voters to polls on Election Day .
We also endorsed candidates up and down the ballot from the president down to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of our time focused on electives who are going to fight for Black lives and working with Black voters — and new Black voters , in particular — to get them out and to really teach them on how to use mail-in ballots .
Tell me more about the Black Lives Matter PAC and what it ’ s currently focused on .
I know one of the states that Black voters helped flip blue for Joe Biden was Georgia — and much of that was with the help of Black women organizers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate runoff in Georgia , which will dictate which party has the majority ?
For our PAC , we are going to focus all of our efforts on Georgia for the Senate runoff elections .
We ’ re coordinating a coalition of Black-led organizations to ensure we ’ re working together and putting all of our resources together in the best way possible .
We ’ ll be phone banking , texting , knocking doors , running ads in digital and TV to help not just replicate but improve upon the record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are so grateful for the work of Stacey Abrams , Nsé Ufot , LaTosha Brown , and their respective organizations for the groundwork that they ’ ve done in Georgia .
So we want to just build with them and continue to build off of that .
Georgia will decide who controls the Senate , and if we win , then we ’ ll have the political environment for progressive and affirmative legislative agenda ideas .
We know that elected officials , and our current system , isn ’ t a magic fix @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it is an important part .
How do you see Black Lives Matter ’ s relationship with the upcoming Biden administration ?
Tell me about the types of legislation the organization wants to push .
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation sent a letter to Biden and Harris requesting a meeting .
We did that the day they were announced as the Vice President-elect and President-elect .
So we ’ re looking forward to having that meeting with them directly to discuss our agenda .
We believe that we need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It could be comprehensive and intersectional .
During the uprising in the summer , our movement came together with the movement for Black Lives when we wrote the BREATHE Act .
We see it as a modern-day civil rights bill and the legislative love letter to Black people .
The BREATHE Act actually offers a complete reimagining of public safety , it offers community care , and it really reevaluates how we spend money as a society , especially towards the most marginalized parts of our communities .
It ’ s invested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety — and it ’ s really trying to shrink the current criminal legal system that has completely decimated Black people .
The BREATHE Act centers the protection of Black lives , including Black mothers , Black trans people , Black women , and Black men .
So that is going to be a central piece of our work .
Some of the wins this election were ballot measures on police reform , but most of them aren ’ t nearly as radical as defunding the police .
What can we expect to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
What is some of the work you ’ re doing around that ?
We ’ ll be working to support the implementation of Measure J , which is here in Los Angeles County .
It doesn ’ t defund police , but that ’ s an oversimplification .
What it does is actually allow for Los Angeles to fund solely a non-punitive system .
And while in the short term , it may not defund the police , in the long term , it offers us an opportunity to show elected officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work .
And if we could show them by proving it to them , by investing in communities , then , in fact , the social service of policing will be a shrinking system .
Black Lives Matter has been around for over seven years now .
Tell me what it was like to see a shift this summer — white people in suburbs and small towns actually chanting “ Black Lives Matter ” and putting signs in their windows — and is that shift something we can hold on to ?
Yes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on to it as long as we fight for it .
We know that once the GOP started to see the power of Black Lives Matter , especially in this election year , they went after us .
They demonized us .
And so we saw the number of white people that stopped defending Black Lives Matter based on the polls .
We need people to not allow for fear-mongering to stop them from being allies of our movement .
We need them to see the necessity of this movement .
The political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stark — from wearing masks to election misinformation to views on policing to even the nationwide protests this summer .
How is Black Lives Matter working to cover the gap ?
How should other folks fill that divide ?
Our elected officials are divided on a lot , but when you talk about division , I think one of the main issues is access to our democracy .
We ’ re keeping people out of the system , primarily Black and brown and low-income folks , so what we end up with is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divide when that ’ s not actually the case .
We ’ re looking at the Electoral College that makes votes in Wyoming count way more than votes in California , which makes very little sense outside of the racist structure of the Electoral College .
The filibuster lets one senator hold up legislation that the majority agrees upon .
Our current court system is packed with ultra-conservatives who are willing to strike down voting rights , health care , and is now actively hostile towards abortion rights , and queer and trans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot about voter ID laws , and other forms of suppression that keep people of color from voting at disproportionate rates .
And the most obvious is our two-party system that reinforces these political divides .
We need an additional political party or more for poor and working-class , Black and brown families .
The unfortunate reality is the system keeps people ’ s voices silenced , and it makes our government work worse .
What Black Lives Matter is really calling for is real democracy — a democracy that creates a progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country to enjoy the fruits of democracy .
With a Biden-Harris win , clearly the work is not yet done and there ’ s no magic fix to systemic racism .
What kind of short-term and long-term changes and reforms do you think everyday people should focus on when it comes to racial justice and holding the police and elected officials accountable ?
Keep fighting locally .
The work at the local level is the most important work .
What we do at the local level impacts the national work .
Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PAC are going to keep doing the work to build a world where all Black lives matter .
When it comes to bringing the movement to the halls of power , we are particularly thrilled to see folks like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman , who are part of the movement , taking that step into the political arena .
I just want to pick Cori Bush up , because she ’ s a perfect example of the type of people we need inside .
She went from the street and now she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represents us unapologetically .
Our movement will never lie to people and say get this person in office and everything you ’ ve desired will come true , because that ’ s not true .
History has shown that to us .
If it were , Black Lives Matter would not need to exist .
What we do believe is that we have to be in the streets organizing for a better future for our people .
It ’ s about building a political environment .
It ’ s about building a social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re gon na have awful candidates — and we can ’ t stop fighting .
We have to fight for change .
