1. We’ll never have elections again!
Unless you spent the week in a cave, we just had elections. Even though every doomer alive called us all naive for thinking we would ever get to vote again after 2024. Whoops!
We Didn’t Just Win. We Won Big - Look at these margins. In most races we outperformed the public polling:
-
Mikie Sherrill - 56%-43% (+13)
-
Abigail Spanberger - 58%-42% (+16)
-
Yes On Prop 50 - 64% -36% (+28)
-
No On Question 1 - 64%-36% (+28)
-
The 3 PA Supreme Court races 61%-39% (+22)
-
The two GA PSC races came in at 63%-37% (+26)
-
Mamdani broke 50% in a three way race
-
Jay Jones is up 7 points right now in the VA AG’s race
2. You can’t ever win over Trump voters. They are a lost cause!
I have heard this one A LOT.
And… wrong.
Two Signs That Democrats Flipped Trump Supporters on Tuesday
In the Trump era, Democrats have seemed to excel among the highly engaged, highly educated voters who predominate in low-turnout, off-year elections, only to struggle when more irregular and less educated voters flock to the polls in presidential years.
But on Tuesday, when Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races by wide margins, it wasn’t simply because more Democratic-leaning voters showed up to the polls while more Republican-leaning voters sat out. The Democratic candidates also succeeded at winning over a modest but meaningful sliver of President Trump’s supporters, based on exit polls and authoritative voter file records.
Overall, exit poll respondents said they supported Kamala Harris last year by eight percentage points in New Jersey and by nine points in Virginia, compared with Ms. Harris’s actual six-point wins in the states.
Although this suggests an impressive Democratic turnout, it also implies that turnout alone didn’t explain the decisive victory — because Ms. Sherrill and Ms. Spanberger won by 13 and 15 points.
3. It is all just Hopium — nothing we do will make a difference
This one is used to (a) keep us from working hard and (b) self excuse people who aren’t lifting a finger.
But it is wrong. We did this!
The secret engine behind our victories: you.
What happened Tuesday would have been impossible without the people power that fueled each victory. Yet, once elections are over, the “people” rarely get any thanks.
So this is me, thanking you—the secret engine behind Tuesday’s Blue Tsunami. I literally couldn’t be more proud.
And your work is continuing to make a difference! It looks like SNAP benefits are going to be released—or we’ve seen them come down in about ten states so far, anyway—with the Trump administration indicating it will release the rest as they await the results of their appeal. (Because yes, they appealed the court’s order to release SNAP funding. Insert exploding head emoji here). Please know that your daily calls to your reps demanding this relief are moving the needle.
4. Dems are divided while Rs always fall in line
about that...
The MAGA Civil War
All the splits surfaced at once. Tucker chose extremism over respectability a while back...but Fuentes is a lot. Owens chose virality over coalition. Parts of the base chose racial gatekeeping over expansion. Farmers chose survival over shutdown stunts. Hawley chose his voters over the House kamikazes. MTG chose a skosh of independence over total submission. None of those by themselves would crack the movement. But together, they show you MAGA’s real shape now: not a phalanx, but a crowd of rival barons who only agree on burning the old order to ashes.
And here’s the kicker: movements like this don’t die from outside attacks.
They die, slowly, stupidly, from purity spirals and from too many people trying to steer the ship. (Ahem, Democrats...this is also about you, too.)
MAGA still has enormous cultural, media, and electoral power. But the more it becomes an influencer economy with a ballot line, the harder it is to keep everyone saying the same thing at the same time. This week was a preview of that: a messy, undisciplined, ego-driven, and bloody civil war fought in public, where everyone insists they’re the real heirs of Trumpism even as they take chunks out of one another.
They’re not breaking up quite yet.
But the cracks are showing.
5. The GOP will never abandon Trump
oh, and about that...
The great GOP migration has begun
In politics, migrations rarely happen all at once. They start quietly — one or two members of a herd moving toward safer ground while the rest pretend not to notice. But once the wind really changes, the movement becomes unmistakable. I believe that a migration has begun within the Republican Party.
The first signs are visible. A few Republican members of Congress — some of them proud standard-bearers of the MAGA movement — have begun to distance themselves from President Donald Trump. Senators are resisting his dangerous push to end the filibuster. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has taken a stand against the president’s tariffs. Outspoken Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent break with President Trump on several issues may not last, but even a temporary defection signals to others that it can be done. It gives cover to those who have privately questioned the direction of the party but have been unwilling to say so aloud.
