Could you not wait ONE full day before raining on the parade? Yes, this fight is far from over. Yes, much deeper changes are needed. Yes, statistically, the country is still systemically rigged by Republicans and their mega donors, and the woefully misinformed voters. But let people believe this shows SOME hope or people will give up and we’ll be even more screwed.
I’m not disagreeing with anything in your article. One skeptical voice isn’t going to collapse the republic, which - you’re right - is hardly a republic at all at this point. All I’m saying is people NEED some hope to survive hardship. Yes, too much lulls you into a false sense of security, but a total lack of hope will cause people to give up. A more constructive message might be “Take a day or two to celebrate, but remember this is a small drop in the bucket and get back out there.”
Your depressing-ass fucking take is why people are going to just decide we're done, stick a fork in us, may as well not act.
You have to think about what your doomsaying does to people. We absolutely can't bring anyone down when everyone finally got to take a breath of hope. Hope is all we have left. Stop trying to kill it.
I liked your assessment of how hard it is to hold the US in military regime, but I don't like your dismay. I get it, you left, you want us all to abandon the place. You'd rather everyone move overseas. So get out of the news cycle, be glad you escaped, and stop making it bad for the rest of us.
He's telling you the job is barely started and a lot more work needs doing.
That is a lot more positive than toasting yesterday's votes as having completed the task. If Democrats do that ... that would be depressing. And from the comments too many are hoping they don't have to make any more effort.
From this side of the Atlantic ocean that looks like a losing mentality.
Prop 50? You mean the housekeeping measure in California that asked the only honest redistricting commission in America to double-check its own math? If that’s what passes for structural change, then God help us. It didn’t boot a single Republican off the map; it just asked the janitor to polish the one floor that wasn’t already sticky.
Calling that a revolution is like calling a fire drill the Second Coming.
California will redraw its congressional lines for the 2026 election — not because Caesar decreed it, but because the voters let the same redistricting commission run a mid-decade tune-up. It’s a cartographic oil change, not a revolution.
The courts will be dragged in, of course. They always are. Republicans will sue, Democrats will preen, and a year from now we’ll be right back where we started: one state playing fair while half the country still treats map-making as a blood sport.
If the new lines hold, Democrats might pick up four seats in the U.S. House — a fine return on investment, but hardly the “dawn of a new republic.”
The rest of the nation remains safely gerrymandered into medieval fiefdoms where incumbents die in office or prison, whichever comes first. And states that are not as scrupulous are already underway to quickly negate the four newly found Democrats in California.
It's unlikely the national election math will change materially. Which goes to reinforce the point I made that the structure is essentially unchanged.
May be the worst analysis this morning... but it's not without its charm.
You don’t live in Texas where your representative gets gerrymandered away with virtually no chance of being elected. It’s. being hashed out in the courts but we’ll never win We need to celebrate every democratic win elsewhere.
On the other hand lying around complacently saying the next election will sort the country's ills is not what you need either.
The Democrats did extremely well. If they'd not done so the country would be finished.
But it is true that little important has changed. The House is still on holiday. Trump and his entire regime are still in power and still ignoring the judiciary, working to take away the right to vote. People are still going to go hungry, people are still being kidnapped off the streets. Those are the important things, and yesterday did little to change them.
Yes there are hopeful minds but you cannot afford to take a rest basking in how well you did. The contest has barely begun and signs are not enough.
For the best analysis and concrete suggestions, see Christopher Armitage’s Substack. We don’t need to wallow and we certainly don’t need to gloat, we need to redefine federalism.
Redefining is good, I agree. First get into power so you can do it. Democrats are not there yet.
So I'd submit its not the time for resting on their laurels. It's the time for fighting, winning and delivering. Assuming you can get everyone to agree on what to deliver. Do all Democrats agree? eg with Mamdani?
And I read Armitage. He's broadly saying the same thing imo
You must have missed the record turnout to level a playing field. Pretty significant structural adjustment. And nobody called it a revolution, and besides, revolutions don’t happen on or in one day.
