Our goal was to empower Nebraskans concerns about threats to our democracy to join together and make our collective voices heard.

We knew that hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans have concerns about the threats to our democracy from the current Administration and its Congressional allies.  Polls, way back in June, of Nebraska’s 1,258,588 registered voters found that over 40% (about 500,000) disapprove of Trump’s job performance.  Our challenge is to help those 500,000+ Nebraskans, who disapprove of the Administration’s authoritarian efforts, to first find each other, and then jointly develop ways to make our collective voices heard.  Such efforts would help us overcome our sense of personal isolation and exercise our collective power. 

An initial focus was to publish, in our local newspaper, a full-page, open letter to Nebraska’s Congressional delegation. The open letter expressed our serious concerns about the authoritarian policies of the current Administration. The text of the open letter is here.

Our open letter outreach campaign was very successful. In a period of just three months, we were able to start from scratch, with no organizational base, and recruit over 1,000 Lincoln-area residents who were willing to publicly endorse the “Defend Our Democracy” open letter. Our full-page newspaper ad was published in the Lincoln Journal Star on Oct. 12th and 19th. The newspaper ad included the text of the “Defend Our Democracy” open letter and the names of over 1,000 Lincoln-area residents.

In conjunction with the publishing of the 1,000+ names in full-page newspaper ad, we also made available an online endorsement form to allow concerned Nebraskans to add their names to the list of Nebraska who were willing to publicly stand up in defense of democracy. A link to this online endorsement form was included in the newspaper ad. The listing of Nebraskans who have now publicly endorsed the “Defend our Democracy” open letter has grown to over 1,700 names.

Click here to add your name to this growing list of Nebraska publicly endorsing the “Defend Our Democracy” open letter.

After some reflection time, the Stand Up Nebraska-Lincoln group has decided to join with the Nebraska Panhandle group (Stand Up Greater Nebraska) to explore the possibilities of forming a statewide, coordinated, pro-democracy campaign, with some shared strategic strategies. It is early in this process, but some of the early thinking is available here.

In addition, we have launched a pro-democracy yard sign campaign to provide a means for individuals to express their concerns. For more information on these yard signs go here.