Bravo, again, Robert! You are absolutely right (as usual!) . Let’s make this huge problem smaller by segmenting it. I agree that we just have to get to the midterms, but oh my goodness, could we use some Democratic leaders, presidential hopefuls, and members of Congress, who are either coming up for reelection in 2026 and/or have ideas about how to unseat Republicans up for reelection. They could be hosting at least virtual rallies so that their clear and resounding messages could maintain and build morale and spread a joyful warrior movement, ready and waiting to campaign, canvass, phone bank, and write letters for the midterm elections. I do not think the Democrats did anything “wrong,” and I think Kamala Harris ran an inspirational campaign. Having said that, she did not have the name recognition of either Biden, or the other guy, and was only on the presidential campaign trail for about three months. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if the campaign for 2028 featured a Democrat who had essentially been running since 2024? Traditionally, the administration in power has more complacent constituencies than those who are fighting to come back. We need to maintain our fighting spirit and have a clear strategy and winning, enthusiastic, talking points. If you can host weekly meetings to build community (and thank you so very much for doing so! ) why can’t Kamala Harris and Tim Walz? Or AOC and Ayanna Presley or any of our fabulous Democratic leaders? And how about all the celebrities who were willing to volunteer a few moments of their time during the presidential season? Maybe some can spend five minutes making an appearance at a virtual Democratic rally. Not only would this keep momentum going, an audience would tune in just to have fun, get together, build community! It would be similar to the fireside chats of old, but more 21st-century.
Robert saved some of his best advice for near the end of this newsletter. First of all, stop pointing fingers at each other. It’s a waste of time. We need to stay united to defeat Trump and Project 2025.
Secondly, we should break our resistance down into shorter quests with with clearly defined goals and strategies. We don’t need to have all the answers for the next four years. Although we have some ideas about what we might be confronted with, we can’t be sure about the specifics of most of the issues we will be facing.
We need to concentrate on what we can do today to impact the near future and our final goal of slowing down and ultimately defeating Trump and Project 2025.
In my opinion, we lost the Presidential election because of racism, misogyny and the superiority of the Right Wing Media complex. We came close to overcoming our deficiency in this area this year but the election outcome clearly indicates that we still have work to do.
Overcoming the Right Wing Media Complexes superiority is is something that many of us are currently working on. I will be publishing a Reflection on that later today or tomorrow titled: “Call to Action: It's time to overcome the Right Wing Media Complex! What you can do.”
There are other things we should be working on now. One area that can use immediate attention is the off year and special elections that will be coming up next year. We’ve been successful at influencing these elections in the past 8 years. We can’t let up now.
Then there’s the midterms. I agree with Robert that we should have a good chance to flip the U.S. House in the midterms. The 2026 midterm campaigns will be in full swing about 18 months or so after Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025. That isn’t a long time.
When Trump and his project 2025 colleagues attempt (attempt is the proper word here) to force their horrible, unpopular plans upon the American public, we need to fight tooth and nail to stop them or at least slow them down. We need to use the fallout against them in the midterm elections and beyond.
And there will be other things we can all get on board with.
We’re not giving up. Let’s stand united. We can do this!
Your Concluding Thoughts in this edition was a perfect reality check for many of us...the reality of next two years, and four years...certainly helps keep this chaos in perspective. Also, despite some fears, I do believe that certain guardrails will remain in place, even if they are only the ego and vanity of other Republicans in Congress who just want (or need) to be reelected and federal judges who will continue to do the right thing.
I love your columns and have shared them quite a bit.
thanks for trying to discourage people from spending too much energy on the election, and thanks for encouraging them to expend energy on looking ahead and seeking opportunities to make things as good as they can be. I appreciate your efforts.
This weekend I have been driving around CT (I live mostly in Manhattan so "driving around is not normal for me. I see so many public works projects, many paid for by Biden's infrastructure bill. Why not have signs at each of these sites that say "Thank you Pres.Biden and VP Harris and the American people. We know 45 would have his name all over these. We Dems need to be better at self promotion
I wonder if any of you have begun to despair over the number of donation requests from the Kamala campaign, still coming in, a few times each day—without any explanation about what is actually being done with the funds. It is beginning to feel ... disrespectful. We need voices out there, leadership (thank goodness for the likes of Elizabeth Warren, AOC, and Marc Elias, but we need more), not just Donate Today emails.
I wonder if the finger pointing at Democrats by other Democrats, and the search for rational reasons for Trump’s win, are in part a reflection of how difficult it is to accept that millions of people are so filled with anger and hate that they would throw away their rights and their future. Arguing over positions on the economy or shifting which issues to prioritize is far easier to plan for than to attempt to address irrational hatred.
