Be honest: how much do you know about D-Day beyond the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan? If it’s not much, that’s fine—I only know as much as I do because I was too unathletic as a kid to do anything during recess other than retreat to the library and read history books.

First, a refresher: on June 6, 1944, nearly 200,000 Allied troops landed by sea and air in Normandy, France to begin the liberation of Europe from Hitler’s Germany. It remains the largest amphibious invasion in human history.

But D-Day was far more than a battle. For today’s installment of my America250 series, on the 82nd anniversary of the Normandy landings, I want to make the case that it was not just one of the most decisive days of World War II, but one of the most American days in our nation’s history.

Why? Because D-Day exemplified both the source of America’s power and the way America is most effective in the world: mobilizing a diverse people at home while leading alongside allies abroad in defense of ideals larger than itself. Eighty-two years later, that lesson remains as relevant as ever.

The Power of a Diverse Democracy

The success of D-Day and the Allied war effort rested in large part on America’s greatest strength: the ability of a diverse democracy to mobilize its people, industry, and institutions on a scale no other nation could match. Though both its infantry and officer corps were overwhelmingly white and male, America’s success on D-Day and in the war effort as a whole would not have been possible without contributions from Americans of every background.

Black Americans, though segregated into their own units, played vital logistical roles throughout the war, loading ships, driving supply convoys, and helping sustain the Allied advance across Europe. American women answered the call as well, filling factories at home and serving overseas as nurses, intelligence officers, mechanics, radio operators, and clerks. Meanwhile, Black Americans, American Indians, and Japanese-Americans also distinguished themselves in combat through units such as the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo Code Talkers, and the highly decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

While the other Allied nations were indispensable to victory, America possessed unique advantages that ultimately tipped the scales. Its vast resources, unmatched industrial capacity, and massive, diverse population enabled it to produce the weapons, vehicles, and supplies needed to wage a global war. More than sixteen million Americans served in uniform, while millions more contributed on the home front. Together, these strengths made the United States the decisive force behind the Allied victory over fascism.

The Power of Allied Unity

It was with this diverse fighting force that America led a multinational coalition onto the beaches of Normandy and other battlegrounds in what was perhaps the most morally unambiguous struggle between good and evil in the modern age. D-Day was not merely a battle between rival nations, but a confrontation between two fundamentally incompatible visions of civilization itself: one that held that all human beings possess inherent dignity and freedom, and another that divided humanity into masters and subhumans to be enslaved or exterminated.

While the United States would become the decisive force behind Allied victory, D-Day was not an American operation alone. British, Canadian, French, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, Belgian, and other Allied forces all contributed troops, intelligence, logistics, and sacrifice to the liberation of Europe. The Normandy landings demonstrated a lesson that remains just as relevant today: America achieves its greatest successes not when it acts unilaterally, but when it leads alongside like-minded nations.

No participant in D-Day better conveyed its scale and significance than Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. Army commander and leader of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. In a letter delivered to the 175,000 troops preparing to cross the English Channel on the eve of the invasion, he wrote:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

In that “Great Crusade,” American boys and their Allied counterparts landed on the beaches of northern France under blankets of enemy fire, parachuted from C-47s carrying more than 50 pounds of equipment as flak burst around them, and fought through the hedgerows and farmland of Normandy to establish footholds in the European continent. Forty-four hundred Allied troops—more than half of them Americans—made the ultimate sacrifice that day. Hundreds of thousands more would do the same in the eleven months that followed on the road to Berlin. Their victory liberated Europe from Nazi tyranny and laid the foundation for a more prosperous and peaceful world order than any previous generation had known.

Building a Freer World

As we reflect today on the sacrifices made on June 6, 1944, we should also reflect on what those sacrifices helped create. The liberal international order built in the aftermath of the war was not inevitable; it was constructed by the United States and its democratic allies and has endured only through their continued commitment.

With Europe in ruins, America took on the mantle of helping build a system that not only reaffirmed the Westphalian principle of state sovereignty, but also enshrined newer liberal ideas like collective security, international law, and universal human rights. The United Nations, NATO and other alliances, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the first formal international recognition of human rights all emerged from this period and remain pillars of the liberal international order.

To be sure, nations continued to pursue their own interests. But the postwar system encouraged them to do so within a framework of alliances, institutions, and shared rules rather than through conquest and domination alone. For more than seventy years, the United States stood at the center of this order, defending it through military alliances, economic cooperation, and diplomatic efforts to deter aggression and broker peace between nations. While no international system is perfect, the one built after World War II helped produce an era of stability and prosperity unprecedented in human history.

Why D-Day Still Matters

That legacy is not self-sustaining.

President Trump has challenged alliances that previous generations of American leaders considered essential, strained relationships with democratic partners, and embraced a far more transactional approach to foreign policy. Meanwhile, as China and Russia grow more aggressive abroad, he has often appeared more comfortable with authoritarian strongmen than with the democratic coalition America once led.

Though one may be tempted to characterize Trump’s foreign policy as a return to the nineteenth-century era of Great Power politics, such a comparison is too charitable. Traditional great powers still pursued national interests within a recognizable international system. Trumpism instead treats alliances and diplomacy as transactional tools for rewarding loyalty, punishing dissent, and advancing his and his family’s financial interests.

Speaking in Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, then-President Biden offered a different vision:

America has invested in our alliances and forged new ones, not simply out of altruism, but out of our own self-interest as well. America’s unique ability to bring countries together is an undeniable source of our strength and our power. Isolationism was not the answer 80 years ago and is not the answer today.