Great essay. If we truly want to save this republic, we have to face the hard truth: the time for 10th-grade civics class understandings of 21st-century totalitarianism is over. We’re not living in a textbook anymore—we’re living in a battle for the soul of the nation.
I live in California, and Prop 50 is nothing more than an “easy out” for Democrats to pat themselves on the back and pretend they’re doing something. This morning, Nancy Pelosi and her crew were on the local news celebrating like they’d just won the Super Bowl. But what exactly did they win? Another round of political theater. They love playing the numbers game with Republicans, yet they offer no real shift in tactics, no bold strategy, no fire to defend the democracy they claim to cherish. It’s all PR—smiles, slogans, and self-congratulations—while the machinery of corruption keeps grinding on. Soon, they’ll go right back to business as usual, refusing to look in the mirror or do the soul-searching this moment demands.
They don’t have the focus, the will, or the fight to build and drive a real agenda. Say what you will about MAGA—at least they have the discipline and intensity to push what they believe.
Democrats, meanwhile, want the comfort of singing “Kumbaya” while the other side sharpens its knives. And we’re supposed to clap for them? To thank them for tossing us crumbs and calling it hope? Please. That’s not leadership—that’s “bread and circuses” for a distracted, desperate public. People don’t seem to grasp that the entire system is a rigged game—and we’re the pawns. The Democrats are supposed to fight for the people who put them in office, not just smile and offer platitudes. If all they can give us is “hope,” I can go to church for that.
They are supposed to fight like hell. To show the enemy their war face. To act like they mean it when they call this an existential crisis. Because if they don’t—if they keep pretending this is politics as usual—then they’re already losing the fight they claim to be in. At this point, the only hope needed to be expressed is the hope to kick Democrats in their collective asses to fight like hell.
At least last night's elections give us hope, which is precious. Trump will respond with unhinged rage and escalate every horrible policy and plan. He and his enablers will rain down every awful thing they can think of on blue states and perceived enemies. It's going to get so much worse. BUT! But we still have hope which helps bolster the will to stand up against this administration. Now it is more important than ever to stand up for what is right and decent. The people have more power than they are led to believe.
Wow. This article is the reason I rarely read Substack. Too many self-proclaimed Cassandra’s still impressed with themselves for taking that poli sci course.
There's been a couple of signs of hope. So? Anything less would have been the end of your country. There's a long, long haul before it's over. Sitting around thinking something momentous has changed is defeat.
Tell me, which of Trump's actions will actually stop/change as a result of these elections? Will ICE stop kidnapping, taking away people's right to vote, his tax cuts and cuts to programs that support the poor, healthcare costs .... ?
What has actually been achieved? What more needs to be done to achieve more?
Good grief! Take the win, for God's sake! I've not read or heard one credible pundit or voter proclaiming that the "Republican is saved," or that there's been a massive shift in power, direction or priorities. No "Democracy Restored!" We won the battle, not the war. We know that. There's a long road ahead, but this is a clear signal that we're not just gonna roll over and play dead.
This isn't about hope. It's about possibility. We've had to suffer for the past year sitting on the sidelines watching our country being destroyed in every way possible, with no power to stop it, and with a corporate media and political class refusing to respond to what we're all seeing. No, we didn't convert the "unwashed"--we never will. We just need to keep making them as irrelevant as possible, and we did that yesterday. Here in Bucks County, PA, MAGA has been thrown out and kept out of our school boards, a Republican incumbent sheriff who had signed an agreement with ICE was thrown out, as was the Republican D.A. These victories will have day-to-day consequences for real lives here. Yes, Trump still has an enormously frightening amount of power--we are far from being out of danger--and SCOTUS could issue rulings that solidify that power. Maybe the oligarchs and tech and cyber bros have already gathered all the data, money and power they need to make everyone else their slaves, but yesterday indicated that more and more people are realizing that whether they're Red, Blue, MAGA, Republican, Democrat or whatever, we're all being punked by the same vultures, and that we need to go after them, not each other.
When enough people of integrity get in, they can start changing the structure. When people feel like their votes lead to results, they may vote more often. The Rs played a long game, electing people and investing in small local wins for decades, until they were able to corrupt and overthrow Congress, SCOTUS, etc.