We saw that for four years , we essentially lived in purgatory in this country because of what Donald Trump did to marginalized people .
But our movement did not stop fighting .
We didn ’ t put down the baton because we had a fascist in office .
In fact , we grew stronger — so we see ourselves being able to maintain that strength and build that @ @

The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor set off protests like the nation has never seen — more than 15 million people marched in the name of justice for Black lives this summer. So it’s no surprise that the rallying cry out on the streets was still on voters’ minds when they cast their ballot in November.
According to preliminary data from AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey conducted for the Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago, roughly a fifth of all voters said the racial justice protests were the single most important factor when voting in the election.
But just like Americans’ views on wearing a mask or social distancing, the protests have become a politically divisive issue — 53 percent of those voters went for Biden, 46 percent voted for Trump. Some conservative voters focused on the small percentage of looting and vandalism associated with the unrest, calling the protests “childish,” according to interviews conducted by the New York Times, while progressives and first-time voters were inspired by the movement to make radical change.
In the end, the Black Lives Matter movement and protests shaped the results of the election: Many organizers worked to get people out to vote, with Black voters turning out in droves, despite obstacles of voter suppression. Black voters also helped flip key battleground states like Georgia and Pennsylvania to elect Joe Biden, while voters in cities across the country approved ballot measures on police accountability.
Still, despite these wins, there is much work to be done, according to both activists and Democratic voters. Patrisse Cullors — one of three women founders of Black Lives Matter, along with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi — says this work must remain constant and varied.
“We are going to use protests,” Cullors told Vox. “We’re also going to use our power, and the halls of power to make sure change happens.”
This includes launching a political action committee to raise funds to elect and defeat candidates, a big step for a grassroots organization like Black Lives Matter. Meanwhile, organizers in cities and towns across the country — the movement has no single leader — will continue to mobilize local communities in the fight against police violence.
I spoke with Cullors about how the protests impacted the elections, how Americans can address the political divide in this country, and what to expect from the organization in the new Biden-Harris administration. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Rachel Ramirez
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the presidential election. Democrats flipped key battleground states. Tell me about the impact the Black Lives Matter movement, and the protests this summer, had on getting people out to vote.
Patrisse Cullors
We really wanted to galvanize the energy from the streets this summer and move it to the ballot box. Just through our massive, multi-million dollar Get-Out-The-Vote efforts, we’ve texted 6 million new voters. We partnered with the Hamilton casts to make absentee ballot instructional videos.
We worked with a live creative agency called Trap Heals, where we did Get-Out-The-Vote drive-in events in California, Michigan, and Georgia. We also started a “Dear White People” campaign, looking at the way in which the GOP was trying to paint Black Lives Matter in a negative light, so we started to run ads across the Midwest to combat the demonization of Black Lives Matter.
Most of our work during this election cycle was very much hands-on. Through our PAC, we signed up 6,000 volunteers for 10,000 shifts to phone-bank in battleground states. We’ve knocked on thousands of doors in Miami-Dade [County], Philadelphia, and Atlanta to bring registered voters to polls on Election Day.
We also endorsed candidates up and down the ballot from the president down to the school board. We spent a lot of our time focused on electives who are going to fight for Black lives and working with Black voters — and new Black voters, in particular — to get them out and to really teach them on how to use mail-in ballots.
Rachel Ramirez
Tell me more about the Black Lives Matter PAC and what it’s currently focused on. I know one of the states that Black voters helped flip blue for Joe Biden was Georgia — and much of that was with the help of Black women organizers. What are your current efforts for the Senate runoff in Georgia, which will dictate which party has the majority?
Patrisse Cullors
For our PAC, we are going to focus all of our efforts on Georgia for the Senate runoff elections. We’re coordinating a coalition of Black-led organizations to ensure we’re working together and putting all of our resources together in the best way possible. We’ll be phone banking, texting, knocking doors, running ads in digital and TV to help not just replicate but improve upon the record turnout we saw in November.
We are so grateful for the work of Stacey Abrams, Nsé Ufot, LaTosha Brown, and their respective organizations for the groundwork that they’ve done in Georgia. So we want to just build with them and continue to build off of that. Georgia will decide who controls the Senate, and if we win, then we’ll have the political environment for progressive and affirmative legislative agenda ideas. We know that elected officials, and our current system, isn’t a magic fix to getting Black people closer to freedom, but it is an important part.
Rachel Ramirez
How do you see Black Lives Matter’s relationship with the upcoming Biden administration? Tell me about the types of legislation the organization wants to push.
Patrisse Cullors
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation sent a letter to Biden and Harris requesting a meeting. We did that the day they were announced as the Vice President-elect and President-elect. So we’re looking forward to having that meeting with them directly to discuss our agenda. We believe that we need legislation that affirms and values Black lives. It could be comprehensive and intersectional.
During the uprising in the summer, our movement came together with the Movement for Black Lives when we wrote the BREATHE Act. We see it as a modern-day civil rights bill and the legislative love letter to Black people.
The BREATHE Act actually offers a complete reimagining of public safety, it offers community care, and it really reevaluates how we spend money as a society, especially towards the most marginalized parts of our communities.
It’s invested in non-punitive and non-carceral approaches to community safety — and it’s really trying to shrink the current criminal legal system that has completely decimated Black people. The BREATHE Act centers the protection of Black lives, including Black mothers, Black trans people, Black women, and Black men. So that is going to be a central piece of our work.
Rachel Ramirez
Some of the wins this election were ballot measures on police reform, but most of them aren’t nearly as radical as defunding the police. What can we expect to see in the future on upcoming ballots? What is some of the work you’re doing around that?
