We are haunted by the senseless shooting of a 16-year-old who was attempting to pick up his younger brothers and ended up at the wrong address. Ralph Yarl could be any of our kids, nephews, or grandsons. He loves science, is a good student, and plays in his school band.

First and foremost, thank you for every ounce of effort you all poured into Wisconsin for our spring election. It’s been easier to keep my head down and focus on the work I could do to move Wisconsin forward, knowing that when I looked up I could see all of you tugging and pushing with us to give our democracy a fighting chance.

The news can seem mostly grim these days if you care about women’s reproductive health, voting rights, access to books, the LGBTQ+ community, stopping gun violence, and so much more. Many of us hoped to breathe a sigh of relief after Donald Trump was defeated in 2020 and yet in 2023, the MAGA agenda feels like it is advancing in states around the country, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. House of Representatives.

We are excited to announce that Markers For Democracy is now a member of Indivisible, a nationwide resource, and coalition for grassroots organizations like us. Nothing has changed in our identity or operations. What has changed is our increased access to intelligence, ideas, expertise, funding, collaboration opportunities, tech, and more. 

This week was one where we felt proud to be Americans and moved by the Ukrainian people's courage, strength, and patriotism. As we viewed the photographs of President Biden's secret President's Day trip to Ukraine, we were reminded that we have a president who leads with civility, humanity, experience, and steadiness.

What a week it has been for Democracy. President Biden’s SOTU address was to many the best speech of his career. He was confident, passionate, funny, and hit the right tone for the moment. Republicans lacked civility while Biden remained the adult in the room and deftly used their heckling to corner them into displaying bipartisan support for Medicare and Social Security. He accomplished this all off-script and while millions of swing voters and independents were watching. No one anticipated that chess move.

The holidays are behind us, the intensity of the midterms has subsided, and after a short break and the page flip to a new calendar year we find ourselves renewed, focused, and engaged. We have matured in our activism and know we must pace ourselves.

Hello, 2023. If you were able to take a break and find time for family, friends, and festivities, we hope it provided food for the soul and heart. Welcome back and if you are new to our community, we are thrilled you are joining us!

Early voting has ended in Georgia and Election Day is Tuesday for the Senate runoff. Crossing our fingers that our postcards did the trick to help re-elect Reverend Warnock.

It has been a fantastic week for Democrats and we should feel proud. What has become abundantly clear is that these mid-terms were a bottom-up victory that was powered by grassroots groups like ours. We rolled up our sleeves and never stopped working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot to better people’s lives. We passionately endeavored to postcard, raise money, text/phone bank, march, and educate.

We do this work 365 days a year, but many other people are just waking up to the idea that there is an election happening. Every vote counts and there is still time for you to make a difference.

This is the moment to leave it all on the field. Don't wake up on November 9th wishing you had done more. Relational organizing is the buzzword for today. What it means is calling your friends and family and making sure they have a plan to vote and if they haven't found a way to be active, invite them in. Join our community as we write postcards, text bank, phone bank, and canvass in these final days.

We are less than six weeks away from the November midterms. We must make the remaining time count. The news is bleak, and the polls are tightening, but instead of freaking out, do the work. It is time to get out of your comfort zone as it is going to take all of us.

Since the shocking morning in November 2016 when the results arrived that we had not elected as expected the first woman president, a dark cloud has hovered over many of our lives. After that devastating day, we experienced fear, sadness, rage, hopelessness, and a whole host of emotions. Markers For Democracy was born out of those feelings almost four years ago to the day.

We are 19 weeks away from the critical midterm elections in November, yet there is a lot of buzz about the 2024 presidential election and who may or may not run. We are here to say ignore the buzz and focus on the election in front of you.

July 4th or Independence Day has traditionally been an opportunity to celebrate freedom. Yet last weekend, in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs, stripping reproductive freedom from half the population of this country, many felt ambivalent about celebrating freedom.

Many of us have been riveted by the Jan 6th Committee hearings. The professionalism, thoroughness, and detail have exceeded expectations. The magnitude of the crisis we are in as a country has been front and center.

Mass murders happen every day in this country. It is so commonplace that only a handful make it into a day’s news cycle. Our babies are being shot in their elementary schools and our family, friends, and neighbors are being murdered in their houses of worship, at grocery stores, and even at funerals. The shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, and Tulsa recently have shaken many of us to the core.

The past couple of weeks have been difficult in this country where the Supreme Court and Republicans from state legislatures to Congress want to outlaw a woman's access to reproductive healthcare, but an 18-year-old, brainwashed by the rhetoric of racist "replacement theory" that is spewed nightly on Fox News and amplified by Republican politicians, is able to purchase a lethal arsenal and murder members of the Buffalo, NY community at a supermarket.

It has been an awful week. For the moment, it is safe to assume that Roe will be overturned, and abortion regulation will be returned to the states. Many people are exhausted and discouraged and wondering why they are participating in activism and the hard work of saving our rights. But the choice is stark: we can crawl under the covers in defeat, or we can choose to channel our rage into action, following the activists who fought for women's rights over decades in this country's history.