The magical thinking combined with the rush to defeatism in the progressive community.
“Oh, if only we elect candidate X then everything will work out just fine.”
“Oh noes! Candidate X’s chances aren’t looking too good, or Candidate X is already out of the race. Now we won’t get ANYTHING accomplished.”
With all due respect, take a look around. Look at what we have accomplished in the face of overwhelming opposition from a system designed to preserve a rural, white supremacist status quo because it was built by rural white supremacists. Look at what we have accomplished in the face of those rural white supremacists doing everything in the power over the past 60 years to tilt the balance even more in their favor. Look at what we have accomplished in spite of a playing field that is inherently unequal.
Also, be realistic. Even if we swept the board and got all our candidates elected, do you think we would’ve been able to kick back and relax for even a second? Do you really believe that the opposition wouldn’t be out there using every dirty, underhanded trick in a book written so that their side, and only their side, has dirty, underhanded tricks written into the system?
Straight talk: this was always going to be a slog, and this election was just the beginning. It’s looking like we will be better off than we were before, but not as well off as we might have hoped. Fighting tooth and nail wasn’t going to end this November. In fact, it’s just beginning, and the results of this election should inform our strategy moving forward.
For my part, I see a need for a strategy focused on engagement in small communities within larger communities, in which the goal is more cultural realignment than it is express political advocacy. The GOP may think its cultural views are ascendant, but they are not. In fact, evidence shows they lost the culture war. What this kind of community engagement will look like I don’t know, but I believe that it could, for example, take the form of community policing to counteract government police violence. I see a need for movements like a revived Black Panther Party. It could also include engaging with children and adults about media literacy and critical thinking. These are the best tools for inoculating the public against Republican propoganda.
Bottom line: it’s going to take years, even decades, but it was always going to take years, even decades. For GenX and Xennials especially, and Millennials to a slightly lesser extent (you have Climate Change as your primary focus, though there’s certainly room for cross-over on both ends) this is our charge.
Change the culture, save the world.