Patrisse Cullors
We’ll be working to support the implementation of Measure J, which is here in Los Angeles County. It doesn’t defund police, but that’s an oversimplification. What it does is actually allow for Los Angeles to fund solely a non-punitive system.
And while in the short term, it may not defund the police, in the long term, it offers us an opportunity to show elected officials that policing and incarceration don’t work. And if we could show them by proving it to them, by investing in communities, then, in fact, the social service of policing will be a shrinking system.
Rachel Ramirez
Black Lives Matter has been around for over seven years now. Tell me what it was like to see a shift this summer — white people in suburbs and small towns actually chanting “Black Lives Matter” and putting signs in their windows — and is that shift something we can hold on to?
Patrisse Cullors
Yes, I think that we can hold on to it as long as we fight for it. We know that once the GOP started to see the power of Black Lives Matter, especially in this election year, they went after us. They demonized us. And so we saw the number of white people that stopped defending Black Lives Matter based on the polls. We need people to not allow for fear-mongering to stop them from being allies of our movement. We need them to see the necessity of this movement.
Rachel Ramirez
The political divide in this country is still so stark — from wearing masks to election misinformation to views on policing to even the nationwide protests this summer. How is Black Lives Matter working to cover the gap? How should other folks fill that divide?
Patrisse Cullors
Our elected officials are divided on a lot, but when you talk about division, I think one of the main issues is access to our democracy. We’re keeping people out of the system, primarily Black and brown and low-income folks, so what we end up with is a political system that has this artificial divide when that’s not actually the case.
We’re looking at the Electoral College that makes votes in Wyoming count way more than votes in California, which makes very little sense outside of the racist structure of the Electoral College.
The filibuster lets one senator hold up legislation that the majority agrees upon. Our current court system is packed with ultra-conservatives who are willing to strike down voting rights, health care, and is now actively hostile towards abortion rights, and queer and trans rights. I’m thinking a lot about voter ID laws, and other forms of suppression that keep people of color from voting at disproportionate rates. And the most obvious is our two-party system that reinforces these political divides. We need an additional political party or more for poor and working-class, Black and brown families.
The unfortunate reality is the system keeps people’s voices silenced, and it makes our government work worse. What Black Lives Matter is really calling for is real democracy — a democracy that creates a progressive agenda that allows for everybody inside of this country to enjoy the fruits of democracy.
Rachel Ramirez
With a Biden-Harris win, clearly the work is not yet done and there’s no magic fix to systemic racism. What kind of short-term and long-term changes and reforms do you think everyday people should focus on when it comes to racial justice and holding the police and elected officials accountable?
Patrisse Cullors
Keep fighting locally. The work at the local level is the most important work. What we do at the local level impacts the national work. Our Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter PAC are going to keep doing the work to build a world where all Black lives matter. When it comes to bringing the movement to the halls of power, we are particularly thrilled to see folks like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, who are part of the movement, taking that step into the political arena.
I just want to pick Cori Bush up, because she’s a perfect example of the type of people we need inside. She went from the street and now she’s in Congress, and she represents us unapologetically. Our movement will never lie to people and say, get this person in office and everything you’ve desired will come true, because that’s not true. History has shown that to us. If it were, Black Lives Matter would not need to exist.
What we do believe is that we have to be in the streets organizing for a better future for our people. It’s about building a political environment. It’s about building a social environment and a cultural environment. Sometimes we’re gonna have awful candidates — and we can’t stop fighting. We have to fight for change. We saw that for four years, we essentially lived in purgatory in this country because of what Donald Trump did to marginalized people. But our movement did not stop fighting. We didn’t put down the baton because we had a fascist in office. In fact, we grew stronger — so we see ourselves being able to maintain that strength and build that strength.


vox--2020-11-27--The challenge of combating fake news in Asian American communities

Less than a week after Election Day , a spreadsheet titled “ Battling Asian American Misinformation ” began circulating in progressive Asian American social media circles , primarily among those of Vietnamese and Chinese descent .
The most popular YouTube channels flagged on the spreadsheet accumulated hundreds of thousands of subscribers , in which pundits discussed misleading claims about election fraud , Hunter Biden ’ s relationship with China ( a conspiracy disseminated by pro-Trump figures ) , and the Chinese Communist Party ’ s meddling in the presidential election .
Below some of these clips , YouTube included a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had called the election for Joe Biden .
But beyond that small disclaimer , most channels were still monetized and still easily discoverable .
Flagging it to YouTube , as some soon realized , amounted to doing nothing .
The election might be over , but the uphill battle against online misinformation , notably within first-generation immigrant communities , wages on .
According to CNN ’ s exit polling , Biden won over the majority of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters this presidential election — 61 percent of AAPI voters supported Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump .
But if Democrats want to maintain a sizable lead , especially within specific ethnic groups where Democratic support has waned , they must address the growing issue of native-language misinformation , according to grassroots organizers and community activists .
Because upon disaggregating voter data — something few non-Asian polling organizations and publications tend to do — the political tendencies of this demographic are more complex and less predictable than meets the eye .
A quarter of AAPI voters identify as independent , and as more people become naturalized citizens each cycle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slate of voters they ’ re able to court .
Data from the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey showed that out of the six ethnic groups surveyed , Vietnamese Americans were the only ones to express more support for Trump ( 48 percent ) than Biden ( 36 percent ) .
When factoring in surveys that extend back to 2012 , however , data suggests that Republican margins , while still in the minority , are increasing .
While some Asian experts thought AAPI voters might be turned off by Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-Asian sentiments ) , surveys suggest that a not-insignificant minority of the electorate are not just tolerating it but have bought into the rhetoric , in addition to the rampant conspiracy theories .
