Dear John,

An election season is a roller coaster ride. You’ve got ups and downs; this was an up week.

• On Thursday night we launched our election work. It’s not too late to #SquadUp. Here’s how.
• There have been five polls (!) with Biden up roughly nine points (!) in MN.
• After bragging they would spend $14 million on advertising in MN, the Trump campaign is already cutting back.
• And last Friday, Minnesota House members told on themselves in a flubbed email. While they see racial dog whistles at their ‘ticket to the majority’, this poll from YouGov shows that Minnesotans already know better than that.

While we’re up, let’s get ready for the next down.

This week we saw a snapshot of the damage the fossil fuel industry can do. The raging fires out west and the smoky skies here are a clear sign of what’s at stake for all of us if we stick with business as usual.

Fortunately, we can create a different future, an equitable one, with clean energy and family supporting jobs across our state.

• Did you hear that Minnesota landed $2 billion for light rail construction this week?
• Did you follow the THRIVE Agenda launch last week? It’s a new bold plan for millions of jobs that build a just, healthy, and equitable country backed by eighty members of Congress including Rep. Ilhan Omar?
• Did you see the front page of the Star-Tribune on Monday? President Trump’s climate denial and Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan are a stark contrast, one that’s framing our election year debate.

During our next down week this election season, we have to remember to focus on the future. It takes work. It takes imagination and risk.

It’s our first strategy for navigating through the dog whistles, disinformation, and divisiveness we’re facing till those who are duly elected are sworn in.

We get to create our future in Minnesota. Black, brown, or white, native or newcomer, every gender, every faith, we get to build a state where we all belong.

Have you talked with anyone about the future recently? Not a tweet or a post, but an actual conversation with a human being. What do you want in your community in 2021 and 2025 and 2030? Be specific. Tell someone about it. We promise, you won’t regret it. In fact, it’s fundamental to how we liberate ourselves. We have to picture it together. We have to want it that bad.

So, in addition to you, dear reader, what else is shaping our future this week?

Voting starts today. Order your absentee ballot here. Be sure to order it by Oct 3rd. You can also start voting early in-person at your county election office. You can find it here.

Here’s what we’re reading, watching, and listening to this week: 

1. Antisemitism 

ICYMI the Trump campaign launched its latest antisemitic ad strategy. Bend the Arc Jewish Action has a helpful explainer about what it was and how this tactic works. Read it here.

2. U.S. Postal Service

Attorney General Keith Ellison and people’s lawyers across the country helped with lawsuits to block changes at USPS. A federal judge called them: “a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service.” Read the latest.

3. #AbolishICE

Dawn Wooten, a nurse and whistleblower, called attention to the high number of hysterectomies, the partial or full removal of uteruses, at an ICE detention center. There are some things like police brutality and forced sterilization that we should never, ever be civil about. This piece dives into our country’s disgraceful, swept away legacy of medical abuses and attacks on Black, brown, and Indigenous women’s reproductive systems. Read the history and learn more about the news that surfaced this week.

4. Soul Medicine

Inhaling we are no longer surprised, a new poem by adrienne maree brown; exhaling everything else. Read it and watch it.

5. Social Media

The Social Dilemma is a new must watch documentary on Netflix. Have you seen it? Let us know what you think. Watch the trailer.

6. Plastic

Oil and gas corporations have always known the majority of plastics aren’t recyclable. Public media broke this huge and important story. Read it here.

7. Fall Music

Beautiful new music is out from Mixtape for the Milky Way, side project of local songwriter jeremy messersmith. Listen here.

8. #MaskUp

Paul Rudd, certified young person, is going to yeet this virus in this New York State PSA on COVID-19. Enjoy this one.

9. Venus

Scientists announced signs of life on our solar system’s most radiant planet. Check it out.

10. Drum Solo

The internet is a disorienting hellscape, but then you discover Nandi Bushell playing drums and it’s all worth it again. Watch this 10-year-old rock.

That’s a wrap. Have a great weekend.

--Kenza Hadj-Moussa & Chris Conry