I guess it’s time to reveal one of my secret projects this election.
Elise, Shug and I have been working together lately on a project. We’re launching it … this week! Now, even.
This post is trying to do three things:
- Persuade you to use the thing we built (and the other thing we built)
- Ask you to help us find people who would love it and use it.
- Give you a bit of behind-the-scenes context
Before I get into it, I want to say that our projected user might very well not be you! But I still need your help. I bet there are people (or organizations) in your life that would love it. Please help us get it to them.
I remember reading once that Aaron Swartz independently invented wikipedia when he was a literal child. Years before Jimmy Wales. But Aaron was a kid! So his version had articles about magic cards written by his 10-year-old friends. He had great vision for a product, then built it, but his userbase never left his immediate friends. I don’t want to fall into that trap.
And now, drumroll……
—-
INTRODUCING: the Keyboard Warrior’s Guide to Electing Kamala Harris.
https://playbook.forkamala.fyi
Here’s our motivation:
- Most voters get their news via social media, specifically video, and often first directed by chat threads
- Those platforms select content based on engagement, not on quality, and definitely not on what will help persuade voters to vote for democrats
- Normal people can make a big difference in the election by elevating the most persuasive content and arguments
Or, to put it another way: I, like many other americans, spend much of my life online. I bet you do too. It’s where I talk to strangers, family, and friends. It makes sense that online is a place where persuasion has impact, for good or ill.
So we made a playbook for how exactly to do it smarter than “post everything that makes you angry to Facebook/twitter and hope for the best”. It’s a combination of our expertise in integrity work, plus my time in 2020, campaigns, and so on. I think it’s quite goo!
ALSO INTRODUCING: Posting for Kamala — the webapp
Aka the spiritual successor to what the fuck has Obama done so far?
We built a (fun?) companion app full of tiktoks/tweets/articles/content that IS persuasive with swing voters —
- For sharing
- For inspiration
- For specifically inspiring people to make similar videos/tiktoks/tweets/posts
(And there’s more coming!)
Enjoy! But also — please spread
I hope you’ll do two things, please:
If you find this useful yourself — dope! Great! Dive in.
This may not be for you — but I BET you know some people who would love this. Organizations? Resistance facebook groups? Very online moms and dads? Please help me find the people who would love this
…But you don’t have to take my word for it
In the time it took me to write this — we got the Matthew Yglesias endorsement.
We’ve also got big orgs reach out and want to talk about partnering. And smaller grassroots groups telling me they’re already using it. Hooray!
So, uh, things are good!
I can say more about the theoretical underpinnings of all this, if you want. But then again, the guide is pretty long, maybe just read it! And if you have any questions, let me know.
Edit: Now endorsed by Micah Sifry!