The political climate that once rewarded absolute loyalty to the president is shifting. The Democratic landslide in Tuesday’s off-year elections will only add momentum to that.
6. Hispanic voters are gone from our base
This was a big one a year ago.
How a backlash to Trump fueled Democratic gains with Latino voters
In New Jersey, the two counties with the highest concentration of Latino voters shifted toward Democrats more sharply than any others.
In Virginia, the heavily immigrant city of Manassas Park backed the Democratic nominee for governor by a 42-point margin — roughly double the advantage Democrats posted there in last year’s presidential race or the governor’s race three years before that.
And across this week’s elections, exit polls showed Democrats regaining strength with Latinos, sending a warning sign to Republicans who hoped to build on President Donald Trump’s inroads last year.
Latino voter shifts in Tuesday's elections alarm some Republicans
Republicans have spent a year cheering President Donald Trump’s gains among Latino voters in November 2024. Now, Democrats’ big wins among Latino voters this week have some Republicans sounding the alarm.
Democrats’ double-digit victories in governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as wins in other elections in New York City and California, were driven in part by high levels of support among Latino voters.
Latino voters supported the Democratic candidates this year by at least double-digit margins, according to NBC News exit polling. Latino men, who broke for Trump last year, according to the 2024 exit polls, favored the Democrats in each of the races where exit polling was conducted on Tuesday.
In the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial contests, two-thirds of Latino voters supported the Democratic candidates.
7. Trump has a floor for approval ratings and he will never dip below that
This is a popular lie.
Trump’s Approval Rating Plummets to New Low in Damming Survey
Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest point of his second term.
An Emerson College poll of 1,000 registered voters shows that 41 percent approve of the president’s job performance, while 49 percent disapprove. Trump’s approval is now 4 percentage points lower than in October, and 8 points down from the 49 percent recorded when he re-entered office.
“Nearly one year after he was elected, President Trump’s approval has flipped since the first Emerson College poll of the new administration,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.
x
Emerson drops an ass-covering natl poll showing Trump going from -3 job approval to -8. If these same red wave pollsters who showed Ciattarelli close start correcting their natl sample the false impression they've created of Trump being "OK" will evaporate.
emersoncollegepolling.com/november-202...
— Simon Rosenberg (@simonwdc.bsky.social) 2025-11-07T13:02:16.710Z
8. The Supreme Court will never stand up to Trump
But….
Supreme Court Justices Skeptical of Trump’s Tariff Authority Claims
In oral arguments, the Solicitor General of the United States was met with skepticism from conservative justices usually inclined to give Trump the executive powers he seeks, including John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.
Justice Roberts in particular seemed unimpressed with the White House’s argument that the tariffs aren’t really a tax on American consumers. Ultimately, he forced Trump’s lawyer to admit that American consumers shoulder between 30 and 80 percent of the tariffs’ costs and that they are, in fact, a “tax.” In addition, Justice Barrett pointed out that nowhere in IEEPA does it even mention the word “tariff,” calling into question the validity of Trump’s use of the law to impose emergency tariffs. If the Supreme Court declares Trump’s tariffs illegal, as it appears they are poised to do, the hundreds of billions in revenue the Treasury has collected under the tariffs will have to be paid back.
The Supreme Court’s Tariffs Arguments Were a Bloodbath for Trump
Going into Supreme Court arguments over President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Wednesday, it was genuinely difficult to guess how the justices would rule. Within minutes, that suspense vanished. The hearing was a bloodbath for the Trump administration: Six justices lined up to bash the Justice Department’s defense of the tariffs, barely disguising their annoyance with the government’s barrage of blustery nonsense.
x
Hard to overstate what a blow this will be to Trump. He will look a global idiot and madman who not only did extraordinary harm to our economy, to the American people, to our alliances but it was all f-cking illegal and unconstitutional to boot.
bsky.app/profile/carl...
— Simon Rosenberg (@simonwdc.bsky.social) 2025-11-05T17:49:12.417Z
9. We have no hopes of taking the Senate in 2026
Another thing to steal our hope.
THE SENATE IS “IN PLAY NEXT YEAR”
On Tuesday night, former US Senator from Missouri Claire McCaskill made a bold prediction for the 2026 Midterms.
“There’s [candidates for Senate] like Sherrod Brown and Roy Cooper that are very happy tonight,” McCaskill said. “We didn’t think the Senate was going to be in play next year. I think after tonight, the Senate’s definitely in play.” I absolutely agree.
