Meidas Mighty,
It’s not an exaggeration to say this is my favorite Sunday post I’ve ever written.
We made history together this week, and I’m sitting here with my coffee feeling really good.
I am so proud of each and every one of you for the work you’ve put in to bring this country back from the brink. So many of you have told me you can finally sleep at night again. You can smile again. You can actually see a better future for this country.
Because this week, America repudiated Donald Trump and MAGA in the most significant rebuke in United States history. Period.
It happened at every level.
In the Senate, where Democrats will likely hold 56 seats. In the House, where Democrats will likely have somewhere around 260. In the states, where Democrats now hold trifectas in places like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and so many others. In Texas, which has become a blue state, with every statewide office going Democratic. In Indiana, where Democrats are building strongholds. In Maine, where we finally said goodbye to Susan Collins. And all of it led by a new generation of young, millennial, badass leaders who are in it for the people, in both the House and the Senate.
This was as big as it gets.
And we didn’t just manifest it into existence. We rolled up our sleeves and worked every damn day like our lives depended on it, because they did. None of this was a foregone conclusion. The billionaires and oligarchs threw everything they had at us, and they’ll keep trying. But this is what people power looks like. This is what happens when we stand shoulder to shoulder and refuse to give up.
Now, I’ve said this before. It’s one of the central ideas in our book, WTF America, and it’s as true today as it was when we wrote it. For us at the MeidasTouch Network, the work right now is just as important as it was before the election, if not more.
When we only think in terms of election cycles instead of generational change, we let the billionaire oligarchs and the corporate media shills turn elections into a game, and we lose sight of what winning actually means. We saw it this cycle.
The consultant class and bad faith actors pop up right before every election with hidden agendas, devious plans and despicable arrogance, using every trick they have to divide us.
The way to stop that is to fortify our minds and our body politic against it. And you do that by putting in the work when there’s no election happening.
You build trust with people in ways that have nothing to do with elections. Because people don’t live their lives in election cycles. People just live their lives.
The whole purpose of politics and governing should be to deliver better lives for them.
That means holding government accountable. It means holding accountable the people who cause pain and suffering, and the people who grift, lie and steal from the system.
We have to build systems and structures that attack that corruption the way you’d attack a virus.
And when we build coalitions of trust with each other, when we fight for people when elections aren’t anywhere close, that to me is the most important work we can do every single day.
Think about the last few weeks before any election. Everyone’s getting texts and calls. Vote for this person, vote for that person. The natural reaction is, stop texting me. Stop calling me. Who even are you?
But when we’ve already had the important conversations about governance, community, freedom, equality, supporting marginalized communities and taking care of each other, long before an election is on the horizon, we can tune out that noise.
We can spot the bad actors for what they are.
And we have to think not just in two or four year cycles, but in decades.
As I write about in WTF America, the modern right-wing authoritarian project in the US traces back to Roger Ailes and his 1970 memo laying out a plan for a right-wing propaganda operation.
That led to right-wing talk radio, then right-wing cable news, and then algorithmic manipulation. You fight something like that with systems and structures of your own.
That’s why we built a decentralized, independent media force that is everywhere. Red states, blue states, purple states, although the map is looking awfully blue right now. And we’re building internationally too, because global authoritarian forces have been attacking elections around the world.
We have to think globally, and we have to think generationally.
Not two years or four years, but ten, twenty, fifty years. That’s how we think at the MeidasTouch Network.
So thank you for being on this journey with us.
We made history, and now we keep making it.
Together we’ll build a better country and a better world for the generations that come after us.
Finally, none of this growth happens without you. Thank you to every subscriber who has helped us build this machine. If you’re not subscribed yet, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber today, especially now that you’ve seen what we’ve built together here at the MeidasTouch Network and just how effective it can be.
Take some much needed rest today. I’ll be working on more videos, and then let’s get back at it as hard as we can.
Wisdom from James Talarico
The following is from James Talarico’s victory speech, as reported by Heather Cox Richardson. One comment I would slightly disagree with is that this form of politics has been going on longer than ten years. It’s been appreciably worse recently, but this is all part of a war that has been going on throughout human history: those who “have” wanting more and the rest of us trying to get a fair share. A share large enough to lead a decent, secure life, as he describes.
From HCR:
Talarico rooted his political beliefs in his belief in the commandments to “love God and love neighbor” and noted that “despite our differences, we all want the same things. A safe neighborhood, a good job, a high-quality, well-funded public school, and the ability to see a doctor when we need one.
“But the billionaires who own the social media algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens, they want us at each other’s throats. They want us focused on how we’re different instead of on how we’re the same. They want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them. The real fight in this country is not left versus right. It is top versus bottom.
“The people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided because our unity is a threat to their wealth and their power,” he said. “We saw it in this race. We saw it in every billionaire-funded attack ad. The people at the top divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion, by culture, so we don’t notice that they are picking our pockets, that they are defunding our schools, that they are gutting our healthcare, that they are raising taxes on all of us while they cut taxes for themselves. It is the oldest strategy in the world, divide and conquer. But tonight we sent a crystal clear message to the people at the top. We will not be conquered.”
“[W]e are tired of being pitted against each other,” Talarico continued. “We are tired of being told to hate each other. It has been 10 years of this kind of politics. Politics as blood sport. Politics as trolling and owning. Politics as professional wrestling. It tears families apart. It ends friendships. And it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time. People across the political spectrum are hungry for a different kind of politics. Not a politics of hate, not a politics of fear, not a politics of division, but a politics of love.”
Coffee tastes just a bit better today. Thank you Ben and all who never gave up!