Biden’s warning was not merely rhetorical. International law and collective security survive only so long as powerful nations are willing to uphold them. Once major powers begin abandoning allies or disregarding shared rules, war and aggression become contagious.

That is why D-Day remains relevant today. The men who stormed the beaches of Normandy demonstrated not only the power of the United States, but the power of free nations acting together in pursuit of a common cause. Together, they helped create a world that, while imperfect, was freer, safer, and more prosperous than the one they inherited. Preserving that inheritance is now our responsibility.

As America looks toward the future, we can also look back: to a day, eighty-two years ago, when we demonstrated, more clearly than perhaps at any other moment in our history, our capacity and willingness to confront tyranny not only for our own security, but in defense of a freer world.

Alright nerds, today we’re going to talk about poetry. I promise I’ll try to make it more interesting than what you remember from high school.

“Let America Be America Again” is a 1935 poem by Langston Hughes that critiques the American Dream as largely unfulfilled for working-class people, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. By the last few verses, though, Hughes steps 30 years forward in time to take a page out of The Graduate’s screenplay, distinctly shifting the tone at the very end in a way that changes the poem’s entire meaning. It’s this shift—which I’ll talk about below—that I feel is so central to the American experiment that it seemed worthy of the third installment of my America250 series. Let’s dive in:

Hughes establishes the poem’s opening theme by repeating three times in the first sixteen lines the idea that, while America may promise opportunity, freedom from tyranny, and liberty and equality, that has never been his reality.

Here, he adopts a new voice—one that might represent the establishment and the entrenched elite by calling out the narrator for daring to express such a pessimistic view. Asking, perhaps condescendingly, who it is that’s “mumbling” their dissatisfaction and casting a “veil” over the bright light of America’s promises, this voice is answered by a number of characters:

Hughes—a gay Black man born in the Jim Crow South—extends his plight beyond just himself. He includes the perspectives of not only former slaves and their descendants, but of poor whites and immigrants, Native Americans, farmers and laborers. The narrator is every American who has fallen victim to our country’s entrenched culture of greed (“of grab the land!/Of grab the gold!”), eternally hungry and beaten and exploited.

In this verse, Hughes goes back through history to present an even clearer picture of America’s hypocrisy. The early immigrants whose perspective he adopts here—from Europe and Africa, willingly and unwillingly—left or were taken from their homes to build a new world free from the tyranny of the old. But the post-Depression America of Hughes’ time has fallen well short of this vision, as he laments in the next eleven lines:

Okay, are you still with me? Because here, in the poem’s final four verses, is where Hughes takes on a new tone:

“The land that never has been yet—/And yet must be”. America has never lived up to its promises, but it can and it must. Hughes empowers the working poor and the minorities facing centuries of structural barriers to take it upon themselves to continue their tireless work in building “the land where every man is free.” They’ve gotten this far already, he claims, and have it in their power to keep bringing the “mighty dream” closer to reality.

I guess this is Hughes’ 1930’s version of “Eat the rich.”

Hughes concludes his poem with an unambiguous theme of optimism and redemption. Despite the first two-thirds of the poem—despite the slavery, exploitation, poverty, the “rape and rot of graft, stealth, and lies”—he declares defiantly that “America will be!” The final verse describes the beauty of America’s landscape, a beauty that “We, the people, must redeem,” perhaps implying a moral imperative for the American people to build a country whose social and economic reality matches the grandness of its natural features. Only through this journey of redemption can we “make America again!”

Yes, you’re thinking the same thing as me: thank god he didn’t say “Make America great again.” Maybe his omission of an adjective here signals that the idea of America already implies these things: greatness, opportunity, liberty and equality.

So why does this poem still matter today? I think what strikes me in reading it is that Langston Hughes not only dares to express optimism in America’s potential, in the face of his own people’s personal history and that of other historically underrepresented groups. He also calls on those very people—not the politicians and the wealthy elite—to realize that potential themselves, to “bring back our mighty dream” through their own blood, sweat, and tears. It’s a call to empowerment that rings through the decades, right into our ears in 2026.

Hughes captures the very essence of the American project—one that I’ve emphasized repeatedly in this blog: America was founded on the promise of an idea, one that has been a work in progress for 250 years and depends on our own faith and labor to continue moving forward.

Don’t get me wrong, I get it: in the face of today’s violently lopsided economy, campaign finance free-for-all, and the costs of healthcare and higher education, it’s tough to really convince ourselves that we can continue the past generations’ work of bringing the American Dream to life.

And yet, did Langston Hughes have it better than we did? He came of age in the shadow of Jim Crow segregation, struggled financially through the Great Depression, and faced systemic racism while trying to make a living as a writer. Through all that, he believed America could, and must, be better, and that that process starts with us. In 2026, that looks like voting, speaking up when it’s easier to stay quiet, and remembering that the country doesn’t change all at once—it changes when ordinary people decide not to check out.

Langston Hughes’ poem may be titled “Let America be America Again,” but its final, far less passive line—”Make America again!”—with all the promises that our country’s name implies—is a rallying cry we should carry with us in our own time.

His name is everywhere. This New York City native has taken the political world by storm, having launched his way into the national spotlight by way of provocative, attention-grabbing social media antics before winning elected office in an upset victory over the entrenched establishment. His tenure since then has been defined by clear moral narratives grounded in a precedent-defying, norm-breaking governing style that dives head-first toward his campaign promises and dares adversaries to react. Love him or hate him, you can’t deny that he gets shit done.

I’m talking, of course, about Zohran Mamdani.