Progressive Asian American organizers say online misinformation , specifically regarding the Democrats and the president-elect , played a role in exposing Asian American voters to more radical right-wing views since 2016 .
First-generation immigrants who have a contentious history with China and communist governments — such as those from Cambodia , Taiwan , Vietnam , and Laos — are more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made about China and its supposed impact on the election and the Democratic Party ’ s “ socialist ” tendencies .
Nonpartisan organizations , like APIAVote , are also concerned about how voters with limited English proficiency are vulnerable to disinformation about the voting process .
Some fretted over the reliability of mail-in ballots , voter safety at the polls , and if their ballot would be counted if they voted for certain candidates .
“ This election cycle , we were involved with a larger network of community organizations to make sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election process , ” Christine Chen , executive of APIAVote , told Vox .
“ It appeared that certain communities were more vulnerable and targeted , with the information translated into their language and posted onto WeChat or Facebook.
” The organization and its community partners don ’ t expect the torrent of fake news to subside post-election ; these campaigns can have a future impact on how Asian Americans participate and vote in upcoming elections , including the Georgia Senate runoff elections , which could determine whether Biden will be able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be hard to track , due to the language and platform diversity of the AAPI community The AAPI community is the fastest-growing electorate in the US , according to the Pew Research Center , growing from 4.6 million in 2000 to 11.1 million in 2020 .
Yet the categorization of “ Asian American and Pacific Islander ” is broad and vague , and rarely used as a self-identifier .
There is little to no political solidarity among most of these voters , especially first-generation immigrants , who hail from different cultural , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political histories and sensitivities .
To put it simply , the Asian American electorate is overwhelmingly diverse .
Different ethnic groups communicate and receive news on different chat and social media platforms beyond the tech behemoths of Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram , popular among English-language voters .
Since the AAPI umbrella represents voters from more than 30 different ethnic groups and languages , misinformation campaigns within these communities are challenging to track .
For example , Chinese Americans who hail from mainland China tend to use WeChat , while those from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WhatsApp , respectively .
Korean Americans have KakaoTalk , Vietnamese Americans mostly rely on Facebook , and many Indian Americans use WhatsApp .
Meanwhile , many immigrants with limited English proficiency naturally gravitate toward native-language media — television , radio , and print media — that is produced in the US or from their home country , which might carry its own individual biases .
“ I don ’ t know if there is a liberal Korean newspaper in America , ” said Jeong Park , a reporter who formerly covered the Asian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the lead-up to the election , Park noticed that Korea Daily , the largest US newspaper for Korean Americans , began to produce videos that alleged election fraud and corruption within the Biden family , which garnered hundreds of thousands of views .
“ Korean newspapers are mostly moderate to conservative and work to amplify the voices of the business class , but I ’ m pretty alarmed at how those videos have so many views , ” he said .
The same dynamic exists among Vietnamese US-based media , according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a project launched by the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization ( PIVOT ) .
“ In our own efforts to raise awareness in our community , we ’ ve been turned down or muzzled by Vietnamese-language press because of the fear of offending advertisers or the readership , ” said Nick Nguyen , the group ’ s research lead .
“ The same pay-for-eyeballs phenomenon across the internet is also taking place here.
” Consistent among most Asian American organizers who spoke with Vox was the concern with the Epoch Times ’ s media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dynasty Television ( NTD TV ) and China Uncensored , which have 1.29 million and 1.48 million YouTube subscribers , respectively .
That ’ s a conservative estimate of the Epoch Times ’ s reach ; its affiliates have separate YouTube channels and Facebook pages across multiple languages , all with hundreds of thousands of followers or subscribers .
These pages employ a “ sophisticated translation operation , ” one activist described , in disseminating articles and videos on Facebook and YouTube with an anti-China slant .
Since misinformation experts and researchers usually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there is little comprehensive research on how this phenomenon impacts AAPI voters as a whole .
Groups like APIAVote , though , are anticipating misinformation will be a recurring tactic in future elections .
“ We ’ re working with community-based organizations that have a presence on each of these platforms , ” Chen said .
“ Based on what we ’ ve seen in the African American and Latino community , these types of fear-based attacks are also affecting our ethnic communities.
” The types of false narratives Asian Americans encounter online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or Spanish-language media .
Some voters are already avid viewers and readers of One America News , Newsmax , or Fox News , and seeing content in their native language may only reaffirm existing beliefs .
“ The core of this tactic relies on people ’ s sense of insecurity and fear by misinterpreting certain policies or outcomes , ” said Sunny Shao of AAPI Data , who has done research on social media rhetoric , WeChat , and Chinese American voter behavior .
“ Sometimes it can be straight-out misinformation , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twist.
” “ Sometimes it can be straight-out misinformation , but oftentimes , there ’ s a cultural twist ” Inaccurate or false news about the presidential election results generally relies on similar narratives perpetrated on some English conservative channels and sites , like Breitbart and the Daily Caller : that voter fraud is a pervasive issue in the US or that Beijing favors Biden .
Some content also stokes racial tensions by preying on anti-Black prejudices , in light of images from this summer ’ s Black Lives Matter protests and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have .
These biased narratives are usually oversimplified and presented without nuance , which make them easily digestible for audiences with limited English and cultural context .
Some unfounded claims , like that of Biden being a radical socialist , aren ’ t aimed at a specific community , as Recode ’ s Shirin Ghaffary reported .
Yet they find resonance among Latino and Asian immigrants distrustful of communist governments , whose suspicions can lead them down information echo chambers that further solidifies these conspiratorial beliefs .
