The fragility of democracy, the durability of ideals, the necessity of hope.
“All politics is local” may have given way to “all politics are national,” but the consequences are still deeply personal.
The more successful Democrats are, the more Trump and his heirs intend to try to make us the foils for their failures. Inevitable.
To thrive, the Democratic Party needs to study the challenger brand playbook: embracing big ambitions, breaking with tired conventions, building unmistakable clarity, advancing ideas that set the agenda, making people look again, choosing what to sacrifice, overcommitting to what matters, and resonating with popular culture.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” like sliced bread, had a long run. Time to dig deeper.
In elections, as in life, and, yeah, as in advertising, it’s not what we say; it’s what people hear that counts.
You cannot lecture people into changing their minds. You can only give them the ways to persuade themselves and the reasons to do so.
If you think this has been a hard election, buckle up your seatbelt schatzi: the next two years are going to be a bumpy ride.
If nothing else, we’ve learned that American democracy urgently needs better guardrails. It will take authentic “profiles in courage” leadership to build them.
Winning an election only gives you the opportunity to earn trust. Come to think of it, so does losing.
Hope has the unfair reputation for being soft. Hatred and despair take far less effort.
Oh, and one, just in case you haven’t voted yet:
