Choose your fighter
Big thought, small step, deep breath for March 10, 2025
BIG THOUGHT
Fight or flight
Did Kamala Harris really lose because she ran too far to the left? Did Donald Trump prevail out of widespread support for Project 2025’s far-right positions? Or do Americans not see things that way anymore, assuming they ever did?
Last week, during a conversation packed with great advice as usual, Anat Shenker-Osorio talked about a basic shift in how Americans view politics, one that reveals why so many are frustrated not just with Democratic leadership’s seeming inability to stand up to Trump, but why so many critics’ suggestions of what the Democratic Party should do next seem so out of touch with reality.
There's also this conflict in which a bunch of former campaign people, many of whom have not worked on a campaign since the advent of smartphones, let alone social media, are telling Democrats to stand down, to roll over, et cetera, and so on. They keep saying the issue is, ”Are you too woke? Are you not woke? Are you centrist enough?” As if that were the meaningful axis along which voters measure politicians. And it's just simply not.
The axis along which they measure politicians is, “Will you fight for me? Won't you fight for me?” And that's what we're looking for.
We’ve suggested before that one of the main drivers of voter anxiety has been a feeling of being undefended — whether from the social upheavals and shifts toward a more diverse, more equitable society since 1965, or from the threat of a resurgent far-right bent on undoing those changes.
This isn’t to suggest that political problems aren’t real — policy matters, the issues do exist, and people on the left and right indeed have very different ideas of how to address them. But people who feel undefended may not be making that kind of analysis. They want, first of all, somebody to defend them — someone who’s willing to fight. Politics happens — as we’ve talked about so many times here in the newsletter — on the level of emotion.
This realignment has been underway for a few decades now — just look at the Republican Party’s evolution. Trump’s precursors defined themselves not by policy argument, but by their willingness to fight: think of the Tea Party’s absolute opposition to Obama’s presidency and Mitch McConnell’s scorched-earth approach to winning at any cost.
Do voters like Trump’s reshaping of American government? Are they onboard for Musk’s decimation of American institutions? Do they want to lose Medicaid, or Medicare, or Social Security? The numbers suggest they don’t — yet Trump, first and foremost a self-styled fighter, even if it’s purely performative, was able to eke out a popular vote win.
Those who still see U.S. politics on a left-right axis look at the Democratic Party’s loss in 2024 as a capitulation to the far left — no matter that the diagnosis hardly describes the actual campaign Kamala Harris ran. Even so, the centrist prescription for 2026 and beyond is a shift to the right. But that misses the point. Just ask Gavin Newsom. Or better yet, ask Tim Walz, who came into the candidacy full of fire — able to fight, to grab attention, to break through, saw that curtailed — and now looks back at the presidential campaign as not having been aggressive enough. Fight, or not.
Amanda Litman of Run for Something sees this shift in vision as a realignment of how we see politics, and how politicians respond to that shift will define the 2026 elections.
To get a sense of why, consider the frustration so many have expressed at Democratic leaders failing to act as an opposition — failing to fight, that is. The Democrats who have made powerful impressions since Trump took office have done it not by shifting to the center or the right, but by taking the fight to the administration — among them people like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, Representatives Jasmine Crockett, Greg Casar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
There’s a cautionary tale here too. In the brewing fight for New York City mayor Eric Adams’s seat, the front runner is disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo — a fighter for sure, but one compromised by his record as a sexual harasser. He’ll fight, certainly. But some fight because that’s all they know. And it’s a fine line between a fighter and a strongman — which Americans don’t need any more of, thank you.
But many fight because they recognize that it’s what needs to be done, and what people need. And if Anat Shenker-Osorio, Amanda Litman, and many others are correct, the leaders who grasp that will be the ones to redefine the Democratic Party. Right now it’s up to the people to show them that’s what they need to do.
SMALL STEP
Play hardball
Speaking of fighting, it’s worth looking back on Mitch McConnell’s infamous career of obstructionism — because that’s what’s been on the minds of a surprising number of progressive strategists looking for a model for what an opposition party can accomplish in the minority, or at least keep the majority party from accomplishing. And given party unity, there are some steps they can take, especially with the upcoming fight over the budget and the possibility of making demands backed by the threat of a government shutdown.
But even in the day-to-day business of governing, Democrats could do a lot more to gum up the works and slow Republican progress. And you, readers and voters, are the ones who can encourage them to fight that fight. Indivisible has a great guide to the tools of minority power — blanket opposition, quorum calls, and blocking unanimous consent — with advice on how to talk to your Democratic senators about overcoming their allegiance to the institution and using those tools to conduct the procedural warfare the moment demands.
DEEP BREATH
Take back desire
Dark times restrict our focus to the essential, tyranny on what others can be for us. Maybe it’s time to reclaim the ineffable, the mysterious. Spring is upon us, after all, and as life reasserts itself, take a moment for eros, as Lauren Hall reminds us:
What if we were to look toward the Other with curiosity, to follow some mysterious way? To follow the nuance, follow the mystery, and see someone not for what they may offer us but for sake of discovery and deep appreciation of Other? Surely, we would begin to see the erotic in everyone and everything. Ancient eros is an existing in a state of constant interplay and experiencing of the aura that surrounds beauty. It is to look at someone not for what they may offer you but for what their existence might communicate so that you, ever the philosopher, ever the lover may be able to translate the wordless—even if only for yourself.
A programming note: More Lives!
We’ve got three great Live conversations planned for this week: Today, Monday, March 10 at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll have our weekly conversation with scholar of fascism Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 11, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern we’ll be joined by Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin. And Thursday, March 13, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern we’ll be speaking with writer and activist Rebecca Solnit. We hope you’ll join us for all three!
To join and watch, download the Substack app (click on the button below) and turn on notifications — you’ll get an alert that we’re live and you can watch from your iOS or Android mobile device. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to The Ink to access full videos of past conversations and to join the chat during our live events.
Ordinary citizens like me are totally aware of the power of consumer capitalism to dominate our lives, and we look to our representatives to break free of this choke hold by repealing Citizens united. We see the greed, the relentless selling, the shameless price gouging and wonder why we are on our own. Why is greed a virtue? Why is price gouging seen as ‘business as usual’? The price of eggs is only a metaphor for the relentless attack on working people by corporations and their oligarchs. We are NOT consumers, we are citizens! We need fearless representation from our elected officials.
So, Anand, will you stop appearing on Morning Joe and start appearing on Rachel Maddow? Most of us fighters have turned off Morning Joe.