Hope in dark times, reinventing the fight for democracy, being there for each other

Wrapping up the week for November 10, 2024

After Kamala Harris’s electoral loss and the comeback of Donald Trump, we’ve chosen to focus on the pro-democracy movement’s next steps, looking to the future rather than attempting at this early stage to diagnose the problems of the campaign.

This week we heard from Protect Democracy founder Ian Bassin on staying focused on the task of ensuring democracy survives, and from Rebecca Solnit on why and how to keep hope alive in the darkest times for democracy. We talked about the rebuilding years ahead, the necessity that the Democratic Party and those fighting for democracy discard their priors and presuppositions and embrace a wholesale reinvention, and how to transform an open and inclusive platform into an equally open and inclusive message. And we talked about what we owe to one another in the uncertain times ahead, and the need to build the personal bonds that can sustain us into the future and making the commitment to being there for the people — and the country — we care about.

---

We hope The Ink will be essential to the thinking and reimagining and reckoning and doing that all lie ahead. We want to thank you for being a part of what we are and what we do, and we promise you that this community is going to find every way possible to be there for you in the times that lie ahead and be there for this country and for what it can be still.

---

Attorney and organizer Ian Bassin, the founder of Protecting Democracy, shared with us his letter to his team on ensuring that democracy endures after Trump’s return to the White House.

We have always believed that on the other side of this crisis lies the potential for a Fourth Founding — an advance for our country to finally achieve our highest aspiration to create a thriving, pluralistic, multi-racial democracy. That future still lies ahead of us, it will just take us longer to get there, and the hill to climb will be steeper. I admit, actually seeing that destination at the present moment is hard. The fog, shock, and uncertainty of the moment masks it for many of us. But I am confident it is there in the distance, and in time our sightlines will clear to see it.

A pep talk about defending democracy

Anand appeared on “Morning Joe” to talk about what the Democrats need to do to rebuild after Kamala Harris’s loss — and why the party needs to take to heart James Brown’s advice that an audience needs to feel you before they see you.

It does mean throwing out all the preconceptions and priors Democrats have been working with, and maybe rethinking the structure of the party itself. It means moving to a full understanding of what voters want and the stark reality of traumas they’ve endured over the previous decade, from inflation to loneliness to the opioid epidemic to the colossal impact of the Covid pandemic, in a real way. And it means an utterly revamped understanding of what media means today and how people make meaning from it.

What James Brown would tell Democrats

The Democratic Party’s platform might be open and inclusive, but voters see it as closed and judgemental— and that has to do with a failure to do what Republicans have managed: tailoring their messaging to meet people where they are.

For reasons we will still be examining for some time, Democrats have somehow ended up in a situation where their platform is all about openness, but their stance reads to many voters as closed. It feels — and whether rightly or wrongly is beside the point — like a judgmental movement for inclusion and equity. Republicans have, at the same time, chosen a platform devoted to closings — of the border, of the gates of citizenship, of the generosity of the safety net, of fundamental freedoms — but their stance reads to many voters as open, inviting, come-as-you-are. It feels to many like a nonjudgmental movement for exclusion.

Where's our Rogan?

In the days ahead, it will be fundamentally important to recognize our obligations to one another and to build the relationships that can sustain us in place of the systems that we’ve depended on in the past.

In times like these we are entering, when it will become harder to have systems that are kind, interpersonal kindness will matter more. It shouldn’t have to, but it will. Having each other’s backs will matter more. Checking in on your friends will matter more. Letting people sleep on your couch will matter more. Cooking for people who are sick will matter more. We should not be in a situation where the burden of care shifts so radically from the center to the edges, from a coordinated system to an ad hoc network, but it is where we are headed. And we will all be called on in the times ahead to be for each other what, in a better time, the system would be.

The things we can control

The temptation following the loss is to diagnose, to postmortem – and that’s what many will do over the coming weeks – but it’s already time to imagine the pro-democracy movement that will be birthed in the rebuilding years ahead. 

[I]n the pre-vita work we ought to be embarking on, the questions we ask will be bigger and bolder: What kind of pro-democracy movement can actually compete with neo-fascist authoritarianism? Without any attachment to the current forms and expressions, what would the organizing infrastructure of such a movement look like? What would be the coalitional culture of such a movement, and how would disagreements be hashed out?

Welcome to the rebuilding years

The morning after the election, awakening to a dark day for democracy, we could think of no better thinker to turn to than Rebecca Solnit, who reminded us of the task ahead, a task none of us can afford to give up on.

They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.

How to hope even now

---

Your support makes The Ink possible. We’d be honored if you’d become a paid subscriber. When you do, you’ll get access each week to our regular posts and our interviews with the most thoughtful people out there — and you’ll be able to join the conversation in our comments section.

---

Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images