Oregon and Multnomah Democratic Parties

I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a Democrat.

You may know this Will Rogers quote from 1935. Here is more of his down-home wit: https://www.willrogerstoday.com/quotes/will-rogers-on-politics/ . One hundred years later, much of it still seems relevant and current today.

Here is the website for the Oregon Democratic Party: https://dpo.org/ . This site gives you extensive information about the state party and its activities, recent press releases, election news, and opportunities to receive information from the party and become a more active member.

Here is the website for the Multnomah County Democrats: https://multdems.org/ . This site gives you extensive information about our activities, including many opportunities to get involved. The site currently highlights our many activities to support Democrats in the November 2020 election. Take a look, and if you have an interest we would very much appreciate your help.

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Despite the quip above, Rogers remained scrupulously nonpartisan throughout his career: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Will_Rogers (see quotes under Will Rogers, Ambassador of Good Will). My personal experience has been similar – up until the prior President. I am a half-breed the country is unlikely to see again. My dad’s family is uniformly Republican. Indeed, my great-grandfather fought in the Civil War for Indiana and later relocated to Southern Oregon, and was a founder of the state’s Republican Party. My mom’s family, emigrating here from Italy in 1900, is almost entirely Democrat.

 I have personally been a lifelong Democrat, but my political involvement has been typically nonpartisan – until 2020. In my view, the prior President represents the greatest threat to American democracy in the history of the Republic. That is why I volunteered and contributed early to the Biden campaign, the one Democrat I thought had the best chance of defeating his predecessor. Fortunately for the country, Joe came through.

But the Orange Menace remains. One hopes that his hand-picked, atrocious candidates (Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, and JD Vance, among others) will go down to defeat, convincing Republicans that it is time to move on from MAGA mania. Just as I felt the need to get involved in 2020, so too have I become involved in 2022. Elected as a Democratic precinctperson in May, I have used party canvassing tools to visit about 160 homes in my neighborhood in September, and will visit over 200 starting October 19.

My main motivation is that civil discourse depends on an informed electorate, and the willingness to recognize and accept factual information. The greatest risk of the Orange Menace is that he has made Republican candidates feel they have permission to lie in order to seek power. This is uniformly a distraction from the serious issues confronting the country – climate catastrophe, war in Europe, economic uncertainty and political violence. In my view, we must elect Democrats to cleanse the Republicans of the lying cult that has overtaken their party. We must do this to save our democracy.