Barber Lays Out the Math of Power. 7,000 Votes Control Congress & How We Nationalize State Movements

The current composition of Congress, and thus the ability to pass significant legislation, is determined by an incredibly small margin. The speaker states that the current Congress is in office due to a 7,000-vote margin in a context where 90 million people did not vote.

The current Congress that we have in office right now is there because of a 7,000 vote margin, in a time when 90 million people didn't vote.

Instead of focusing solely on national-level resistance, the strategy must be to nationalize state movements. This involves rallying people in states around core principles and what they stand 'for,' rather than just what they are 'against.' This bottom-up approach is crucial for sustained change.

We must nationalize state movements. I don't know how many times I can say that. We need to be rallying the people in our states and it doesn't even have to be partisan. It can be principled and mobilize in a way around what we stand for.

Millions of registered voters, particularly poor and low-wage individuals, vote infrequently or not at all. For example, over 300,000 Black registered voters and 1.7 million poor/low-wage people in North Carolina, and similar numbers in Georgia, did not vote in recent elections. These groups represent a massive, unmobilized voting bloc that could shift electoral outcomes.

Over 300,000 black that were registered and had voted infrequently didn't vote. Over 1.7 million poor and lowwage people who had voted were registered but voted infrequently and didn't vote. ... Trump wins by a little over 100,000 votes, but over 300,000 400,000 African-Americans didn't vote. Over 2 million poor and low-wage people who had infrequently voted... did not vote.

People are experiencing direct pain from policy changes, such as 20 million losing healthcare and others losing food stamps. This pain can be a powerful motivator for political engagement if connected to their inherent power to change these conditions through voting.

When 20 when these folk lost their healthcare and losing their snap they're seeing more money put in ICE than put in public education... there is a level of pain now that has people wide awake. Our job now is to connect that pain to their power and show them you don't have to be suffering like this.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s movement built its national power by focusing intensely on local struggles in places like Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma. These local efforts created models and bases that others then adopted, demonstrating that fundamental change originates from the states, not from Washington D.C.

The work that has been done across this nation grew out of the work done in three places, Birmingham, Selma, and Mount. ... Doc's primary focus was Alabama and Georgia. ... If without those three things he says in those speech, they would not have built the models and the bases. And what other folk did was they picked up what they saw.

By mobilizing just 10% of black infrequent voters and 10% of poor and low-wage infrequent voters, it is possible to flip almost any state, even traditionally conservative southern states. This demonstrates the immense, untapped power of these demographics.

If you jin up 10% of just black folk who didn't engage in the last election and then jin up 10% of poor and low-wage people that didn't engage around an election, you can flip almost any state, even these southern states.