Liberal America’s favorite mayor is our answer to the question, “What if someone used the Donald Trump playbook to do good?” No matter how much you may hate the MAGA agenda, there’s no denying that Trump’s theatrics, straightforward messaging style, and above all his willingness to shatter norms and traditions have been brutally effective.

In Zohran Mamdani, we see the progressive side of that coin: by adopting a surprisingly similar approach to running America’s most populous city, he’s achieved a litany of accomplishments in his first 100 days in office. From accelerating bus improvements, to opening long-delayed public facilities, to expanding access to free preschool with state funding, he has shown that Trump’s unique style can be used to accomplish admirable policy goals—rather than strictly as a blueprint for self-serving authoritarian ambitions.

Optics as Strategy: Trump’s Spectacle vs. Mamdani’s Delivery

From the very beginning of his political life, Donald Trump has been all about headline-grabbing optics. Since riding his golden escalator into infamy on day one, Trump has gone on an endless campaign of symbolic gestures, from building a border wall no one wanted, to building a White House ballroom no one wanted, to slapping his name on half the buildings in America which, *check notes*, nobody wanted that either.

His obsession with image has tied in well with his messaging style, which distills complex policy issues down into simple, bumper sticker-friendly slogans like “Build the Wall” and “Make America Great Again.” The formula is clear: simple promises backed by simple gestures that mask a lack of actual substance from a policy standpoint.

Zohran Mamdani has taken a page out of his fellow New Yorker’s book. The difference? Both his messaging and his actions—while certainly performative, to a degree—reinforce genuine populist sentiment and show that progressive governance can, in fact, be effective.

Mamdani’s version of Trump’s playbook looks similar on the surface—but the substance underneath is harder to dismiss. His optics are rooted in what he calls “sewer socialism”: focusing on the small, visible failures of government people deal with every day. In his first weeks, he didn’t just announce fixes—he showed up to pave over a notorious Williamsburg Bridge bump, helped fill over one hundred thousand potholes, and even helped dig a vehicle out of the snow in Brooklyn.

And like Trump, Mamdani pairs this approach with a simple messaging style. But while Trump distills politics into blunt slogans about winning, losing, and who’s to blame, Mamdani builds a narrative that mirrors his hands-on, optics-driven governance. Every pothole filled or project restarted becomes part of a simple story: the city is expensive, government has failed you, and we’re going to fix it—visibly. Both Trump and Mamdani simplify complex systems into clear frames, but where Trump’s theatrics often replace delivery, Mamdani’s reinforce it. The result is a style of governance where the optics are the delivery—every visible fix doubles as proof that government can still work.

Breaking the Rules or Bending Them: Power, Precedent, and Political Will

A big part of what has made this style successful for both men is their willingness to defy precedent and find non-traditional workarounds to achieving their policy goals. Since 2016, Donald Trump has treated the Constitution with all the reverence of a board game instruction manual. His travel bans, border wall maneuvers, emergency declarations to redirect federal funds, and circumventions of Congress through executive action are all the product of his blatant defiance of laws, norms, and precedents.

To be sure, Zohran Mamdani is not guilty of defying legal boundaries outright in the way that Trump does a handful of times each day by lunchtime. But he does share a similar instinct for pushing up against them. From day one, he moved quickly—issuing a flurry of executive actions and restarting long-stalled projects—embracing a “move first, build structure later” approach that forces opponents to react.

He’s also shown a willingness to pressure institutions rather than wait on them, advancing policies he knows require approval from the state government—like new taxes or transit expansions—not because he can enact them unilaterally, but to shift the political goalposts and force negotiations.

If I have one critique of Barack Obama’s presidency, it’s that he was often too deferential to institutions, letting the courts and Congress set the pace of his agenda. While no one wants a president who disregards the rule of law like Trump, Zohran Mamdani may represent a middle ground—willing to challenge norms and push legal boundaries in ways that actually deliver results. It reflects a broader reality: voters today care less about tradition and more about outcomes.

What Mamdani is doing is not norm-breaking in the Trumpian sense, but it is boundary-pushing: using the tools of office aggressively, prioritizing visible action over procedural caution, and betting that momentum itself can become a governing strategy. The difference? Well, you probably get the idea by now: Mamdani has taken parts of the Trump blueprint and used them not to consolidate his own power and shoehorn in unpopular policies, but to accomplish a progressive agenda that has proven popular with many New Yorkers.

What can we learn from this? Not “Be more like Trump,” obviously—but there is something revealing in the parallel I’ve noticed between him and Mayor Mamdani. I think the lesson here is this: voters want simple messaging paired with concrete policy deliverables achieved through willingness to maneuver around established political structures. It’s because their (our) problems, too, are simple: frustration with public infrastructure, lack of access to affordable housing and healthcare, anxiety over the possibility of losing our jobs to overseas workers or AI.

The Democratic Party can spend all the time and money it wants on consultants and focus groups to whip up 100-page memos on how voters feel and how elections can be won. Trump figured out a decade ago that what it takes to resonate with voters is far more straightforward. Zohran Mamdani took that formula and is now using it to actually do some good. Success with winning over voters, then serving them from elected office, is about directly addressing their day-to-day struggles—one pothole at a time—and having the boldness to break with tradition in order to get it done. It’s a lesson the Democrats would do well to remember ahead of November 2026 and beyond.

And no, I don’t live under a rock—I know what’s going on in Iran, and yes, I’m pissed off about the gas prices too. But for the past fourteen-plus months, Donald Trump has tried to dismantle so many of our own country’s norms and institutions that I hardly have the capacity to worry about his meddling elsewhere. Of course, that’s easy for me to say—I’m not a family member of any of the 13 U.S. servicemen who have died since Trump’s decision to strike Iran.