I’m sick to death of hearing pundits talk like you do. A microscope always shows that nothing is moving. Your naysaying and unrelenting criticism of every attempt to do better snuffs out hope and progress. It encourages despair. It reduces people’s willingness to vote, or to vote for candidates who are better than the alternative. It reinforces the status quo of Ds having to be perfect legends with spotless histories from every possible perspective, while Rs are held to no standard at all. It makes every D responsible for getting us all the way there, as no one can do, and thereby makes failure inevitable and expected.
I used to study martial arts, and there were two styles of senior students. One would stop you and start criticizing the moment you started to move when practicing a new skill. You never got to practice because it was all about what you were doing wrong—and about listening to them pontificate. The other type would give you a few times to get the sense of it, praise what you were doing well, then offer a suggestion for doing it even better.
Fortunately I almost never partake ETOH or otherwise I would have to fully digest this. Even beloved cynic Thomas Mills of NC (where I be) shared a distinctly different narrative.
Thank you. Joe. Am in NC also, and appreciate Mills' "distinctly different narrative."
The hope generated last night in our community and county, and across the country, will move us forward in fruitful and positive ways. How sad WAF is so relentlessly cynical.
"The doomers will say yesterday changes nothing. That one election doesn’t matter. That they’ll escalate and win anyway. They’ll maintain the simulation through pessimism the way oligarchs try to maintain it through platform control—by making you believe fighting back is pointless.
The optimists will say yesterday proves everything is fine. That institutions are holding. That normal politics will contain threats. They’ll treat yesterday as return to normalcy rather than breakthrough requiring sustained intensification.
Both are wrong because both refuse to see what yesterday actually proves. The simulation of inevitable authoritarianism was false. The manufactured consensus that resistance was futile was false. Reality vetoed the simulation. Not completely. Not everywhere. Not permanently. But decisively enough to prove the simulation was always fragile, that reality always had veto power, that we always had more agency than they wanted us to believe." - https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-simulation-is-collapsing
Let’s all run to Europe where, as the Economist magazine reports, the populist right is on the ascent in all major countries. Or let’s turn to Uruguay, since it’s never had a dictator, oh wait yes it has, or maybe Ireland, where there’s no internal strife…hmm. Or maybe stay put and fight for what you believe in, like Washington and Madison.
Mr. Buzzkill! Excellent writing, now talk Prop 50, which I think was just as important as PA. Ah, I see now that Grumpy Liberal preceded me. Mr. Finnegan, it not just California. Newsom was hardly celebratory (I think he agrees with you, basically) and called on, what was it? Five Democratic states to redirect, too.
A cold shower of realism amongst the unalloyed joy of those desperate to think elections will save them.
And they may, but I'd not bet my life on it as so many Americans seem willing to do.
It is not just winning an election it then needs the will and the power to completely restructure how the country works - against the opposition of all the sources of power that require no change.
I am very happy about yesterday's results. If they had not been so good the USA was finished. No time to waste celebrating, lots of hard work still needed.
I've adopted Valley Forge as my go-to metaphor for this difficult period--a time for rebuilding morale, regrouping, and restrategizing. That being the case, for as much cold, hard truth as there may be in what you say, I believe had you stepped up on a tree stump at the historic cantonment and delivered a speech of similar uplift, General Washington would've had you shot on the spot.
Could you not wait ONE full day before raining on the parade? Yes, this fight is far from over. Yes, much deeper changes are needed. Yes, statistically, the country is still systemically rigged by Republicans and their mega donors, and the woefully misinformed voters. But let people believe this shows SOME hope or people will give up and we’ll be even more screwed.
Hope’s a fine breakfast, but a rotten supper.
If we’re already “screwed,” then worrying about being more screwed is a theological exercise, not a political one.
And I’m just one guy saying, “Hmmm… really?” amid a thousand voices singing victory hymns.
If a single note of skepticism can collapse the republic, it probably wasn’t much of a republic to begin with.