Thank you, RH, for debunking the "what went wrong" obsession. Not only does it fail to change anything but it ignores the fact that lies were told and believed due to a variety of fears, desires, etc that we can't hope to fathom. The main thing is that we just not relent...case by case, day by day we have to stand up to the bully... and meanwhile support President Biden who is still trying to do everything he can.
Donnie showed us in his first term that he is a prolific liar, giver of misinformation, and bullying. There are stats that say told almost 31,000 lies to the American people over four years. And, he got much worse when he lost in 2020. His 2024 campaign was filled with his own lies from his lips and social media posts and such. How many campaign ads showed violence supposedly done by "illegal aliens" in America. Some ads were proven to be video from other countries, and the actual number of violent acts by immigrants were not near what he was inventing. I feel that those words, ads, attacks on immigrants, and lies made bad immigrants (not immigration) the number one issue for this election. Vance even resorted to making up immigrants eating beloved pets that basically destroyed a couple of towns, and these lies were repeated by Trump and MAGA congresspersons over and over again. (Note that these lies caused great harm, and no one stopped it making yelling fire in a theater now legal in my opinion. Vance even said lies are justified to win.) Then the constant lies about the economy which is improving every day. The true message that corporations and manufacturers were jacking up these prices to keep enjoying record-breaking profits really didn't get mentioned. Eggs were too high, and it was Biden/Harris' fault. (No bird flu catastrophes were mentioned either.) The amount of lies, huge lies, were completely overwhelming from the MAGA party. Easily manipulated and low educated males seemed to believe everything. And, these lies were everywhere and not at all challenged by middle media in huge titles and headlines. We have become a nation where "sheep" are easily persuaded to follow a manipulating sociopathic narcissist and minions. This is easily proved by the comments I read or hear about Trump voters who swore Trump wouldn't implement or use Project 2025 because he said he wouldn't. I can only cry when I hear or read these types of statements.
Bravo, again, Robert! You are absolutely right (as usual!) . Let’s make this huge problem smaller by segmenting it. I agree that we just have to get to the midterms, but oh my goodness, could we use some Democratic leaders, presidential hopefuls, and members of Congress, who are either coming up for reelection in 2026 and/or have ideas about how to unseat Republicans up for reelection. They could be hosting at least virtual rallies so that their clear and resounding messages could maintain and build morale and spread a joyful warrior movement, ready and waiting to campaign, canvass, phone bank, and write letters for the midterm elections. I do not think the Democrats did anything “wrong,” and I think Kamala Harris ran an inspirational campaign. Having said that, she did not have the name recognition of either Biden, or the other guy, and was only on the presidential campaign trail for about three months. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if the campaign for 2028 featured a Democrat who had essentially been running since 2024? Traditionally, the administration in power has more complacent constituencies than those who are fighting to come back. We need to maintain our fighting spirit and have a clear strategy and winning, enthusiastic, talking points. If you can host weekly meetings to build community (and thank you so very much for doing so! ) why can’t Kamala Harris and Tim Walz? Or AOC and Ayanna Presley or any of our fabulous Democratic leaders? And how about all the celebrities who were willing to volunteer a few moments of their time during the presidential season? Maybe some can spend five minutes making an appearance at a virtual Democratic rally. Not only would this keep momentum going, an audience would tune in just to have fun, get together, build community! It would be similar to the fireside chats of old, but more 21st-century.
Roll up your sleeves. Two years till midterms. Start looking for local candidates to come forward.
Agree! One step at a time and focus on what you can control.
Thank you! The idea of 'phases' is so very helpful & offers constructive framing of use of time & energy
Robert saved some of his best advice for near the end of this newsletter. First of all, stop pointing fingers at each other. It’s a waste of time. We need to stay united to defeat Trump and Project 2025.
Secondly, we should break our resistance down into shorter quests with with clearly defined goals and strategies. We don’t need to have all the answers for the next four years. Although we have some ideas about what we might be confronted with, we can’t be sure about the specifics of most of the issues we will be facing.
We need to concentrate on what we can do today to impact the near future and our final goal of slowing down and ultimately defeating Trump and Project 2025.
In my opinion, we lost the Presidential election because of racism, misogyny and the superiority of the Right Wing Media complex. We came close to overcoming our deficiency in this area this year but the election outcome clearly indicates that we still have work to do.
Overcoming the Right Wing Media Complexes superiority is is something that many of us are currently working on. I will be publishing a Reflection on that later today or tomorrow titled: “Call to Action: It's time to overcome the Right Wing Media Complex! What you can do.”
There are other things we should be working on now. One area that can use immediate attention is the off year and special elections that will be coming up next year. We’ve been successful at influencing these elections in the past 8 years. We can’t let up now.
