When we fight, we win!

My friends in the hospitality union UniteHERE routinely end their meetings with the chant that serves as the title for this post. 

It seems a good day, a week after our huge election victories, to pass along the words of a veteran fighter.

Sherilyn Ifill, civil rights lawyer and the former head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, has been in the trenches for freedom and wider democracy all her life. Her evaluation of where we sit after the recent election is both heartening and bracing.

Opponents of the Trump regime won just about everywhere as all observers note. But along with that happy outcome, we are seeing the rapid decline of the fascist project.

... As exhausted and overwhelmed as we feel, we should remember that they likely feel the same. They have taken on the extraordinary project of destroying one of the most powerful nations in the world – a nation with a national government, fifty state governments, tens of thousands of cities and local governments, a Supreme Court, hundreds of federal trial and appellate courts, fifty state court systems, and tens of thousands of courts within those systems. And they are attempting to do this with a skeleton crew - well-trained in harsh rhetoric, insults, petulance, and cruelty -- but almost entirely inexperienced in running anything of substance. 

They are destroying the apparatus of government because they know they cannot manage it. The ranks of those with even marginal competence available to work at a high level in this Administration are severely diminished. This is why embarrassingly subpar attorneys like Lindsey Halligan and Alina Habba are put in charge of key U.S. attorneys’ offices to prosecute Trump’s enemies, where they and their assistants stumble through the choreography of litigation, garnering ever-increasing impatience from federal district court judges. The Trump administration fires thousands of workers, and then hires back those same workers as agency heads realize that they’ve left no one sufficiently competent to log on to manage critical functions.

It's not as if the electorate finds these clowns inspiring.

... Trump is deeply unpopular. His poll ratings remain underwater. He has even lost podcast king Joe Rogan. ... Moreover, Trump is looking even more enfeebled than usual. He is mocked and sub-tweeted on the world stage by leaders who play to his vanity in the place of trying to negotiate with the erratic and unserious U.S. leader. 

Yes, J.D. Vance is waiting in the wings. But as a graduate of the Peter Thiel School of Charm and Deportment, he has neither the charisma nor the people instincts needed to garner the kind of support that Trump has enjoyed. ... 

... Trump’s lack of vigor has forced the egos that surround him to the top. No longer satisfied with being the ghoul behind the scenes, Stephen Miller wants everyone to know that he is in charge and that the plans being advanced are his. That is why we are seeing and hearing him more frequently, as he pauses for interviews outside the White House as though he is the President, shows up on news programs with regularity and even dispatches his wife as a (very uninformed and ineffective) talking head. 

But Miller is repulsive by any impartial standard. Watching him spew bile at endlessly increasing levels of manic zeal – has the effect of holding up a mirror to the worst of MAGA. It cannot be pleasant to look in the mirror when the image looking back at you is Stephen Miller. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a disaster. ... 

... The Supreme Court has handed Trump some big wins. And there are more likely to come. But even members of the Court must be feeling the pressure of association with the images we are all seeing every day of masked ICE agents patrolling suburbs while dressed for battle in Fallujah. ...

Ifill suggests it is time to focus our resistance on Congress. (And how much more is this true when we've watched the Democratic Party leaders of the Senate fumble a potentially winning hand on health care and other issues.) Ifill focuses on the House. 

... And as I have often said, the abiding obsession of Republican House members is keeping their jobs. [Last Tuesday's] election was a wake-up call. Next year every seat in the House is on the ballot. No matter what they say before the cameras today, Republicans in the House are seeing the writing on the wall this week and they are feeling queasy. We should be prepared to challenge Republican incumbents. Show up and out at town halls. Democrats living in Republican districts should apply pressure to their Republican representatives. ... 

... [The November] election outcomes provided some critical lessons for Democratic leadership and donors. The Party’s base is not an optional constituency. Black women continue to power Democratic wins around the country. Democrats who stand by their convictions and the constituencies in our “big tent” do better than those who run on being “Republican-light” and who sacrifice inclusion to chase the white whale of “centrist voters.” The wins came in California and in New York City, but also in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

She prescribes hope to the resistant:

None of this guarantees that we will be saved from the abyss. But these are all encouraging signs that the fight is not finished. In the words of Yogi Berra, “it’s not over ‘til it’s over.” And even then, we fight.

Democratic Party leadership -- nothing to write home about. People rising -- a better power being born!