by Roberta Murphy Thompson
I was enormously upset with the November election. It wasn’t who won or lost; rather, fury at what appeared to be a corrupted election process. In retrospect, the Cancel Culture crowd appeared to be hard at work manipulating votes and cancelling the votes of many.
Within a few days (or weeks), emotions calmed down and I then struggled with the need to act rather than complain about something over which I had no control. Inspired, I turned to Change.org and composed a level-headed petition that incorporated the following non-political ideas:
- Make Election Day a national holiday.
- Eliminate mass ballot mail in procedures. Registered absentee voters only allowed to do so.
- Eliminate ballot harvesting and replace with voter harvesting. Enlist volunteers from both parties to bring voters with limited transportation to the polls.
- Eliminate programmable voting machines and replace with paper ballots.
- Have human vote tabulators equally represented by both parties.
- Our voting day is sacred. Results should be tabulated and released the same day. No late vote counting and deadlines are honored.
I published the petition on Change.org and in short order had garnered some signatures–mostly from Facebook. The next morning I was flooded with messages from “Max” at Change, suggesting how this petition could go viral. His message, and my responses in italics:
Thu. Jan 28 7:16 AM
Hi Roberta, this is Max (not a robot!!) from Change. I think your petition has real potential, and I’d like to give you some advice over text to make it bigger. Up for that?
I am open to suggestions
Great! I am happy to be working with you. OK here’s your dashboard: http://chng.it/yHmLtXFgib Let me take another look real quick (I am working on a few at once!) I’m so glad you’re standing up for all others who feel this way about our electoral system.
I took a look, and your petition looks great–clear and direct and heartfelt. Great work So what social media do you use? (this will help me give you good advice and to build momentum)
You must be busy, which I totally get! Standing by with some more ideas to grow your petition! Let me know when you’re free OR if you want me to drop you some advice here for you to read later?
Primarily Facebook and to a lesser degree, Twitter. Exploring other sites as well. Feel very strongly that the integrity of our elections is bedrock for our collective trust.Text is fine and so is email.
Awesome! So, most people don’t realize how much you need to share to build and keep momentum. You should take time to post on all channels every single day to make it really big! Here’s some tips for getting the most out of every share:
- Add a pic
- Don’t just drop the link and run! Tell your story or give an update.
- Ask people to sign AND share.
- Include your link
To reach as many people as possible, I’d post on all your platforms today. On FB and Insta, I’d make a post AND a story, because some people only see posts and some only see stories. You could share to everyone in your email address book (this dashboard will help http://chng.it/yHmLltXFgib and scroll through your phone contacts & send your petition over text http://chng.it/M69Cws7dRn
What do you think? Oh and I have another thing that I think will help with this kind of petition. Still with me?
Still here. Am heading for hour workout.
How about searching for FB, reddit, or other online groups that care about this issue? I just took a quick look and found this one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/685344755466306 but I am sure there are many more!! You can look for subreddits here https://www.reddit.com/subreddits/search Reddit is very sensitive to “advertising” so make sure you on’t just drop your link and run. Explain why you started the petition, who will be affected, etc. You can also write to the moderator(s) to ask if it’s okay to post about your petition.
I don’t want to bombard you. Let me know if you want a little advice BEYOND your personal networks today, and otherwise I’ll check in tomorrow to see how it’s going. Sound good?
Thurs. Jan. 28, 7:44PM
Good!
Sun. Jan 31, 5:13 PM
Had time to work on the petition today and it has disappeared from the site. Do you know what happened?
No response.
I tried calling Max repeatedly and no answer. No response from Change.org either. I have searched all over for the petition via links where I had shared it and could find nothing. The links were dead.
I had unwittingly become a victim of the Cancel Culture and was deeply surprised. The petition, from my point of view, was neither political nor hateful. Yet the initial enthusiasm from Change had strangely disappeared–and I had been cancelled.
We hear about certain Dr. Seuss books being banned along with Mr. Potato Head–and more seriously, conservative voices who have become victims of the Cancel Culture and are banned from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Like millions of others, I am concerned about First Amendment rights and also wonder who is leading the charge in this Cancel Culture movement. And why? We have always –until relatively recently–had the freedom to speak our beliefs and speak out against perceived or alleged injustices.
As a former journalist, I am also appalled at how marinated in hatred and fear most mainstream media have become over the last decade or so. Objectivity and the level reporting of Walter Cronkite are long gone. And one by one, but at lightning speed, conservatives are being cancelled from media in an attempt to cancel them from the collective consciousness.
And what do those who support and implement the Cancel Culture hope to accomplish?
Perhaps like rigid parents, they want no sass or argument. They want their children/subjects to listen with one ear and speak with one voice. Argument is a dangerous distraction from the goal of…what? A silent single party to rule the United States? A compliant one World? An uber-wealthy Oligarch Class that can control the masses and their thoughts/beliefs?
I am but a speck of a victim in the Cancel Culture, but if the supposedly neutral Change.org, who cares about tortured animals and human rights, feels compelled to eliminate a petition from one who cares about election integrity (and whose representative enthusiastically supported it initially), I have to wonder how deep the swamp flows–and to what depths the Deep State will go to flush out undesired voices.
And I now consider myself one of the undesired–and cancelled–voices.