Nevertheless, no single event in the past month has compelled me to share my usual unsolicited analysis. But I know how much you all (e.g. Ted and like three other people) have missed my posts, so today I’ve decided to share my scattered thoughts on three topics:

SCOTUS and birthright citizenship

This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments on birthright citizenship. The case comes as Donald Trump and his allies push to narrow the guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment, aiming to exclude children born to undocumented immigrants from automatic citizenship. In other words, Republicans are once again playing their favorite game of “So you think you’re a real American?”

The case, thankfully, is not expected to go Trump’s way (yes, even under this Supreme Court!). But while it’s in the news, it’s worth talking about the history and significance of birthright citizenship and why this, too, is yet another marker of how uniquely un-American Trump’s agenda is.

The Fourteenth Amendment was a direct response to one of the Supreme Court’s most notoriously bad decisions, Dred Scott v. Sandford, which held that Black Americans—even escaped slaves—could never be citizens. After the Civil War, Congress moved to permanently overturn that logic, writing into the Constitution that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens. The point was simple but profound: citizenship would become a universal guarantee grounded in birth on American soil.

This is somewhat unique on a global scale. Most of the world doesn’t follow birthright citizenship, instead determining citizenship based on parentage. That makes sense in older, more ethnically rooted nations where citizenship has historically been tied to blood, ancestry, and national identity—like France, the UK, Germany, Japan, India, or Nigeria. But many of the New World countries of the Americas, built through immigration and settlement, took a different approach: if you’re born here, you’re one of us.

In other words, the Fourteenth Amendment was Congress’ way of recognizing that nothing inherent was required of you to be considered American. Instead, it reinforced the Founders’ notion that “Americanness” was defined, above all, by the commitment to an idea—something that, unlike race or religion, could be easily adopted by virtue of simply starting your life as a resident of this country.

Trump and his allies would see that notion discarded in their attempts to redefine American identity in their own racial terms. If and when the Supreme Court strikes down this challenge, they’ll be signaling to every American that it’ll take more than the whims of one aspiring dictator to tear down one of our country’s central ideological pillars.

Artemis II

This week marked a genuinely historic moment in space exploration: NASA successfully launched Artemis II, the first crewed mission beyond Earth’s orbit in more than 50 years. Four astronauts are now en route on a roughly 10-day journey around the Moon—a milestone not seen since the Apollo era. Though they aren’t landing, the mission will test the spacecraft and systems that will make future missions to the Moon possible.

If all goes well, Americans will return to the Moon before the 2020s are out, and we’ll remain the only country that’s ever been there. Hell. Yeah. With the Artemis mission putting America’s space program back in the national spotlight, we’ve gotten a much-needed reminder of our country’s leadership in science and technology. Given that we lead the world in cutting-edge research, private-sector innovation, and spaceflight capabilities, perhaps it’s no surprise that we’re once again taking the reins in humanity’s exploration of the cosmos.

These accomplishments have been built by one of the most diverse coalitions science has ever seen. The Apollo program, by the standards of its time, brought together an unusually wide range of talent—engineers and technicians from across the country, many of them first- or second-generation Americans, alongside women and Black scientists whose contributions were often overlooked.

Artemis not only builds on that diversity across its thousands of engineers and programmers, but embodies America’s multifaceted identity in its crew—sending the first Black astronaut and the first woman ever to orbit the Moon. In keeping with Artemis’s international makeup—over 20 countries are represented in the program—the crew even includes a Canadian, marking the first time a non-American has taken part in a crewed mission to the Moon.

If Trump really wanted to make America great again, he would recognize the accomplishments of diverse American projects like our space program, rather than shutting the door to immigrants and continuing to slash funding for education and scientific research. The brain drain is real, and future American achievements on the scale of sending humans to the Moon will suffer if our government continues to ignore the strengths of American diversity.

But in the meantime, I’ll still take the W’s as they come. Ahead of its 250th birthday, America is a gold medal champion in ice hockey, and now we’re going back to the moon. That’s awesome.

Trump fires Pam Bondi

In news perhaps even more exciting than America’s return to the moon, Trump finally fired Pam Bondi this week! The Attorney General’s removal came after mounting public pressure over her handling of the Epstein files—facing a congressional subpoena, criticism from both parties, and growing dissatisfaction even among Republicans. It comes just weeks after Trump ousted Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary amid similar pressure, especially after the January events in Minnesota, where aggressive immigration enforcement tactics led to the fatal shooting of two American citizens.

I don’t have as much to say here—these moves are a far cry from Trump himself being held accountable for, well, anything, which won’t happen at least until after the midterms. But they do tell us something important: the Trump administration is not immune to criticism.

As a second-term president, Trump governs with nothing to lose—he clearly doesn’t care about his party’s success in the midterms. But every once in a while, his reputation suffers just enough that his hand is forced and he turns his back on a loyalist when they’re no longer politically convenient to him. You’d think they would have learned this by now, but until they do, I’m happy to keep watching Trump’s cabinet members and other allies play stupid games and win stupid prizes, one by one. God, I can’t wait for it to happen to J.D. Vance.

The takeaway should be this: Trump reacts to protest and dissent, even if, for now, that comes only in the form of throwing others under the bus. Keep showing up, keep writing to your Congressman, and above all, vote in the midterms.

Those are my thoughts this week. I’ll be back with more soon–at the very least, I owe you all a few more American250 installments. And I’ve been keeping a close eye on what Zohran Mamdani has been cooking up over in New York City, too… so stay tuned.