I’m not disagreeing with anything in your article. One skeptical voice isn’t going to collapse the republic, which - you’re right - is hardly a republic at all at this point. All I’m saying is people NEED some hope to survive hardship. Yes, too much lulls you into a false sense of security, but a total lack of hope will cause people to give up. A more constructive message might be “Take a day or two to celebrate, but remember this is a small drop in the bucket and get back out there.”
But the beginning of your commentary is inaccurrate. Own up to it.
Well said 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Your depressing-ass fucking take is why people are going to just decide we're done, stick a fork in us, may as well not act.
You have to think about what your doomsaying does to people. We absolutely can't bring anyone down when everyone finally got to take a breath of hope. Hope is all we have left. Stop trying to kill it.
I liked your assessment of how hard it is to hold the US in military regime, but I don't like your dismay. I get it, you left, you want us all to abandon the place. You'd rather everyone move overseas. So get out of the news cycle, be glad you escaped, and stop making it bad for the rest of us.
It is not in the least depressing.
He's telling you the job is barely started and a lot more work needs doing.
That is a lot more positive than toasting yesterday's votes as having completed the task. If Democrats do that ... that would be depressing. And from the comments too many are hoping they don't have to make any more effort.
From this side of the Atlantic ocean that looks like a losing mentality.
I second that emotion.
Prop 50 — nothing structural? Sheesh. Worst analysis this morning.
Prop 50? You mean the housekeeping measure in California that asked the only honest redistricting commission in America to double-check its own math? If that’s what passes for structural change, then God help us. It didn’t boot a single Republican off the map; it just asked the janitor to polish the one floor that wasn’t already sticky.
Calling that a revolution is like calling a fire drill the Second Coming.
California will redraw its congressional lines for the 2026 election — not because Caesar decreed it, but because the voters let the same redistricting commission run a mid-decade tune-up. It’s a cartographic oil change, not a revolution.
The courts will be dragged in, of course. They always are. Republicans will sue, Democrats will preen, and a year from now we’ll be right back where we started: one state playing fair while half the country still treats map-making as a blood sport.
If the new lines hold, Democrats might pick up four seats in the U.S. House — a fine return on investment, but hardly the “dawn of a new republic.”
The rest of the nation remains safely gerrymandered into medieval fiefdoms where incumbents die in office or prison, whichever comes first. And states that are not as scrupulous are already underway to quickly negate the four newly found Democrats in California.
It's unlikely the national election math will change materially. Which goes to reinforce the point I made that the structure is essentially unchanged.
May be the worst analysis this morning... but it's not without its charm.
You don’t live in Texas where your representative gets gerrymandered away with virtually no chance of being elected. It’s. being hashed out in the courts but we’ll never win We need to celebrate every democratic win elsewhere.
It's not what people need to hear right now, don't you get it. We need to turn up the volume not wallow away in woe is me despair.
On the other hand lying around complacently saying the next election will sort the country's ills is not what you need either.
The Democrats did extremely well. If they'd not done so the country would be finished.
But it is true that little important has changed. The House is still on holiday. Trump and his entire regime are still in power and still ignoring the judiciary, working to take away the right to vote. People are still going to go hungry, people are still being kidnapped off the streets. Those are the important things, and yesterday did little to change them.
Yes there are hopeful minds but you cannot afford to take a rest basking in how well you did. The contest has barely begun and signs are not enough.
For the best analysis and concrete suggestions, see Christopher Armitage’s Substack. We don’t need to wallow and we certainly don’t need to gloat, we need to redefine federalism.
Redefining is good, I agree. First get into power so you can do it. Democrats are not there yet.
So I'd submit its not the time for resting on their laurels. It's the time for fighting, winning and delivering. Assuming you can get everyone to agree on what to deliver. Do all Democrats agree? eg with Mamdani?
And I read Armitage. He's broadly saying the same thing imo
Our Wm. is rather splenetic this a.m., taking a "pox on both your houses" line...as Eric Idle would have it: "Always look on the bright side of life!"
You must have missed the record turnout to level a playing field. Pretty significant structural adjustment. And nobody called it a revolution, and besides, revolutions don’t happen on or in one day.