10. We’ve lost the Gen Z men forever
This was a huge one after the election.
The most striking stats of the 2025 election
15 and 14 points: Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s respective advantages among young men under the age of 30. Trump made big gains with this demographic in 2024, splitting them almost evenly with Kamala Harris.
What can you do to save democracy?
First, continue to find joy in your life! Don’t let that fuckface live rent free in your mind! This is your life!!!!!
Second, if you can, it is time to start donating. I set up a fundraising page!
It splits our donations among the 15 seats held by Republicans in swing districts. These are seats that were either won by a margin of 4% or less or were won by Harris in 2024. In other words, these are seats we can win in 2026. None of them are in CA or TX (and thus likely to be redistricted). Any money you donate will go directly to whomever our candidate will be in 2026. We only need to flip three of these!
Here is the link:
Some other ways to get involved
-
If you can, I strongly recommend going to an in person meeting in your area. One way to find a local group is through indivisible: indivisibleproject.formstack.com/…
- Join the truth brigade! Grassroots-powered lie-stopping. Person by person; mind by openewww.dailykos.com/...d mind
-
Election Response Center is a project hosted by Working Families Party, MoveOn Civic Action, Indivisible, and Public Citizen. They are organizing lots of events to get people fighting. Join one at this link
-
The ACLU plays a key role in filing lawsuits that often stop voter suppression. Get involved with them at this link.
-
Get involved with the Democratic party. We aren’t perfect, but they are fucking evil.
- Get involved with the States Project They are working on turning state legislatures blue
- Get involved with Swing Left. They are working on races right now!
- People For the American Way is a national progressive advocacy organization that inspires and mobilizes Americans to defend freedom, justice, and democracy from those who threaten to take them away. Get involved with them here
- Center for American Progress Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan policy institute and advocacy organization that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. Get involved with them here
Looking for something more specific?
Want to focus on the ENVIRONMENT:
Want to focus on CIVIL RIGHTS:
HUMAN RIGHTS - GENERALLY:
LGBTQ+:
WOMEN:
Huge thanks to DKos user dabug for help with this list.
Don’t let the options overwhelm you! Try to pick one thing and see if it calls to you. If it doesn’t find something else.
There are so many ways to get involved and help!
Some inspiration before I say goodbye
“Whatever happens, stay alive.
Don't die before you're dead.
Don't lose yourself, don't lose hope, don't lose direction.
Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.
Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.
Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also outside, fill yourself with colors of the world, fill yourself with peace, fill yourself with hope.
Stay alive with joy.
There is only one thing you should not waste in life,
and that's life itself..."
by Virginia Woolf
.
At Albany Bulb with Elaine
By Alison Luterman
Side by side on a log by the bay.
Sunlight. Unleashed dogs,
prancing through surf, almost exploding
out of their skins with perfect happiness.
Dogs who don't know about fired park rangers,
or canceled health research, or tariff wars,
or the suicide hotline for veterans getting defunded,
or or or. We've listed horror upon horror
to each other for weeks now, and it does no good,
so instead I tell her how I held a two-day old baby
in my arms, inhaling him like a fresh-baked loaf of bread,
then watched as a sneeze erupted through his body
like a tiny volcano. It was the look of pure
astonishment on his face, as if he were Adam
in the garden of Eden making his debut achoo,
as if it were the first sneeze that ever blew,
that got me. She tells me how her dog
once farted so loudly he startled himself
and fell off the bed where he'd been lolling,
and then the two of us start to laugh so hard
we almost fall off our own log. And this
is our resistance for today; remembering
original innocence. And they can't
take it away from us, though they ban
our very existence, though they slash
our rights to ribbons, we will have
our mirth and our birthright gladness.
Long after every unsold Tesla
has vaporized, and earth has closed over
even the names of these temporary tyrants,
somewhere some women like us
will be sitting side by side, facing the water,
telling human stories and laughing still.
.
please, keep this in mind when you despair:
x
The Third Reich didn't last 1,000 years.Pinochet was ousted with a referendum.And the US isn't exactly dealing with the smartest, most competent fascists.Those of you insisting that 2025 is forever need to read a book, touch grass, go to therapy, anything other than trying to make others quit.
— Nicholas Grossman (@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social) 2025-09-18T15:02:19.789Z
I am so proud and so lucky to be in this with all of you. ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 💙❤️💛💚✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
