Don’t Let Anyone Tell You That You Have to Settle

Guest article by Mallory McMorrow, Democratic Senate Majority Whip of the Michigan State Senate and Candidate for United States Senate.

Screenshot from Mallory McMorrow’s recent viral campaign ad

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about exhaustion.

Not the kind you feel after a long day at work, but the bone-deep weariness that comes from watching our politics spiral into dysfunction while real people struggle to get by.

You know the feeling. You watch the news and see chaos in Washington—a president completely unhinged, his party enabling every outburst, and Democrats seemingly content to fire off strongly worded letters that accomplish exactly nothing. Meanwhile, your grocery bill keeps climbing, your rent eats up half your paycheck, and that dream of buying a house feels more like a cruel joke every month.

I’m Mallory McMorrow, and I represent portions of Oakland County in the Michigan State Senate. You might remember me from a speech I gave on the Senate floor back in 2022, or maybe you caught our recent NFL RedZone ad that went viral.

But today, I want to talk about something bigger than any single moment or campaign.

I want to talk about why we don’t have to accept this broken status quo.

A few weeks ago, I sat down with a group of union apprentices—young people who are building careers in the trades, working with their hands, playing by all the rules we tell people matter. They didn’t pull any punches with me.

“This whole system is corrupt,” one told me. “They’re all rich. They’re all 80 years old. How could they possibly know what we’re going through?”

That hit me hard, partly because they’re absolutely right, and partly because I remember being where they are now.

I graduated college straight into the teeth of the Great Recession—student debt piling up, no job prospects, no health insurance. I folded clothes at retail stores for minimum wage. I slept in my car for a couple of nights when I couldn’t make rent. I know exactly what it feels like to do everything you’re supposed to do and still fall behind.

That experience taught me something crucial: the Democratic Party’s biggest problem isn’t that we don’t have good ideas. It’s that too many of our leaders talk like they live in a completely different world than the rest of us.

When was the last time you heard a politician talk about groceries like someone who actually shops for them? Or discuss housing costs like someone who’s ever had to choose between rent and car repairs? We’ve become a party of people who understand policy but have forgotten what it’s like to live under those policies.

This is why people are cynical about politics. It’s not that they don’t care—it’s that they don’t see themselves reflected in the people who claim to represent them.

But here’s what I’ve learned over the past few years: when Democrats fight unapologetically for working people, and when we talk like human beings instead of focus-grouped robots, we can win anywhere.

In 2018, I ran for state senate in a Republican district outside Detroit, against the sitting Republican incumbent. The local party leaders were… less than “encouraging.” They told me it was unwinnable. “That’s cute,” they said. “You’ll get destroyed, but you’ll build name recognition to run for something smaller next time.”

But then we did the unthinkable. We won. And we didn’t win by triangulating or playing it safe. We won by showing up everywhere, talking straight about what I believed, and treating voters like they were smart enough to handle real conversations about complex issues.

From there, I helped Democrats take control of the Michigan Senate for the first time in 40 years. Not by settling for incremental change or accepting that certain districts were “unwinnable,” but by refusing to accept those limitations in the first place.

The point isn’t that I’m some political genius. The point is that voters are hungry for authenticity, for leaders who understand their lives, and for a Democratic Party that fights as hard as the stakes demand.

And make no mistake—the stakes couldn’t be higher. Donald Trump and his movement aren’t just wrong on policy. They’re actively working to convince Americans that government can’t work for regular people, that democracy itself is a rigged game, that we should give up on the idea that politics can improve our lives.

The only way to fight that cynicism is by proving them wrong. Not with strongly worded letters or poll-tested messages, but by delivering real results and talking about them like real people.

We need leaders who understand what it costs to fill up your gas tank in 2025, not 1995. We need leaders who have navigated the nightmare of trying to find affordable childcare or helped aging parents figure out Medicare. We need leaders who remember what it’s like to worry about money, to feel like the system is rigged against you, to wonder if your kids will have the same opportunities you did.

This isn’t about throwing out experience or institutional knowledge. It’s about combining that wisdom with lived experience and fresh energy. It’s about refusing to accept that “this is just how things work” when how things work is clearly failing most Americans.

My 2022 Senate floor speech went viral not because I said something particularly profound, but because I said something true in a way that felt real. People are desperate for that kind of authenticity in politics—leaders who will call out BS when they see it and fight back when it matters.

That’s exactly what we tried to capture in our RedZone ad, too. Politics doesn’t have to be boring or alienating. It can be engaging, even fun, while still being substantive. We can meet people where they are, speak their language, and still deliver on the big issues that matter.

The Democratic Party is at a crossroads. We can keep accepting that we’re supposed to lose in certain places, keep nominating the same types of candidates, keep communicating in ways that make people’s eyes glaze over. We can settle for leaders who prioritize process over results, who mistake activity for achievement.

Or we can demand better.

We can insist on leaders who understand what working people face every day because they’ve faced it themselves. We can expect our party to fight as hard for our values as Republicans fight for theirs. We can refuse to accept that good policy isn’t enough—that we also need to be able to explain why it matters in ways that connect with people’s real lives.

The choice is ours. We can settle for the status quo, cross our fingers, and hope things work out. Or we can build something better.

I know which one I’m choosing. The question is: what about you?

- Mallory

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Mallory McMorrow is the Democratic Senate Majority Whip of the Michigan State Senate and Candidate for United States Senate.

She lives in Royal Oak with her husband Ray, her daughter Noa, and her dog Detroit.