Election Season

Dear American Opposition:

Our election season program is on track.

Last October, a reporter asked me what the final phase of our strategy would actually look like, and I told her we were not recruiting candidates to be better public officials. We were recruiting defenders of democracy. People who know how to show up.

That is exactly what is happening. This cycle, a record number of incumbent Democrats are being replaced, and the men and women who thought incumbency would protect them were proven wrong.

You did that.

Eighteen months ago, you were told that a movement like this could not be built without money, without permission, or without a party standing behind it.

You built it anyway.

The largest protest and boycott movement in American history, funded by people no richer than you, assembled out of nothing but conviction.

That’s already in the record. It can’t be taken from you.

What remains comes in two parts:

The first is the last day of protest this movement will hold before the election. On Saturday, October 17, we will gather one more time, in every state, for National Fucking Vote Day.

The name is the whole message. Every institution in this country has a carefully worded reason you should vote. We have two words, and it's what people say when they mean it:

“Fucking vote.”

This will not be a march past the ballot box. It will be a gathering at it. Mail ballots will be landing in mailboxes that week. Early voting will be open or about to open almost everywhere. Voter registration will still be open in dozens of states.

We’re calling on organizers to make every event a voter readiness station: Register or confirm your registration, request your ballot, find your polling place, write down your plan, and sign up to serve.

Then we need you to do the one thing that decides elections: Bring three people who would otherwise stay home. Not strangers. Your cousin, coworker, or neighbor who says it doesn't matter. Bring them to a table on October 17 and walk them through it.

That is how a movement becomes a majority.

The second part is the least glamorous thing I’ve ever asked of you, but it will decide everything: To volunteer to serve on Election Day.

We need poll workers: The people who open the doors, check the rolls, and stay until the final ballot is counted. We need trained legal observers there to document. And we need volunteers willing to walk their neighbors in, because there are citizens in this country who are justifiably afraid to cross a parking lot alone.

Nobody should have to be brave to vote. But if they must be, they should never have to be brave alone.

I grew up in the Dominican Republic under an elected fascist, and what I remember is not the fear. It's the resignation. The quiet agreement among decent people that the outcome had been settled somewhere else, by someone else, and that showing up was a courtesy performed for appearances.

That resignation is what we are actually fighting. Not a party. Not a candidate. A feeling.

And there is only one answer to it that has ever worked in the history of this world: Enough ordinary people occupying the machinery of their own government that the result is unmistakably theirs.

On October 17, there will be a crowd. After that, there won't be. No marches. No photographs. There will be folding tables, long days, and a republic hanging in the balance.

Let the history books say that when it would have been easier to watch, we participated. That when they counted on our exhaustion, we answered with presence. That when they told us the outcome was already decided, we took control and decided it ourselves.

Take a table. Take a shift. Take a neighbor by the arm.

We have never once been the people who stayed home.

Let's show up one more time, and finish this together.

In solidarity,

Carlos Álvarez-Aranyos
Founder, American Opposition

National Fucking Vote Day — Saturday, October 17

Become a poll worker
Power the Polls — https://www.powerthepolls.org/signup
Find your state's official process — https://www.nass.org/can-i-vote/become-a-poll-worker

Become a legal observer
Election Protection, search shifts by location — https://electionprotection.wetheaction.org
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law — https://866ourvote.org/volunteer
Common Cause poll monitoring — https://www.commoncause.org/work/election-protection

Walk your neighbors in
Protect The Vote 2026 — https://protectthevote2026.org

If you or someone you know has trouble voting
Call or text 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683)