We’ve been living in the era of what I call “fuck you” politics for arguably the last decade. While its genesis is obvious, it’s a little less clear when everyone else, including the left, seemed to decide that Trump’s was the best and maybe only formula for getting voters’ attention. All I know is that suddenly Gavin Newsom is trying to Trump-tweet his way to the 2028 presidency and that even Michelle Obama, who at the 2016 Democratic National Convention resoundingly declared that “when they go low, we go high,” basically said “actually, jk” to that in a full-throated attack on Trump at the 2024 convention—a far cry from the hopeful politics that once defined the Barack Obama era.

The worst part is that I started to believe it. I’m pretty sure on a podcast with Ted last summer I defended Newsom as a 2028 frontrunner with about the same enthusiasm as watching a late-term Joe Biden speech. Only because, he’s at least being combative and incendiary, right? He’s fighting trolling with trolling, and that’s what voters want, right? What other option do we have?

By the grace of Uncle Sam, our answer comes in the form of a strikingly handsome 36-year-old public school teacher-turned-state representative. One who just captured national attention last week with his victory in the Texas Democratic Senate primary. In riding a message of hope, faith, and unity into the spotlight, James Talarico has taken a step toward something Democrats haven’t seen in a long time.

Watching his rise, it’s hard not to think of the last young politician who convinced Americans that politics could still be about something bigger than anger.

What I’m saying is this: James Talarico may be the closest thing my generation has had to Barack Obama.

Hopeful Populism

Barack Obama campaigned his way to the White House in 2008 with a political formula that remains rare today: populist energy without populist bitterness.

Obama spoke bluntly about corruption, lobbyists, and a system that too often served the powerful. But he refused to treat fellow Americans as the enemy, critiquing a broken system rather than half the country.

James Talarico, too, frequently criticizes billionaire influence and corporate corruption, but like Obama, the emotional center of his message isn’t rage—it’s a sincere, faith-based yet wholly inclusive commitment to the idea of a shared common good.

That approach stands out in a political moment when many politicians perform outrage as a strategy. His primary opponent, Jasmine Crockett, built a national following through viral confrontations and incendiary rhetoric—at one point calling Donald Trump “Putin’s hoe” and suggesting that Hispanic Trump voters exhibited a “slave mentality.” In the closing weeks of the race, Crockett employed that combative style on Talarico himself, amplifying attacks and controversies that turned the primary increasingly bitter.

There’s some political logic to that strategy. In a moment of fury and frustration across the country, many politicians assume voters want firebrand provocateurs who mirror their anger and flash the “at least I’m not the other guy” card.

But Obama’s genius—and Talarico’s—was recognizing that anger alone doesn’t build a coalition. It has to be redirected toward moral purpose. Instead of returning his opponent’s attacks, Talarico’s political style continued to echo Obama’s: calm, teacher-like persuasion that tries to elevate the conversation rather than dominate it.

Many politicians channel anger. Obama and Talarico try to transform it.

A Unifying Message in a Polarized Moment

Obama first became a national political figure during his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when the then–Illinois state senator delivered a line for the ages: “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there’s the United States of America. There’s not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”

That message of unity defined his political rise. Even while speaking about inequality and injustice, Obama insisted that everyday Americans’ interests were ultimately shared. In his “A More Perfect Union” speech during the 2008 campaign, he acknowledged the country’s racial divides but rejected the idea they were permanent: “The anger is real; it is powerful… But what we know—what we have seen—is that America can change.”

Talarico is attempting something strikingly similar in Texas. Like Obama, he frames politics less as a battle between Americans than as a collective struggle against a broken system. Indeed, he first got my attention when I heard him on Joe Rogan–er, a random podcast, where he used a line he now employs often: “It’s not about left versus right. It’s about top versus bottom.”

A Presbyterian seminarian who paused his studies to run for the Senate, Talarico often grounds progressive policy in moral and Biblical language, arguing public life should reflect “the radical idea that every human being has inherent dignity.” As a Democrat who constantly quotes Scripture, Talarico is proving that political divisions need not fall along religious grounds just as Obama proved that they need not fall along racial ones.

Obama and Talarico have delivered the same lesson two decades apart: that voters want someone who reminds them they’re still part of the same country.

A New Political Style for a New Generation

When Barack Obama began his presidential run in 2007, he was still a relatively new senator facing far better-known Democrats. But his charisma, calm persuasion, and message discipline quickly made him the most compelling communicator in the race.

Just as important was the way his campaign felt different from traditional politics. Rather than relying on party insiders and big donors, Obama built a movement powered by small-dollar fundraising and grassroots organizing. Supporters weren’t just asked to vote—they were invited to knock on doors, host house parties, and bring new people into the process, creating a campaign that felt less like a candidacy and more like a civic movement.

James Talarico’s rise has a similar outsider quality. He entered the Senate primary without the national profile of his opponent, a U.S. Congresswoman. But once voters noticed him, his message spread quickly.

Part of Talarico’s appeal, like Obama’s, is the grassroots feel of his campaign. In an era when many politicians thrive on outrage, his tone is calm and earnest—more like a civics teacher persuading a classroom than a pundit winning a shouting match. His refusal to take PAC money and reliance on small-dollar donations reinforce the sense that ordinary people, not insiders, are powering the campaign. As he puts it, “If you hate politics and you’ve never voted before, you have a home in this campaign.”

Other young politicians have tapped into that outsider energy as well. Figures like Zohran Mamdani have mobilized new voters with combative, anti-establishment, and progressive-heavy campaigns in liberal hotbeds like New York City. But the style Talarico brings to Texas is different. In a deeply conservative state, his persuasion-first approach may be the more viable path to building a coalition that stretches beyond the Democratic base.

