Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

At The Nation, Keisha N. Blain writes—This Election, Black Women Are Leading the Way—Again. With voting rights under attack, activists like Stacey Abrams and LaTosha Brown are continuing the struggle that leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer helped ignite:

Black women are one of the most powerful voting blocs in the nation.

This election cycle has brought massive get-out-the vote efforts and awareness campaigns, but the ones by artists are arguably the most fun and entertaining. Art has never been apolitical, and the last four years have brought a surge in the number of artists using their craft to resist the current administration and speak out about ongoing injustices.

Michelle Deatrick is the national chair of the DNC’s Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis. She has been a political activist and organizer for years and was Sen. Bernie Sanders’ special projects director in Michigan in 2016 and his campaign’s Michigan co-chair in 2020. Daily Kos’ Making Progress series, where we ask a handful of questions to activists, organizers, politicians, and others from the progressive, begins its newest season with Deatrick.

Is America the country that twice elected an African American president with strong majorities of the vote? Or is it the country where a race-baiting, bigoted birther could earn just enough support from voters to get himself inaugurated as president? Of course, the answer is both, and nothing that happens in this year’s election will change that.

For a lot of people, election night is a time to hunker down in front of the TV and follow every update. Plenty of people enjoy throwing parties to watch results come in, or head to a bar or restaurant to watch in a community setting. Given that there is a literal global pandemic, practicing social distancing and avoiding crowds means we need to come up with alternatives to those group activities.