Research shows that people are more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sources they ’ re familiar with — friends , family , or those within their cultural community on Facebook groups , YouTube channels , or Instagram pages .
As a result , peer-to-peer sharing within closed chat groups on platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram are driving the spread .
And the misinformation is not just from one source : These information networks can overlap , and first-generation immigrants might be swayed by perceptions of US politics from their home country , according to anecdotes from community members .
For example , analysis of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken a proactive stance against domestic disinformation — has largely been in favor of Trump , said Rath Wang , communications director of Taiwanese Americans for Progress .
While the Taiwanese government did not officially endorse any presidential candidate , its media ecosystem is still skewed .
Pre-election polls by YouGov found Taiwan to be the only one out of 15 European and Asian states with citizens favoring Trump over Biden .
Several prominent Chinese dissidents have also promoted the message that Republicans and Donald Trump are the only ones who can stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Wang added .
It doesn ’ t help that most Americans traditionally lump the Chinese diaspora under the “ Chinese American ” umbrella , which overlooks the population ’ s geopolitical complexity .
Immigrant voters who still have ties to their home country deeply care about foreign policy , and this generalizing “ ignores the community ’ s political diversity , ” Wang said .
A similar development has occurred in Vietnam , whose state media is predominantly pro-Trump .
There , the Epoch Times — under the name Dai Ky Nguyen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , anti-China pages , which soon became one of the country ’ s largest Facebook publishers .
The New York Times described the operation as “ a Vietnamese experiment , ” and the Vietnam team was reportedly tapped to build the US arm of the Epoch Times ’ s operation in 2017 .
This misinformation network has become “ a force in right-wing media , ” the New York Times reported , commanding tens of millions of social media followers on Facebook and Youtube spread across dozens of English and foreign-language pages .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Epoch Times are superspreaders of misinformation , and it ’ s not clear from their Facebook or YouTube presence where they come from , ” said Deanna Tran , Viet Fact Check ’ s operations lead .
“ It ’ s shared on multiple platforms at the same time , and then it gets absorbed into our communities and makes it seem like it ’ s homegrown , when in fact there might be outside influence involved potentially.
” “ It ’ s shared on multiple platforms at the same time , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and makes it seem like it ’ s homegrown ” Misinformation can also be community-specific , varying by region or by ethnic enclave .
In early November , ProPublica reported that at least two dozen groups on WeChat had spread misinformation about how the federal government was “ preparing to mobilize ” in the case of riots on Election Day , in an attempt to frighten Chinese voters to stay home .
Reuters also reported that several nonpartisan South Asian groups worked together to correct fake news about the voting process on WhatsApp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ It ’ s not that we only have a WeChat or a WhatsApp problem ; these platforms are accelerants , ” said Vincent Pan , executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and co-founder of Asian Americans Against Trump , who is familiar with misinformation on WeChat .
“ It accelerates a lot of vulnerabilities that Chinese and other Asian immigrants with limited English proficiency have .
They live in scarcity , under tremendous social and economic pressure and uncertainty.
” “ Meet the community where they ’ re at ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ platforms and political parties While the potential for misinformation on these platforms is known , the effort to stanch the spread has primarily fallen to the hands of grassroots organizers from within these ethnic communities .
These efforts also vary by ethnic group .
Community members are tasked with not just finding and reporting fake news but actively debunking these claims and becoming an accurate , neutral news source — often with little manpower and financial support .
According to Pan , the non-English social media landscape is usually homogeneous , operating as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is done .
“ There ’ s not the same level of balance , in terms of political balance or racial and ethnic balance , ” he said .
“ It ’ s a priority of ours to meet the community where they ’ re at.
” This “ data void ” is also occurring in the Latino community , as Vox ’ s Ghaffary has reported : “ There are only two major Spanish-language broadcast news networks in the US : Univision and Telemundo .
This leaves room for media operations — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ via local radio channels and newspapers — to spread less accurate reporting , ” according to a Spanish misinformation researcher .
While accurate and nonpartisan sources of information in Asian languages do exist , they are few and far between , and their online presence can ’ t compete against viral posts with an inflammatory or biased slant .
“ The message discipline in conservative media is amazing , ” said Nguyen of Viet Fact Check .
“ Think of the juggernauts we ’ re facing , and there are no progressive alternative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we just try to keep a very neutral and fact-based tone.
” But platforms too have a responsibility to mitigate the spread of non-English misinformation , Nguyen added , as this phenomenon is no longer unique to the English-speaking population .
While Facebook announced it will take measures to stem election misinformation related to the vote count , similar content remains accessible on YouTube and is gaining traction .
One researcher told Recode that YouTube doesn ’ t appear to actively push such content , which is “ somewhat hard to find @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the platform ’ s moderation focus is less strict surrounding foreign-language misinformation on US elections .
Viet Fact Check , a volunteer-run group , has tried to register as an independent fact-checker on Facebook , but faced obstacles to verification .
“ I ’ m comfortable saying we are the No .
1 neutral-to-progressive fact-checking Vietnamese source in the US , ” Nguyen said .
“ And while Facebook has tried to mobilize third-party groups to fact-check , we ’ re not technically a media organization .
We ’ re all volunteers.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , nor is it sustainable .
Organizers say Democrats need to commit to outreach and budget in translation services to reach these historically overlooked communities .
“ The Democratic Party needs to recognize that there are certain political sensitivities within the Asian American umbrella , ” said Wang of Taiwanese Americans for Progress .
“ For Taiwanese Americans , it ’ s crucial that candidates express their backing for Taiwan .