What all three share, though, is something Obama understood early: that politics can still attract new generations of voters when it feels authentic. In an age of consultants, PAC money, and algorithm-driven outrage, sincerity itself has become a kind of political advantage.

After years of politics defined by outrage, deep polarization, and ideological trench warfare, it turns out voters may be getting pretty exhausted. I know I am. And I’m not saying James Talarico will be the first Democrat to capture statewide office in Texas in 30 years–but his primary victory alone is finally proof that maybe voters really do reward what no politician has successfully replicated in years: the coalition-building formula and politics of compassion that powered Barack Obama’s ascent.

Long ago I felt like I’d given up on American politics ever getting past all the anger and hatred and going back to what renowned political scholar Sarah Palin called the “hopey, changey stuff.” Yet James Talarico’s campaign dares to exude hope, sincerity, and optimism for a better American future that both sides build together–a breath of fresh air amid the suffocating political climate we’ve become used to.

Whether or not he ultimately takes back Texas in November, his campaign, I hope, may yet offer a blueprint for not just Democrats, but all leaders nationwide. Because the American project is one that can only be completed if everyone is brought on board–and united in the same genuine belief in change and progress held by all those who founded and helped continue to build this nation.

And if a candidate preaching that belief is suddenly the most exciting rising figure in Democratic politics, that alone is a reminder of another young politician who once came out of nowhere promising something very similar.

February 22nd, 2026: Forty-six years to the day since Team USA stunned the Soviet Union in an unthinkable victory over the greatest hockey team in the world. On George Washington’s birthday, once again, a new generation of American hockey players, hailing from Michigan to Minnesota to Arizona to Missouri, toppled the greatest hockey team in the world. American hockey’s latest miracle provided a much-needed victory that brought us all together.

Jack Hughes secured both the golden goal and a new American narrative over Team Canada a minute and 41 seconds into overtime at Milano Santagiulia Arena. The shot heard round the world was met with an earth-shattering celebration by his teammates in Italy and in bars across the United States at 11 am, 10 am, 9 am, and 8 am local time.

To quote Al Michaels in his pregame commentary before the Miracle on Ice game: “I’m sure there are a lot of people watching this game tomorrow who do not know the difference between a blueline and a clothes line. It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. Because what we have at hand is the rarest of sporting events.”

Rare indeed, but not just in sports. For three hours on Sunday morning, Americans—hockey fans and non-hockey fans, liberals and conservatives—gathered as one country to cheer on their team. When’s the last time that happened? In the last year—maybe even the last ten—we’ve gotten so used to fighting each other in wars political and cultural. No doubt, we’ll fall back into the same habits once the hype of America’s most successful Winter Olympics has subsided. But for now—from Barack Obama to Pete Hegseth to Lil Wayne—Americans from every subculture imaginable are united in our win over Canada, our first gold medal in men’s ice hockey since 1980, and the first time ever that our men and women won gold in ice hockey in the same year.

Canadian fans will tell you that we were thoroughly outplayed for most of this game. That they were the more talented team, that we got lucky, that we didn’t deserve it, that one or two of our guys stepped up to play the hero and save us from certain disaster.

Here’s the thing: they’re absolutely right. Canada dominated the game from about the halfway point of regulation. The final shot count was 42-28 in Team Canada’s favor, a would-be blowout at their hands but for Connor Hellebuyck’s history-making performance in net.

But guess what? All those things were true in 1980 too. The Soviets outshot us 39-16 on that fateful day in Lake Placid. I bet you didn’t know that. I didn’t, I had to look it up. And it’s because no one remembers. What they remember is Mike Eruzione’s iconic go-ahead goal, and Jim Craig’s lights-out goaltending. Just like, 50 years from now, we’ll remember Jack Hughes launching his helmet into the heavens after vanquishing our 46-year gold medal drought. We’ll remember J.T. Miller and Vincent Trocheck, two of Team USA’s most controversial roster selections, laying it all out for ninety seconds to kill a 5-on-3 power play and then another one in the final two minutes of regulation. We’ll remember Connor Hellebuyck’s save-of-the-century with the paddle of his stick in the third period. No one will remember or care that Team Canada had more high-danger scoring chances than us.

Such is the American way. Just like the Birthday Boy himself lost every major battle he fought in during the American Revolution, but he won when it counted. To quote the musical version of another Founding Father, we’re young, scrappy, and hungry. We’ve never been perfect—but we make our own luck, we snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the face of overwhelming odds, and we come out stronger on the other end.

Today was a reminder that we all share that in common—and that’s enough to be proud to be an American again. We believe, we fight, we win—against foes both external and internal. When the going gets tough, we Americans get going. Especially when we’re all in it together.

Today was a reminder that we share a love of sports and a love of winning. From there, maybe it’s not so crazy for us to remember that we also share a love of affordable healthcare and fair wages and genuine equal opportunity. We need only band together, not fight each other, to demand and secure those things—much like we did for three hours on a cold February morning that will line the halls of American history.

Tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. EST, Team USA plays Canada for Olympic gold.

If you care about hockey, you already understand the weight of that sentence. If you don’t, here’s the short version: we’ve never beaten Canada in a men’s Olympic gold medal game. They got us in 2002. They got us in 2010. They got us again in last year’s Four Nations championship game. They have nine gold medals. We have two: 1960 and 1980.

Now we get another shot at it.

In my last piece, I wrote about the Miracle on Ice—not as a nostalgia trip, but as a reminder that sports can give the country something to rally around. In 1980, that win meant more because of the moment. It cut through Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis, and a general national malaise.

