We’re not going back!
Fall days mark the season when, by tradition, we enjoy scaring ourselves. Darkness encroaches, the year’s warmth ebbs, and the air feels ripe for malign spirits to appear. All good fun and games, treats with the tricks.
Until 2016.
That shocking election still triggers an involuntary shudder for so many of us, eight long years later. Our bodies tense, replaying the constant mental assaults by MAGA fascists aiming to destroy everything we hold dear.
But let’s also remember what happened after that frightening election: We fought back. Hard.
We didn’t just fight back. We organized. We learned. And we prevailed, again and again. Ever since 2018’s Blue Wave, we in the grassroots keep showing that when we fight, we win. When our army of volunteers help voters understand the threat that MAGA poses to their families, their freedoms, and their futures—and once voters realize that they have the power to defeat MAGA—they rise up, defiant, and say
Hell no. We’re not going back!
So why, as this crucial election approaches, does the fear come creeping back for us activists?
Because that’s how trauma works. Our psyches try to protect us from another shock, another blow.
When habit sends us looking for signs about what’s coming, the old sources offer little comfort. Instead of reporting the stakes of this election, the media “sanewashes” the disintegrating candidate and his dangerous running mate, under-reports MAGA’s Project 2025 threat, and breathlessly cites non-existent “movement” manipulated by junk polling. Even like-minded pundits hedge their bets with counter-narrative advice. (Thank you for your positivity, Robert Hubbell!)
Think for a moment. If unleashing grassroots energy is the way we’ve won elections since 2018, perhaps we should be looking for another metric—one the press ignores. The volume and intensity of volunteer efforts won’t show up in a poll, but the grassroots news is very, very good.
Once President Biden passed the torch to Kamala Harris, a stalwart trickle of volunteers turned into a huge wave nationwide.
Here in California, instead of dozens knocking doors in our Sweep Six districts, we now welcome hundreds.
Texting parties run out of names long before they run out of volunteers.
Instead of obsessing over the margin of error in polls, let’s remind ourselves: These races fit within our margin of effort.
It gets better. Because a margin of effort isn’t something that you stand back and watch. It’s something you can join. You can bring others with you, and the more we do, the stronger it gets. NOW is the best, most important time to ramp it up. This is the final stretch, the time to go get every wavering vote.
Together, we can banish those election demons still haunting us. We can write a new chapter.
WE are the ones who decide what comes next—now let’s go win this!
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