… Since Trump has been so vocal about China , many believe that he will take action to support Taiwan.
” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are certain political sensitivities within the Asian American umbrella ” It ’ s also a matter of trust .
About half of AAPI voters in the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey have not been contacted by a major party , a huge missed opportunity , according to Shao , the researcher from AAPI Data .
Pockets of Asian American voters live in battleground states and can be a deciding factor in congressional or state legislature races .
There are both cultural and language barriers that prevent people from breaking through the misinformation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigrants lack the civic knowledge about how elections work , thus relying on community-driven translated content that might not always be true .
A direct approach from political parties and candidates , then , could make a difference in how these voters perceive certain policies and elections .
On-the-ground regional or state-level work is required to disaggregate and disentangle the myth of the “ AAPI voter ” and their varying interests .
“ We ran Asian-language ads and direct mail in four to five different swing states against vulnerable Republicans , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The parties and candidates weren ’ t doing it themselves , and it was too frustrating to sit and watch our communities go the wrong way.
” In late October , Bloomberg reported that Asian American voters could “ play a decisive role ” in turning Georgia blue , with Indian Americans as the state ’ s largest Asian ethnic group .
With Georgia ’ s upcoming Senate runoff race in January , the AAPI vote is similarly coveted .
These voters could be crucial in swaying elections in races that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politicians — at the regional , state , and national levels — should be focused on investing and distributing more resources .
“ We ’ ve realized that if we can ’ t always rely on regulatory protections from Facebook or backing from a national party , ” Pan said .
“ We have to organize .
”

Less than a week after Election Day, a spreadsheet titled “Battling Asian American Misinformation” began circulating in progressive Asian American social media circles, primarily among those of Vietnamese and Chinese descent.
The most popular YouTube channels flagged on the spreadsheet accumulated hundreds of thousands of subscribers, in which pundits discussed misleading claims about election fraud, Hunter Biden’s relationship with China (a conspiracy disseminated by pro-Trump figures), and the Chinese Communist Party’s meddling in the presidential election. Below some of these clips, YouTube included a label informing viewers that the Associated Press had called the election for Joe Biden. But beyond that small disclaimer, most channels were still monetized and still easily discoverable. Flagging it to YouTube, as some soon realized, amounted to doing nothing.
The election might be over, but the uphill battle against online misinformation, notably within first-generation immigrant communities, wages on.
According to CNN’s exit polling, Biden won over the majority of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters this presidential election — 61 percent of AAPI voters supported Biden, while 34 percent backed President Donald Trump. But if Democrats want to maintain a sizable lead, especially within specific ethnic groups where Democratic support has waned, they must address the growing issue of native-language misinformation, according to grassroots organizers and community activists.
Because upon disaggregating voter data — something few non-Asian polling organizations and publications tend to do — the political tendencies of this demographic are more complex and less predictable than meets the eye. A quarter of AAPI voters identify as independent, and as more people become naturalized citizens each cycle, Democrats and Republicans have a fresh slate of voters they’re able to court.
Data from the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey showed that out of the six ethnic groups surveyed, Vietnamese Americans were the only ones to express more support for Trump (48 percent) than Biden (36 percent). When factoring in surveys that extend back to 2012, however, data suggests that Republican margins, while still in the minority, are increasing. While some Asian experts thought AAPI voters might be turned off by Trump’s harsh xenophobic language (which fed into anti-Asian sentiments), surveys suggest that a not-insignificant minority of the electorate are not just tolerating it but have bought into the rhetoric, in addition to the rampant conspiracy theories.
Progressive Asian American organizers say online misinformation, specifically regarding the Democrats and the president-elect, played a role in exposing Asian American voters to more radical right-wing views since 2016. First-generation immigrants who have a contentious history with China and communist governments — such as those from Cambodia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Laos — are more susceptible to the false claims Trump has made about China and its supposed impact on the election and the Democratic Party’s “socialist” tendencies.
Nonpartisan organizations, like APIAVote, are also concerned about how voters with limited English proficiency are vulnerable to disinformation about the voting process. Some fretted over the reliability of mail-in ballots, voter safety at the polls, and if their ballot would be counted if they voted for certain candidates.
“This election cycle, we were involved with a larger network of community organizations to make sure we fought back on disinformation about the election process,” Christine Chen, executive of APIAVote, told Vox. “It appeared that certain communities were more vulnerable and targeted, with the information translated into their language and posted onto WeChat or Facebook.”
The organization and its community partners don’t expect the torrent of fake news to subside post-election; these campaigns can have a future impact on how Asian Americans participate and vote in upcoming elections, including the Georgia Senate runoff elections, which could determine whether Biden will be able to push through his agenda.
Misinformation campaigns can be hard to track, due to the language and platform diversity of the AAPI community
The AAPI community is the fastest-growing electorate in the US, according to the Pew Research Center, growing from 4.6 million in 2000 to 11.1 million in 2020. Yet the categorization of “Asian American and Pacific Islander” is broad and vague, and rarely used as a self-identifier. There is little to no political solidarity among most of these voters, especially first-generation immigrants, who hail from different cultural, economic, and religious backgrounds with varying political histories and sensitivities. To put it simply, the Asian American electorate is overwhelmingly diverse.
Different ethnic groups communicate and receive news on different chat and social media platforms beyond the tech behemoths of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, popular among English-language voters. Since the AAPI umbrella represents voters from more than 30 different ethnic groups and languages, misinformation campaigns within these communities are challenging to track.
