Credit where credit is due

Because so many Democratic victories last Tuesday were so sweeping, punditry has tended to focus on how relatively weak the victors' cash supply seemed up against the oligarchs and also how strong their messaging was -- how well Dem candidates fit their districts. And all that is true. 

Opinion writers also crow about how Trump made MAGA vulnerable -- failing at lowering prices while launching a failed war. 

But what tends to get lost in the discourse is the vast amount of volunteer human labor that contributed to those victories. My years of electoral organizing have taught me that even well designed efforts by impassioned fans of a candidate to Get Out The Vote can only carry a campaign so far -- perhaps a 2 percent boost if successful. That's not nothing -- Scott Colom in Mississippi is showing this as I write. In 2022, Catherine Cortez Masto won the US Senate seat in Nevada by a mere 8000 votes, many of them turned out by the union UniteHERE and associated volunteers. 

But too many election pros are oblivious to or dismiss of the people-to-people energy that can get a campaign over the top, not only in the last days, but also by setting the climate for the contest. So I appreciated David Cole's reflection in the New York Review of Books which takes a broad view of how so many people contributed to turning back MAGA. Cole is a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and the former National Legal Director of the ACLU.

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... we owe the blue wave not just to Trump’s own failures but to a pattern of sustained popular organizing and resistance since he retook office. Over the past two years the people marched in No Kings Day rallies, supported Democratic candidates who promised to check Trump, joined and donated to organizations that filed lawsuits challenging the legality of his ventures, raised their voices in outrage and derision at his misconduct, lampooned him on late-night television, exposed his incompetence and mendacity through investigative reporting, and knocked on doors to get out the vote. All of that contributed to the results we saw on election night. People often wonder what they can do in the face of assaults like those Trump repeatedly launched; the answer, in retrospect, is “a lot.” 

... Without our collective engagement, using the tools the Constitution gives us, these midterm results never would have happened. With our engagement, the institutions held, and are stronger now for having done so. The fight for our democracy is by no means over, but we know what to do.

The next round will be even harder. Trump and Stephen Miller can be counted upon to make lawless efforts to recapture momentum for their fascist project. Meanwhile, our Democratic electeds are a big tent and can be expected to struggle to maintain unity for the battles ahead. 

One election doesn't mean the MAGA project is over. But millions made last Tuesday happen and let's remember that we the people did this. A functioning democracy continues to depend on all of us.