Then there’s the midterms. I agree with Robert that we should have a good chance to flip the U.S. House in the midterms. The 2026 midterm campaigns will be in full swing about 18 months or so after Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025. That isn’t a long time.
When Trump and his project 2025 colleagues attempt (attempt is the proper word here) to force their horrible, unpopular plans upon the American public, we need to fight tooth and nail to stop them or at least slow them down. We need to use the fallout against them in the midterm elections and beyond.
And there will be other things we can all get on board with.
We’re not giving up. Let’s stand united. We can do this!
Your Concluding Thoughts in this edition was a perfect reality check for many of us...the reality of next two years, and four years...certainly helps keep this chaos in perspective. Also, despite some fears, I do believe that certain guardrails will remain in place, even if they are only the ego and vanity of other Republicans in Congress who just want (or need) to be reelected and federal judges who will continue to do the right thing.
Mr. Hubbell,
I love your columns and have shared them quite a bit.
thanks for trying to discourage people from spending too much energy on the election, and thanks for encouraging them to expend energy on looking ahead and seeking opportunities to make things as good as they can be. I appreciate your efforts.
This weekend I have been driving around CT (I live mostly in Manhattan so "driving around is not normal for me. I see so many public works projects, many paid for by Biden's infrastructure bill. Why not have signs at each of these sites that say "Thank you Pres.Biden and VP Harris and the American people. We know 45 would have his name all over these. We Dems need to be better at self promotion
Its all irrelevant.Trumph acts on reflex without consultation!
We the people have endorsed a sociopathic madman who has latched on to an Amerikkan oligarch to play in the sandbox with Putins oligarch gangs .
So get out the popcorn 🍿 for the Russian roulette.
I wonder if any of you have begun to despair over the number of donation requests from the Kamala campaign, still coming in, a few times each day—without any explanation about what is actually being done with the funds. It is beginning to feel ... disrespectful. We need voices out there, leadership (thank goodness for the likes of Elizabeth Warren, AOC, and Marc Elias, but we need more), not just Donate Today emails.
Robert,
Great breakdown of the months/years ahead. Manageable chunks. That’s just the ticket! Thank you.
I wonder if the finger pointing at Democrats by other Democrats, and the search for rational reasons for Trump’s win, are in part a reflection of how difficult it is to accept that millions of people are so filled with anger and hate that they would throw away their rights and their future. Arguing over positions on the economy or shifting which issues to prioritize is far easier to plan for than to attempt to address irrational hatred.
Thank you, RH, for debunking the "what went wrong" obsession. Not only does it fail to change anything but it ignores the fact that lies were told and believed due to a variety of fears, desires, etc that we can't hope to fathom. The main thing is that we just not relent...case by case, day by day we have to stand up to the bully... and meanwhile support President Biden who is still trying to do everything he can.
Robert, your advice is a godsend to me! Thank you! Focus on what's doable. Refusing to be cowed and frightened is also Resistance!👊👊👊
Gorka was dismissed from the White House due to his neonazi ties. How can he be back?? 😡
Donnie showed us in his first term that he is a prolific liar, giver of misinformation, and bullying. There are stats that say told almost 31,000 lies to the American people over four years. And, he got much worse when he lost in 2020. His 2024 campaign was filled with his own lies from his lips and social media posts and such. How many campaign ads showed violence supposedly done by "illegal aliens" in America. Some ads were proven to be video from other countries, and the actual number of violent acts by immigrants were not near what he was inventing. I feel that those words, ads, attacks on immigrants, and lies made bad immigrants (not immigration) the number one issue for this election. Vance even resorted to making up immigrants eating beloved pets that basically destroyed a couple of towns, and these lies were repeated by Trump and MAGA congresspersons over and over again. (Note that these lies caused great harm, and no one stopped it making yelling fire in a theater now legal in my opinion. Vance even said lies are justified to win.) Then the constant lies about the economy which is improving every day. The true message that corporations and manufacturers were jacking up these prices to keep enjoying record-breaking profits really didn't get mentioned. Eggs were too high, and it was Biden/Harris' fault. (No bird flu catastrophes were mentioned either.) The amount of lies, huge lies, were completely overwhelming from the MAGA party. Easily manipulated and low educated males seemed to believe everything. And, these lies were everywhere and not at all challenged by middle media in huge titles and headlines. We have become a nation where "sheep" are easily persuaded to follow a manipulating sociopathic narcissist and minions. This is easily proved by the comments I read or hear about Trump voters who swore Trump wouldn't implement or use Project 2025 because he said he wouldn't. I can only cry when I hear or read these types of statements.