Great essay. If we truly want to save this republic, we have to face the hard truth: the time for 10th-grade civics class understandings of 21st-century totalitarianism is over. We’re not living in a textbook anymore—we’re living in a battle for the soul of the nation.
I live in California, and Prop 50 is nothing more than an “easy out” for Democrats to pat themselves on the back and pretend they’re doing something. This morning, Nancy Pelosi and her crew were on the local news celebrating like they’d just won the Super Bowl. But what exactly did they win? Another round of political theater. They love playing the numbers game with Republicans, yet they offer no real shift in tactics, no bold strategy, no fire to defend the democracy they claim to cherish. It’s all PR—smiles, slogans, and self-congratulations—while the machinery of corruption keeps grinding on. Soon, they’ll go right back to business as usual, refusing to look in the mirror or do the soul-searching this moment demands.
They don’t have the focus, the will, or the fight to build and drive a real agenda. Say what you will about MAGA—at least they have the discipline and intensity to push what they believe.
Democrats, meanwhile, want the comfort of singing “Kumbaya” while the other side sharpens its knives. And we’re supposed to clap for them? To thank them for tossing us crumbs and calling it hope? Please. That’s not leadership—that’s “bread and circuses” for a distracted, desperate public. People don’t seem to grasp that the entire system is a rigged game—and we’re the pawns. The Democrats are supposed to fight for the people who put them in office, not just smile and offer platitudes. If all they can give us is “hope,” I can go to church for that.
They are supposed to fight like hell. To show the enemy their war face. To act like they mean it when they call this an existential crisis. Because if they don’t—if they keep pretending this is politics as usual—then they’re already losing the fight they claim to be in. At this point, the only hope needed to be expressed is the hope to kick Democrats in their collective asses to fight like hell.
At least last night's elections give us hope, which is precious. Trump will respond with unhinged rage and escalate every horrible policy and plan. He and his enablers will rain down every awful thing they can think of on blue states and perceived enemies. It's going to get so much worse. BUT! But we still have hope which helps bolster the will to stand up against this administration. Now it is more important than ever to stand up for what is right and decent. The people have more power than they are led to believe.
Wow. This article is the reason I rarely read Substack. Too many self-proclaimed Cassandra’s still impressed with themselves for taking that poli sci course.
Shit Dude, it ain’t over till it’s over.
I think that was his point.
There's been a couple of signs of hope. So? Anything less would have been the end of your country. There's a long, long haul before it's over. Sitting around thinking something momentous has changed is defeat.
Tell me, which of Trump's actions will actually stop/change as a result of these elections? Will ICE stop kidnapping, taking away people's right to vote, his tax cuts and cuts to programs that support the poor, healthcare costs .... ?
What has actually been achieved? What more needs to be done to achieve more?
Good grief! Take the win, for God's sake! I've not read or heard one credible pundit or voter proclaiming that the "Republican is saved," or that there's been a massive shift in power, direction or priorities. No "Democracy Restored!" We won the battle, not the war. We know that. There's a long road ahead, but this is a clear signal that we're not just gonna roll over and play dead.
This isn't about hope. It's about possibility. We've had to suffer for the past year sitting on the sidelines watching our country being destroyed in every way possible, with no power to stop it, and with a corporate media and political class refusing to respond to what we're all seeing. No, we didn't convert the "unwashed"--we never will. We just need to keep making them as irrelevant as possible, and we did that yesterday. Here in Bucks County, PA, MAGA has been thrown out and kept out of our school boards, a Republican incumbent sheriff who had signed an agreement with ICE was thrown out, as was the Republican D.A. These victories will have day-to-day consequences for real lives here. Yes, Trump still has an enormously frightening amount of power--we are far from being out of danger--and SCOTUS could issue rulings that solidify that power. Maybe the oligarchs and tech and cyber bros have already gathered all the data, money and power they need to make everyone else their slaves, but yesterday indicated that more and more people are realizing that whether they're Red, Blue, MAGA, Republican, Democrat or whatever, we're all being punked by the same vultures, and that we need to go after them, not each other.
This is an awful message. "Nothing matters except national politics and general elections" is a big part of what got us into this mess.