This isn’t that. This team isn’t a bunch of college kids shocking the world against a geopolitical enemy. They’re NHL stars. They’ve looked like contenders from the start. This isn’t about believing in miracles. It’s about beating Canada straight up.

The women already set the tone on Thursday, winning gold over Canada in overtime. That rivalry is automatic at this point—they’ve met in seven of eight Olympic finals. It’s real, not manufactured.

What’s stood out these Games, though, isn’t just the hockey. It’s the way athletes have talked about representing the U.S. in a tense political moment.

Freestyle skier Hunter Hess said this of representing his country:

“There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of and think a lot of people aren’t. If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. But just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean that I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”

He added that he’s proud to represent his “friends and family back home, and all the things I believe are good about the United States.”

After these comments predictably drew the ire of Donald Trump, who called Hess a “real Loser,” Hess’s ski and snowboard teammates came to both his and the country’s defense:

Bea Kim: “I personally am very proud to represent the United States. That being said, I think diversity is what makes us a very strong country and what makes us so special.”

Maddy Schaffrick: “The Games are the epitome of all countries and cultures coming together in celebration and friendly competition. I’m proud to represent the U.S. and wear the American flag in such an internationally cohesive event.”

Maddie Mastro: “I’m proud to represent Team USA and my country. I’m also saddened about what’s happening at home. It’s really tough, and I feel like we can’t turn a blind eye to that. At the same time, I represent a country that has the same values as mine, kindness and compassion, and we come together in times of injustice.”

None of that sounds like propaganda. It sounds like athletes who understand the difference between government and country. You can wrestle with what’s happening politically and still love the place you’re from. You can be proud of your teammates, your family, your community—without pretending everything back home is perfect.

That nuance has been refreshing.

And tomorrow, it all funnels into the most straightforward thing imaginable: USA vs. Canada for gold.

Bars across the country are opening early—8 a.m. Eastern—just to show the game. People are setting alarms. Group chats are buzzing. That doesn’t happen often anymore. Not for something that isn’t partisan or polarizing.

For a couple of hours, it’s just hockey. It’s just wanting our guys to beat their guys. It’s a legitimate rivalry with history, heartbreak, and finally, a real chance to flip the script.

When the Olympics end, we’ll go back to arguing about everything. That’s inevitable.

But tomorrow morning, we get one of the few remaining civic rituals that still feels uncomplicated.

USA. Canada. Gold on the line.

See you at 8.

February 22nd, 1980: on a cold winter’s day in Lake Placid, New York, a team of ragtag college hockey players overcame the impossible. They beat the Soviet Union—considered the most dominant hockey team in the world—in the semifinal of the Olympic Winter Games, then captured gold against Finland two days later. The Americans’ triumph was a beacon of light that pierced through what was then a dark chapter in American history, a time of fear and uncertainty and ice-cold morale.

Nearly half a century later, America finds itself in the midst of another once-in-a-generation reckoning with its identity. And on the horizon is another international hockey tournament that might just fulfill the country’s dire need for something to rally around and take pride in.

No, I haven’t seen Heated Rivalry, everyone please stop asking me. But I’m all for it—this is the most I can ever remember non-hockey obsessives talking about my favorite sport, and the timing is apt. If TV’s hottest new show has become your gateway to watching hockey, then I’ve got great news for you: the NHL is sending its players to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years. (In the last two Winter Olympics, NHL team owners refused to let their “assets” risk injury by representing their countries overseas.) With a brand new generation of players, Team USA enters the tournament with its best odds yet of winning it all for the first time since that fateful afternoon in Lake Placid—in the year of America’s 250th anniversary, no less.

Here’s why you should gather your friends, scream at your TV, and proudly cheer on the red white and blue not in spite of, but because of the turmoil gripping our nation right now.

When America needed a win

The reason they call it “Miracle on Ice” is not just because a motley group of non-NHL players averaging 21 years old pulled a David vs. Goliath on the four-time defending Olympic gold medalists. It’s not just because Team USA’s 4-3 comeback victory was immortalized by Al Michaels’ legendary game call and a 2004 masterwork of cinema from the era when Disney still made good movies (the Oscars actually had to invent a new category that year for “greatest film ever made,” no really, look it up).

It’s because this unthinkable upset came at a time when America had forgotten what it felt like to win. Weeks earlier, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. Months earlier, American diplomats had been captured in Tehran; 52 hostages remained in the captivity of the Ayatollah in February 1980. Years earlier, the failed conclusion of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal had shaken Americans’ faith in their government. Jimmy Carter, his approval rating in the low 30’s at the twilight of his singular term, called it a “crisis of confidence.”

His presidency could have been a metaphor, for many Americans felt as if the whole country was deep in its twilight years, its sun setting on decades of prosperity and world leadership and making way for global Soviet dominance. As the Soviets had embarrassed America on the world stage, Americans expected nothing more heading into those Olympics.

Then 20 American boys banded together and rewrote the narrative. If beating the Soviets in a hockey game didn’t change the course of world history, it undoubtedly renewed the country’s faith in the resilience of the American spirit. If nothing else, it became a Cold War-era retelling of the classic American story: rugged self-confidence and tireless effort defying overwhelming odds.

Why hockey, and why now

It’s 2026 now, and the stars and stripes may yet be aligning. Just as patriotism has hit an all-time low, the long-awaited return of true best-on-best hockey will feature a Team USA with arguably its strongest roster ever. Once again, the boys in the red, white, and blue have a chance to deliver a much-needed morale boost—in a way that’s uniquely rare in American culture.