For example, Chinese Americans who hail from mainland China tend to use WeChat, while those from Taiwan and Hong Kong use Line and WhatsApp, respectively. Korean Americans have KakaoTalk, Vietnamese Americans mostly rely on Facebook, and many Indian Americans use WhatsApp. Meanwhile, many immigrants with limited English proficiency naturally gravitate toward native-language media — television, radio, and print media — that is produced in the US or from their home country, which might carry its own individual biases.
“I don’t know if there is a liberal Korean newspaper in America,” said Jeong Park, a reporter who formerly covered the Asian American community for the Orange County Register. In the lead-up to the election, Park noticed that Korea Daily, the largest US newspaper for Korean Americans, began to produce videos that alleged election fraud and corruption within the Biden family, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
“Korean newspapers are mostly moderate to conservative and work to amplify the voices of the business class, but I’m pretty alarmed at how those videos have so many views,” he said.
And a lot of Korean Americans also watch videos from Korean conservative YouTubers -- which has also spent some of their time promoting Hunter Biden scandal/conspiracy theory: https://t.co/ze5aRVqGdV — Jeong Park (@JeongPark52) November 5, 2020
The same dynamic exists among Vietnamese US-based media, according to volunteers at Viet Fact Check, a project launched by the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization (PIVOT). “In our own efforts to raise awareness in our community, we’ve been turned down or muzzled by Vietnamese-language press because of the fear of offending advertisers or the readership,” said Nick Nguyen, the group’s research lead. “The same pay-for-eyeballs phenomenon across the internet is also taking place here.”
Consistent among most Asian American organizers who spoke with Vox was the concern with the Epoch Times’s media empire — including affiliates like New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD TV) and China Uncensored, which have 1.29 million and 1.48 million YouTube subscribers, respectively. That’s a conservative estimate of the Epoch Times’s reach; its affiliates have separate YouTube channels and Facebook pages across multiple languages, all with hundreds of thousands of followers or subscribers. These pages employ a “sophisticated translation operation,” one activist described, in disseminating articles and videos on Facebook and YouTube with an anti-China slant.
Since misinformation experts and researchers usually specialize in one language or platform, there is little comprehensive research on how this phenomenon impacts AAPI voters as a whole. Groups like APIAVote, though, are anticipating misinformation will be a recurring tactic in future elections.
“We’re working with community-based organizations that have a presence on each of these platforms,” Chen said. “Based on what we’ve seen in the African American and Latino community, these types of fear-based attacks are also affecting our ethnic communities.”
How overlapping information networks can fuel false narratives
The types of false narratives Asian Americans encounter online are not wholly distinct from misleading English- or Spanish-language media. Some voters are already avid viewers and readers of One America News, Newsmax, or Fox News, and seeing content in their native language may only reaffirm existing beliefs.
“The core of this tactic relies on people’s sense of insecurity and fear by misinterpreting certain policies or outcomes,” said Sunny Shao of AAPI Data, who has done research on social media rhetoric, WeChat, and Chinese American voter behavior. “Sometimes it can be straight-out misinformation, but oftentimes, there’s a cultural twist.”
“Sometimes it can be straight-out misinformation, but oftentimes, there’s a cultural twist”
Inaccurate or false news about the presidential election results generally relies on similar narratives perpetrated on some English-language conservative channels and sites, like Breitbart and the Daily Caller: that voter fraud is a pervasive issue in the US or that Beijing favors Biden. Some content also stokes racial tensions by preying on anti-Black prejudices, in light of images from this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests and the “scarcity mindset” that some immigrants have. These biased narratives are usually oversimplified and presented without nuance, which make them easily digestible for audiences with limited English and cultural context.
Some unfounded claims, like that of Biden being a radical socialist, aren’t aimed at a specific community, as Recode’s Shirin Ghaffary reported. Yet they find resonance among Latino and Asian immigrants distrustful of communist governments, whose suspicions can lead them down information echo chambers that further solidifies these conspiratorial beliefs.
It's interesting to see the Taiwanese trying to take down 中天 but quoting Breitbart and Bannon and the same time https://t.co/JRgOpO64AU — Jocelyn 羅 (@jocelkx) November 15, 2020
Research shows that people are more likely to trust information that originates from sources they’re familiar with — friends, family, or those within their cultural community on Facebook groups, YouTube channels, or Instagram pages. As a result, peer-to-peer sharing within closed chat groups on platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram are driving the spread. And the misinformation is not just from one source: These information networks can overlap, and first-generation immigrants might be swayed by perceptions of US politics from their home country, according to anecdotes from community members.
For example, analysis of American politics from Taiwan — which has taken a proactive stance against domestic disinformation — has largely been in favor of Trump, said Rath Wang, communications director of Taiwanese Americans for Progress. While the Taiwanese government did not officially endorse any presidential candidate, its media ecosystem is still skewed. Pre-election polls by YouGov found Taiwan to be the only one out of 15 European and Asian states with citizens favoring Trump over Biden.
Several prominent Chinese dissidents have also promoted the message that Republicans and Donald Trump are the only ones who can “stop China” from politically encroaching on Taiwan, Wang added. It doesn’t help that most Americans traditionally lump the Chinese diaspora under the “Chinese American” umbrella, which overlooks the population’s geopolitical complexity. Immigrant voters who still have ties to their home country deeply care about foreign policy, and this generalizing “ignores the community’s political diversity,” Wang said.
A similar development has occurred in Vietnam, whose state media is predominantly pro-Trump. There, the Epoch Times — under the name Dai Ky Nguyen — developed an experimental network of pro-Trump, anti-China pages, which soon became one of the country’s largest Facebook publishers. The New York Times described the operation as “a Vietnamese experiment,” and the Vietnam team was reportedly tapped to build the US arm of the Epoch Times’s operation in 2017. This misinformation network has become “a force in right-wing media,” the New York Times reported, commanding tens of millions of social media followers on Facebook and YouTube spread across dozens of English and foreign-language pages.
