An Open Letter to Democratic Candidates and Organizations

The ink is barely dry on the (drama-free) certification of the election results and I'm already getting calls from organizations and candidates seeking donations.  (Apparently my name is on a lot of lists.)  In order to save everyone a lot of time, I thought I'd write up my current thinking so I don't have to have the same conversation dozens of times.

First and foremost: I really do appreciate the fact that you're out there in the trenches working to make the world a better place.  I have never been personally active in politics beyond writing checks (though not for lack of trying, but that's another story).  Nonetheless I get that it's a ton of shit-work, and I am grateful that you have stepped up to the plate to do it so I don't have to.  I also get that you are probably not part of the real power structure in the Democratic party, and so a lot of what I am about to say doesn't apply to you.  However, if you are soliciting a donation from me, then you are almost certainly a lot closer to that power structure than I am, and so I'm saying these things to you in the hopes that you might pass them along to those who are empowered to effect change.

As far as I can tell, the Democratic party has not yet (to put it mildly) fully taken on board the lessons of the 2024 election.  A lot of the pitches I'm getting are saying that we need to (say) re-take the House in 2026 in order to "have robust oversight on Trump's admin overreaches" (that is a direct quote).  I really don't want to insult the person who wrote that because I have a lot of respect for them, but there seems to me a pretty significant disconnect between that sentiment and reality.  What exactly are you going to do to implement this "robust oversight" that you didn't before?  You had six years to robustly oversee Trump.  You impeached him twice, indicted him I don't know how many time, and even managed to convict him of multiple felonies.  But you never laid a glove on him.  Now he is returning to the White House with blanket immunity from criminal prosecution bestowed on him by the Supreme Court.  At this point he could quite literally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.

So "help us re-take the House so we can reel in Donald Trump" is a non-starter for me.  That ship sailed a long time ago.  Donald Trump is going to the White House with de facto dictatorial power.  No one is going to be able to stop him.

Furthermore, even if we could stop him, I think it would be a mistake to try.  Elections have consequences, and Trump won this one fair and square.  A lot of people -- tens of millions -- are thrilled.  I think it's really important not to lose sight of that.  For these people, MAGA is not just a slogan.  They really do believe in their heart of hearts that Donald Trump is going to Make America Great Again.  I think they're wrong, and I think we are going to learn this lesson the hard way.  But I think we have to learn this lesson the hard way because we certainly haven't learned it the easy way.  Donald Trump did not win by trickery or dissembling.  Everyone who voted for him did so knowing exactly who he is and what he stands for (to the extent that he actually stands for anything).  If you believe in democracy, you have to now let the chips fall.  And who knows, maybe Trump will surprise us and do a good job.  I'll give long odds against, but you know, being wrong about that would be a good outcome, wouldn't it?

But I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong, and that the next four years will be an unmitigated disaster on multiple fronts.  But what we need to do IMO is not to try to stop it (because we can't) but to prepare now to pick up the pieces and try to rebuild from the ashes.

That is not going to be a short-term project.  This situation has been a long time in the making.  Trump is not an aberration.  He is not even really the problem.  He is a reflection of a sea-change in American politics that has been going on for at least 30 years, and arguably 50 or even 100 or more.  This is probably going to be a multi-generational project.  But we have an existence proof in the present situation that multi-generational projects of this magnitude can succeed.

But there is one pre-requisite for success that has me very pessimistic, and that is the need to acknowledge that what we progressives have been doing for the last 30 years has failed — manifestly, definitively, and spectacularly.  Nothing can guarantee success, but there is one thing that almost certainly guarantees failure, and that is to change nothing, to continue to insist that we were right all along, to just wait and bide our time until Trump finally implodes, the American people finally return to their senses, and then try to "get back to normal", back to the way things were.  That won't work, because "the way things were" is what brought us Trump in the first place.  To quote one of my favorite aphorisms of all time by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: different is not necessarily better, but better is necessarily different.  (It reads better in the original German: Es ist nicht gesagt, daß es besser wird, wenn es anders wird. Wenn es aber besser werden soll, muß es anders werden.)

Ironically, despite being ostensibly liberal, the Democratic party has been extraordinarily resistant to change.  Our leaders have a tendency to hang on to power well past their sell-by dates.  Our standard-bearer for the last four years has been one of the longest-serving politicians in American history.  (Equally ironic for a party purporting to represent the interests of working people and the middle class, Joe Biden comes from the single most corporate-friendly state in the union.  In fact, being a corporate tax-and-liability haven is pretty much Delaware's main industry!)  Chuck Schumer is not exactly a fresh face, and before him we had Diane Feinstein.  AOC, one of the brightest young stars in the party, recently lost a bid to for a leadership role to a 74-year old with cancer.  On the Supreme Court, RBG, an 87-year-old with cancer, declined to step down and allow Barack Obama to appoint a younger and healthier successor, and now Sonia Sotomayor, a 70-year-old with diabetes, has done likewise.  If she dies in the next four years (not at all unlikely) the Supreme Court will have four justices appointed by Trump.  That may not be recoverable.  And it will be almost entirely self-inflicted wounds.

So don't pitch me on "taking back the House is 2026" because Trump is Bad.  I know Trump is Bad.  I've known it for eight years (though it apparently was news to Merrick Garland).  What I want to know is what do you propose to do about it that is different than what you've tried in the last eight years.  Because what you've tried over the last eight years hasn't worked, and I see no reason to think that it will somehow magically start to work now.

I have no illusions that this is going to be quick and easy.  I don't think there is a magic bullet, a single Brilliant Idea that will break the logjam and suddenly usher in a new golden age.  I get that politics is messy and hard.  But there is one thing I would like to see with regards to the process of figuring this all out: if you have an answer to my question, even a half-baked one, don't call me to tell me about it.  Instead, write it down and either send it to me via email or, even better, publish it and send me a link.  There are two reasons for this.  First, I can read a lot faster than you can talk, and so it's a lot more efficient if I can read a document rather than listen to a pitch.  And second, no successful political movement has ever been based on an oral tradition.  This is not to say that oration won't be important too -- it will.  But, as I said, I think picking up the post-Trump pieces will be a multi-generational project, and documents live longer than orators.  It matters that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Scriptures and Project 2025 are written down and not merely recited.  There is a reason that "it is written" is a thing.

I have some ideas of my own about what needs to change.  In fact, this article started out being about those, and I do plan to publish that eventually but I've decided to defer it for now, again for two reasons.  First, the draft of that version of the article was getting way too long, and second, this is not an area in which I have any actual expertise.  I'm a software engineer and computer scientist, not a politician.  I don't have answers, only ideas.  One of those ideas is that the process of coming up with answers ought to be a discussion, not a dictum.  I'm happy, even eager, to participate in that discussion, but I'm not the right person to lead it.  That would be you, because you are the one stepping up to the plate, not me.

So thank you again for stepping up and volunteering to do this dirty job so I don't have to.  I want to help, I really do.  But don't ask me to write a check just because you're a Democrat, or because you support Democrats, or because you're going to turn out Democratic votes, or because you're going to try to stop Trump.  We tried that.  It didn't work.  Now we need to try something else.