Activists at No Kings 4 in Boston on October 17, 2026. Photo by a Mass 50501 volunteer.
Just under two years ago our nation was thrown into turmoil at the tail end of a contentious election. In a fit of rage against a system that doesn’t feel like it works for people anymore, we voted a tyrant into office. It revealed the rot under our system that was always there but that many of us didn’t see.The realization of what we had just done began to dawn on many of us. It was the beginning of the Era of Autocracy— in America—and we were afraid. For many of us the Christmas of 2024 had the sobriety of a grave. I left my home in early February and joined 50501. A week later we were addressing crowds of hundreds. Later thousands. The nerves of a new organism began to grow in the fertile soil of that fear.
Now look at where we are and how far we have come. The four largest single days of protest in American history have passed. Tens of thousands of individual actions across the country and millions of people in the streets have voiced their discontent. We personally have been enriched and emboldened by the experience of organizing. Each of us has learned skills that we never knew we would need and discovered wells of strength and character that we didn't think we were capable of. Some of us have lost friends but we have gained many more of quality and character. The process of growth is painful and so maybe we carry a bit of trauma as well. I know I do. I’m not afraid to admit that. In an era of dishonesty we should embrace radical honesty, even within ourselves. I remember weeks of 16 hour days early in this thing. I know many people who have done a lot more.
Take a moment and feel proud of the achievements of this movement. It's been a long and winding road full of setbacks and heartbreaks to arrive here at this moment, but we have arrived and we are more numerous, more diverse, and stronger than we ever were before. What we do these next few weeks and months, till the seating of the new congress on January 3rd, matters. Their tower of lies and avarice is beginning to crumble under the weight of its incoherence, corruption, and malice.
We now approach a national moment of reckoning.
Elections are the beating heart of a republic. Every two years a brief window into the operations of the democratic system are left exposed to be tinkered with and updated by the people. Armies of civil servants emerge from their busy and ordinary lives and dedicate time to the maintenance of its mammoth machinery built of prose and process. It is a blunt instrument and not capable of solving for all the nuances of governing, but the genius is in its simplicity. This process has governed the cadence of our fate since its founding. Our system was built to allow the engine to be fed just a bit more fuel and then sealed with ceremony behind a fortress of legitimized authority.
The first votes have already been cast in this grand contest. The lumbering and wonderful machine of American Democracy is stirring to life again. The first battle against American Fascism has begun. The stakes could not be higher. Its front line is everywhere and nowhere, a dispersed and distributed conflict across capitals, courts, and in the streets. For this election democracy has a friend: a millions-strong movement in every church, school, and office in the country and they stand ready to defend our sacred birthright: the right to vote.
The purpose of the democratic system is not to prevent conflict but to resolve it without the destruction of war. For all this soaring rhetoric about our national destiny which I truly believe—we must be pragmatic about our outcomes, our ambitions, and our opponents, because politics is still a combat sport. Combatants have differing systems of leadership and a balance of forces across and between domains. There are strengths to amplify and weaknesses to exploit. Politics is war by other means. Persuasion matters more than training, and we make the final tally of effectiveness not by casualties, but by votes. Systems in conflict have the same fundamental properties. It’s possible to find weaknesses in the opposition's coalition, and exploit them.
In our favor, the MAGA movement is cracking. Conservatives started defecting as early as 2016. Some of them have become movement leaders out of a conviction that there is something pure and honest about the American experiment and it should be protected. Trump is losing control of his propaganda arms. The messaging is muddled and in conflict with itself. MAGA acolytes consume cycles sniping at each other, while congresspeople scrub Trump's name off their websites.
As it breaks into warring factions, it will get more dangerous, more desperate, and more feral. Its numbers will shrink because the toll is growing on them. The triple threat of law, social scorn, and the obvious incompetence of the administration is eroding the already tepid pillars of support that sit underneath. People are defecting, some quietly—others loudly. Some of them know they are wrong. Others see their own benefit to distance. Others still are just exhausted from the noise. Others still, maybe look at their children and realize they can’t be part of something so destructive anymore.
But against us, we must appreciate that we cannot just have a normal win at the polls. We must have a crushing, overwhelming victory too big to cheat and large enough to terrify the opposition that survives. This is important for strategic reasons. By showing up in numbers like we have never done before, we won't just be putting a check on the administration's abuses—we will be robbing it of the one thing it cannot afford to lose as its power withers: legitimacy.
Without legitimacy the rate and quality of the defections will increase. People won't become pro-democracy advocates overnight, but the energy is draining out of the MAGA movement and a narrow window of opportunity to win hearts and minds is opening. With the right people empowered by an election we have the chance to right the wrongs we allowed on our watch through negligence.
Over a half dozen Trump rallies have been infiltrated by protestors and disrupted. James Watson, a Major in the Army, risked court martial to speak out. The Black community is teaching us the tactics and tricks it has learned in its own long struggle. Veterans, clergy, and community leaders are leading small bands of activists like skirmishers in defense of local communities. ICE is hounded in the streets with phones, whistles, and courage. Lawyers are deploying in droves to throw gum into every gear, defending and reinforcing the decaying legal and political systems this administration has damaged.
Civil society has mobilized and aligned to one overriding goal. Our work—as messy and difficult as it was—has borne fruit. We have achieved the first step of this journey: to get people to care and we have given them the tools to fight and to win. There are a thousand points of light in the streets driven by their own beating hearts, in sync with the rhythms of their nation and bound together by a fierce conviction that this country belongs to all of us.
For those who wonder if America isn't worth saving I'll leave you with a thought. A nation is neither good nor evil. It's a story of warriors, explorers, builders, liberators, and tyrants. You love the nation not because it has never done any evil in the world, but because it's a story that teaches us about ourselves and our future. To love America is to love yourself, your family, and your community. You don't love something because it's perfect. You love it because it's yours.
The road ahead will be uncertain still, but we have trained for this and we are prepared for this. It is our duty to protect the cadence of that heartbeat, so that future generations will benefit from the virtue of choice.
Vote. And help others find the courage to do the same.
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