“A lot of channels like the Epoch Times are superspreaders of misinformation, and it’s not clear from their Facebook or YouTube presence where they come from,” said Deanna Tran, Viet Fact Check’s operations lead. “It’s shared on multiple platforms at the same time, and then it gets absorbed into our communities and makes it seem like it’s homegrown, when in fact there might be outside influence involved potentially.”
“It’s shared on multiple platforms at the same time, and then it gets absorbed into our communities and makes it seem like it’s homegrown”
Misinformation can also be community-specific, varying by region or by ethnic enclave. In early November, ProPublica reported that at least two dozen groups on WeChat had spread misinformation about how the federal government was “preparing to mobilize” in the case of riots on Election Day, in an attempt to frighten Chinese voters to stay home. Reuters also reported that several nonpartisan South Asian groups worked together to correct fake news about the voting process on WhatsApp, an unmoderated and decentralized chat service.
“It’s not that we only have a WeChat or a WhatsApp problem; these platforms are accelerants,” said Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and co-founder of Asian Americans Against Trump, who is familiar with misinformation on WeChat. “It accelerates a lot of vulnerabilities that Chinese and other Asian immigrants with limited English proficiency have. They live in scarcity, under tremendous social and economic pressure and uncertainty.”
“Meet the community where they’re at”: Organizers demand support from social media platforms and political parties
While the potential for misinformation on these platforms is known, the effort to stanch the spread has primarily fallen to the hands of grassroots organizers from within these ethnic communities. These efforts also vary by ethnic group. Community members are tasked with not just finding and reporting fake news but actively debunking these claims and becoming an accurate, neutral news source — often with little manpower and financial support.
According to Pan, the non-English social media landscape is usually homogeneous, operating as an insular echo chamber where little fact-checking is done. “There’s not the same level of balance, in terms of political balance or racial and ethnic balance,” he said. “It’s a priority of ours to meet the community where they’re at.”
This “data void” is also occurring in the Latino community, as Vox’s Ghaffary has reported: “There are only two major Spanish-language broadcast news networks in the US: Univision and Telemundo. This leaves room for media operations — not just on the internet but also via local radio channels and newspapers — to spread less accurate reporting,” according to a Spanish misinformation researcher.
While accurate and nonpartisan sources of information in Asian languages do exist, they are few and far between, and their online presence can’t compete against viral posts with an inflammatory or biased slant. “The message discipline in conservative media is amazing,” said Nguyen of Viet Fact Check. “Think of the juggernauts we’re facing, and there are no progressive alternative voices in Vietnamese media. For us, we just try to keep a very neutral and fact-based tone.”
But platforms too have a responsibility to mitigate the spread of non-English misinformation, Nguyen added, as this phenomenon is no longer unique to the English-speaking population. While Facebook announced it will take measures to stem election misinformation related to the vote count, similar content remains accessible on YouTube and is gaining traction. One researcher told Recode that YouTube doesn’t appear to actively push such content, which is “somewhat hard to find,” but it’s possible the platform’s moderation focus is less strict surrounding foreign-language misinformation on US elections.
Viet Fact Check, a volunteer-run group, has tried to register as an independent fact-checker on Facebook, but faced obstacles to verification. “I’m comfortable saying we are the No. 1 neutral-to-progressive fact-checking Vietnamese source in the US,” Nguyen said. “And while Facebook has tried to mobilize third-party groups to fact-check, we’re not technically a media organization. We’re all volunteers.”
This grassroots work isn’t sufficient, nor is it sustainable. Organizers say Democrats need to commit to outreach and budget in translation services to reach these historically overlooked communities. “The Democratic Party needs to recognize that there are certain political sensitivities within the Asian American umbrella,” said Wang of Taiwanese Americans for Progress. “For Taiwanese Americans, it’s crucial that candidates express their backing for Taiwan. … Since Trump has been so vocal about China, many believe that he will take action to support Taiwan.”
“The Democratic Party needs to recognize that there are certain political sensitivities within the Asian American umbrella”
It’s also a matter of trust. About half of AAPI voters in the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey have not been contacted by a major party, a huge missed opportunity, according to Shao, the researcher from AAPI Data. Pockets of Asian American voters live in battleground states and can be a deciding factor in congressional or state legislature races.
There are both cultural and language barriers that prevent people from breaking through the misinformation trap. For example, many first-generation immigrants lack the civic knowledge about how elections work, thus relying on community-driven translated content that might not always be true. A direct approach from political parties and candidates, then, could make a difference in how these voters perceive certain policies and elections. On-the-ground regional or state-level work is required to disaggregate and disentangle the myth of the “AAPI voter” and their varying interests.
“We ran Asian-language ads and direct mail in four to five different swing states against vulnerable Republicans,” said Pan, of Asian Americans Against Trump. “The parties and candidates weren’t doing it themselves, and it was too frustrating to sit and watch our communities go the wrong way.”
In late October, Bloomberg reported that Asian American voters could “play a decisive role” in turning Georgia blue, with Indian Americans as the state’s largest Asian ethnic group. With Georgia’s upcoming Senate runoff race in January, the AAPI vote is similarly coveted. These voters could be crucial in swaying elections in races that have thin margins, Pan added, and politicians — at the regional, state, and national levels — should be focused on investing and distributing more resources.
“We’ve realized that if we can’t always rely on regulatory protections from Facebook or backing from a national party,” Pan said. “We have to organize.”