We are facing an assault on basic American values, the very idea of democracy itself. We have to win. We have to win big in 2026, big enough to overcome gerrymandering and every dirty trick in the book. If we don’t do that, if we don’t beat them at their own game, the real nightmare will begin.

We have twenty months to build a nationwide coalition big enough to pull it off. That means we have to create an emotional message that appeals to everyone, from the most Progressive Democratic activist, through unaffiliated and disaffected voters, right down to fed-up Republicans. They all have to buy in. We all have to.

That means a central message, an emotional message that unifies. We have to emphasizes the things we have in common, the ideals of our American heritage .. the very things MAGA is set upon destroying. That means that whatever else we do .. the resistance that is so necessary, the campaigning to come, even just venting .. this central emotional message has to be embedded in it. The emotional foundation is what holds things together, what makes the rest not only effective, but contagious.

The Republican machine put Trump in the White House by endlessly repeating lies and innuendoes. We have to flip the script. We have to begin repeating basic American truths endlessly, the same truths that underly every social and economic issue we have ever stood behind. These same basic truths touch most Americans, the very people we need to win over. Policies and political positions don’t, but underlying truths do. These truths and symbols are the emotional bridge that brings everybody on board. We need to seize on these emotional truths and the icons that represent them, and make them our own. We need to set these things deep in the American psyche as our identity: champions of democracy.

Of course he was. He is. If Lincoln were alive today, he would not only be a Democratic leader and visionary, he would probably be the President of the United States. His vision of America  stands for ordinary folks over billionaires, democracy over tyranny, justice over hatred. Indeed, Lincoln was FDR before there was an FDR.

“… that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth”

Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863,

Lincoln was a Democrat because he believed in Freedom for all. There can be no doubt he did. And so do we, each and every Democrat in America.

Lincoln was a Democrat because he believed in Justice for all. It was his guiding principle, and it is ours .. in words, and in deeds. The modern Democratic Party has fought for Justice for everyday Americans ever since our founding in the midst of the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism, in 1932.

People crave purpose. We all do, meaning, a visceral sense that life is not chaos.

As Democrats, we have lost our sense of purpose. It’s that simple. Over decades of complacency,  that basic sense of purpose that led us through the Great Depression and the Civil Rights movement, that stood up for equal pay and gay marriage and everything else, has fallen away in disrepair.

But that sense of purpose is still there. Every single Democrat in this country feels it. It’s there, right in front of us, waiting to be picked up. And that sense of purpose comes down to one single thing: creating a just society .. for everyone, from the brownest American in the biggest city, down to the very whitest person in the reddest corner of America. That concept, the opening words of the Declaration of Independence that have inspired us for 250 years, is the way forward. It’s our purpose put in five simple words: all people are created equal. And those words are just as true and just as powerful as when they were written down 250 years ago.

Donald Trump, the candidate, had no policies. He had no platform. He had no list of achievements. And he was elected President of the United States. Twice.

We had policies. Lots of them, very specific policies right down to how to use pronouns. We had lists of achievements, all sorts of statistics, endless lists of them. And we definitely had a platform, a platform loaded with … policies.

And we lost. Twice. (And barely won the third time).

Moral? People don’t vote on policies or political positions. They vote on emotion.

And how is our Party looking at it now? In the middle of a genuine identity crisis, with large numbers of the American public saying they don’t trust us, there’s near total agreement at the top: whatever else, we need to keep leading with policies and positions. Yep, we just need to pick better ones. Working class policies, rural policies, health care policies? It doesn’t matter. Pick one, message the hell out of it, and make that our identity.

1. It’s time to do something, now!

2. It’s time to create real change, now!

3. It’s time to actually start taking back your community. Yes, now!

And here’s how to get started.

Confusion is coming, a massive, nationwide sense of it. Buy Greenland? Seize the Panama Canal? Deport millions of illegal immigrants, all at once? Crazy? A bluff? Simple diversion? Nobody knows, and that’s the point: uncertainty. The same with the ever expanding conspiracy theories and the wild allegations. If nothing is true, then nothing is false, and this is just the beginning. Once Trump is sworn in, we are headed into a period of chaos and confusion that will veer at times towards anarchy. This is Trump 2.0. This is Trump, the Victory Tour. More and more, nobody will know what to believe. And it isn’t just Trump. The equally erratic people that surround him will continue to push their equally erratic agendas as well. Piled on top will be the huge, well-financed, Right-wing media campaign, pushing out competing versions of reality.

Does the Democratic Party need an identity that unites and inspires every single Democrat in this country? Do we need an identity that creates an emotional connection to the vast sea of unaffiliated and disaffected Americans out there?

That is the question we should have been asking for the past twenty years, because clearly, we don’t have one now. Not only have we failed to connect with growing numbers of American voters, we have endlessly fractured ourselves. Our failure to understand the importance of this basic, emotional principle of identity has left us so divided we attack ourselves as easily as the enemy, and the Big Tent has been torn to shreds in the process.

A New Year is upon us … and what a year! Most of us are still in shock, and January 21st hasn’t even happened yet! Well, ready or not, a staggering amount is about to befall us. It’s going to be a year with literally no precedent, so here are some New Year’s Resolutions to start you off with a shred of sanity.

Resolved and Invest in Democracy!

It’s the holiday season, and time to give gifts. So, as we approach the wonder of January 21st, our gift to you is a list of questions! Here are some things to mull over over the mulled wine. Enjoy!

• Why are you a Democrat?

• What is the Purpose of the Democratic Party? Do we exist just to win elections, or is it something more?

• Does the Democratic Party have a soul?

• What divides us?

• What unifies us?

• How important is our identity?

• How important is it to have a common identity that unifies and inspires all Democrats, everywhere, an identity that provides an emotional connection with unaffiliated and fed-up voters?

• Is it time to act?

Branding as a way to fix our problems is a dangerous idea. Focusing on branding is fine if you want to go back to where we were in 2020. Branding alone is fine is you’re content with where we’ve been for decades, trading power back and forth as the public becomes more and more cynical. But if we want to actually fix things, if we want to go forward to a place where MAGA doesn’t exist, then focusing on “branding” is truly dangerous. It confuses things, because our real problem is identity.

Identity is what an organization actually is. You can’t create it [or recreate it], identity just is. And people know. If your identity is strong, people recognize it. If it’s strong enough, then that identity becomes a brand all by itself. If your identity is fractured or tired, people recognize that too. They move away from it, and all the branding in the world won’t fix it.

Of course, if you’re a rural county party, winter has been coming for a very long time. It’s been darkening the horizon, and you’ve been crying out. You’ve been pointing frantically at the impending storm, at  the growing dangers, but nobody would listen ... not the state party, not the national party, not anyone with real power. And so, Donald Trump is President once again, and the American Winter begins on January 21st.

All through all this slow-motion disaster, the Establishment has looked at you as the problem. You’ve been seen as an obstacle in the way, something to be written off. But the truth is, you’re the answer. You. Rural counties. All 2551 of you, 81% of all the counties in America.  You are how we fix this once and for all, permanently. The way forward for this country runs straight through you, and here’s why.

Don’t you want to hold up something that’s just true? Don’t you want to hand unaffiliated voters  something that’s so simple, so straightforward, and so true that even the most skeptical have to agree? Imagine discussing something that not only makes you proud, something so universal it inspires that unaffiliated voter, yet fits perfectly with every bit of our Presidential campaign messaging?