Oh I’ll agree with that…
But is MSNBC or CNN or anyone else talking about how the local race in school boards matter?
Maybe I missed that.
CORRECTING DRUMPF SOCIAL
Drumpf: “(I) wasn’t on the ballot, and shutdown, were the two reasons that Republicans lost elections tonight.”
Truth: His I-Am-King actions & his ‘let them eat cake’ shutdown were definitely on the ballot!
When enough people of integrity get in, they can start changing the structure. When people feel like their votes lead to results, they may vote more often. The Rs played a long game, electing people and investing in small local wins for decades, until they were able to corrupt and overthrow Congress, SCOTUS, etc.
I’m sick to death of hearing pundits talk like you do. A microscope always shows that nothing is moving. Your naysaying and unrelenting criticism of every attempt to do better snuffs out hope and progress. It encourages despair. It reduces people’s willingness to vote, or to vote for candidates who are better than the alternative. It reinforces the status quo of Ds having to be perfect legends with spotless histories from every possible perspective, while Rs are held to no standard at all. It makes every D responsible for getting us all the way there, as no one can do, and thereby makes failure inevitable and expected.
I used to study martial arts, and there were two styles of senior students. One would stop you and start criticizing the moment you started to move when practicing a new skill. You never got to practice because it was all about what you were doing wrong—and about listening to them pontificate. The other type would give you a few times to get the sense of it, praise what you were doing well, then offer a suggestion for doing it even better.
Guess which type helped classes thrive and grow.
Fortunately I almost never partake ETOH or otherwise I would have to fully digest this. Even beloved cynic Thomas Mills of NC (where I be) shared a distinctly different narrative.
https://open.substack.com/pub/politicsnc/p/whew
Thank you. Joe. Am in NC also, and appreciate Mills' "distinctly different narrative."
The hope generated last night in our community and county, and across the country, will move us forward in fruitful and positive ways. How sad WAF is so relentlessly cynical.
"The doomers will say yesterday changes nothing. That one election doesn’t matter. That they’ll escalate and win anyway. They’ll maintain the simulation through pessimism the way oligarchs try to maintain it through platform control—by making you believe fighting back is pointless.
The optimists will say yesterday proves everything is fine. That institutions are holding. That normal politics will contain threats. They’ll treat yesterday as return to normalcy rather than breakthrough requiring sustained intensification.
Both are wrong because both refuse to see what yesterday actually proves. The simulation of inevitable authoritarianism was false. The manufactured consensus that resistance was futile was false. Reality vetoed the simulation. Not completely. Not everywhere. Not permanently. But decisively enough to prove the simulation was always fragile, that reality always had veto power, that we always had more agency than they wanted us to believe." - https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-simulation-is-collapsing
Let’s all run to Europe where, as the Economist magazine reports, the populist right is on the ascent in all major countries. Or let’s turn to Uruguay, since it’s never had a dictator, oh wait yes it has, or maybe Ireland, where there’s no internal strife…hmm. Or maybe stay put and fight for what you believe in, like Washington and Madison.
Mr. Buzzkill! Excellent writing, now talk Prop 50, which I think was just as important as PA. Ah, I see now that Grumpy Liberal preceded me. Mr. Finnegan, it not just California. Newsom was hardly celebratory (I think he agrees with you, basically) and called on, what was it? Five Democratic states to redirect, too.
A cold shower of realism amongst the unalloyed joy of those desperate to think elections will save them.
And they may, but I'd not bet my life on it as so many Americans seem willing to do.
It is not just winning an election it then needs the will and the power to completely restructure how the country works - against the opposition of all the sources of power that require no change.
I am very happy about yesterday's results. If they had not been so good the USA was finished. No time to waste celebrating, lots of hard work still needed.
I've adopted Valley Forge as my go-to metaphor for this difficult period--a time for rebuilding morale, regrouping, and restrategizing. That being the case, for as much cold, hard truth as there may be in what you say, I believe had you stepped up on a tree stump at the historic cantonment and delivered a speech of similar uplift, General Washington would've had you shot on the spot.
https://danriley2.substack.com/p/welcome-to-virtual-valley-forge?r=1lxecq