Think about it. Have you ever seen videos from when Argentina won the World Cup, and millions of people flooded the streets of Buenos Aires? Have you seen what happened when Iceland made a Cinderella run at the Euros and nearly one-third of the entire country showed up to welcome the team home? Shit, look at Ukraine when they won Eurovision—a pop song turned into a national moment of catharsis and pride.

In much of the world, international competition isn’t just entertainment. It’s one of the last remaining civic rituals powerful enough to make an entire nation feel like a single audience for a few hours.

With the possible exception of Miracle on Ice, American sports have never really provided that unity at a national level. While our professional and college sports industries are world-class, those just pit our cities and states against one another. We can’t even avoid a civil war over this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. And it’s not like there are any international tournaments for American football. Sure, there was the 2023 World Baseball Classic, but don’t pretend like you watched it (and America didn’t even win that one, anyway).

When we compete in sports on the world stage, we’re either really good or really bad. There’s no shortage of medals for us at the Olympics—rooting for Michael Phelps and our basketball team is always fun—but it’s not exactly a “Miracle on Hardwood” when it happens. Dare I say that medaling in swimming, basketball, track, and gymnastics almost feels routine for us at this point? On the other hand, our country has never fielded a competitive soccer team at the World Cup and won’t for a while (sorry to ruin this summer for you).

And that brings me back to hockey. In a few short weeks, America has the chance to rally behind the best hockey team it’s ever had. Team USA has a real—but far from guaranteed—shot at its first gold medal in 46 years in men’s ice hockey, an international sport with plenty of worthy contenders (namely Canada, Sweden, Finland, and Czechia).

When the puck drops in Milan, we can finally forget about our political differences for two weeks. Pro sports and pop culture are endlessly commodified—brands selling brands, celebrities selling themselves. You don’t root for a league, a billionaire owner, or a media product; international competition is one of the only pure things left in our shared civic life. America finally has the chance to come together to support team and country on the path toward a victory that will mean far more than sports.

What we’re really cheering for

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. I know that my last post was literally titled “This Isn’t About Politics Anymore.” I get it—it’s hard to be proud of our country right now, even to identify with it. America is turning into something we don’t recognize, and even before Trump, we weren’t exactly winning gold medals in the fields of healthcare, wealth inequality, or student debt compared to many other countries.

But that’s exactly why you should get behind Team USA in the Olympics this year, in any sport—but especially hockey. You’re not cheering for the government; America is far more than that. What the athletes wearing the American flag this month are representing is not the Trump administration, but the country, the land, the people.

I root for the American competitors because they’re from the same country as me: the one with the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Hollywood and blues rock, Abraham Lincoln and MLK, Texas two-step and the mythos of the Wild West, Taylor Swift and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a founding document enshrining Enlightenment principles that went on to inspire countless nations.

Whatever you appreciate about the Republic, don’t let Trump take it away. Don’t let Trumpism own the flag. When you tune into the Winter Games on NBC, remember that it’s the athletes representing your country and everything you love about it, not the flag representing Trump.

And yes, some Team USA players appear to be Trump supporters, to one degree or another. First of all, I draw a huge distinction between supporting Trump’s economic and foreign policies a year ago and cheering on everything that ICE and the DOJ are doing now. If any of our Olympian hockey players had come out this month supporting the ICE shootings in Minneapolis, I’d be sincerely embarrassed. But they haven’t. Secondly, if you’re planning on boycotting any Olympian whose politics differ from yours (and I mean politics, not authoritarian behavior), then let’s just call that a philosophical disagreement between us.

Great moments are born from great opportunity; the 2026 Olympic Winter Games begin on Friday. The puck drops for men’s hockey on February 11th, with Team USA kicking off its run for gold against Latvia the next day at 3 pm EST. Follow the women’s tournament too, which starts Thursday and is almost certain to culminate in a rematch for gold between Team USA and Team Canada for the fifth Olympics in a row. Team USA will look to repeat its 2018 gold medal run after coming up one goal short against Team Canada in the Beijing final four years ago.

The Olympics—especially the hockey tournament—are our chance to feel some pride in being American again. Because I know how hard it’s been for all of us lately. We need a W now more than ever. As we approach our 250th anniversary, America’s hockey team—as in Lake Placid in 1980—stands to give our country a chance, once again, to believe.

Further reading:

Olympics 2026: Why this U.S. men’s hockey team is different and poised to overcome woeful overseas history (Austin Nivison, CBS Sports)

U.S. says ‘it’s our time’ to win Olympic gold medal at Milano Cortina 2026 (Bill Price, NHL.com)

Olympic Women’s Hockey Preview: Team USA (Ian Kennedy, The Hockey News)

FAQ: NHL participation in the Olympic Winter Games (Paula Nichols, Olympic.ca)

How to watch the U.S. men’s hockey team at the 2026 Winter Olympics: TV and stream schedule (NBC Olympics)

How to watch the U.S. women’s hockey team at the 2026 Winter Olympics: TV and stream schedule (NBC Olympics)

Miracle: The Boys of ‘80 debuted on Netflix last week and tells the story of Miracle on Ice with new footage and firsthand reflections.

Miracle, a 2004 feature film that dramatizes the political climate surrounding the 1980 Olympics and the players who defined Miracle on Ice, is available on Disney+.

My 30-minute Olympic hockey primer

It happened again. Federal officers murdered an American citizen, street-execution style, in broad daylight. The Trump administration’s latest abhorrent act marks a tipping point, a new phase, of this dark chapter in American history, and you can choose to be a part of it.

On Saturday morning in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American citizen and ICU nurse, was fatally shot by federal officers while trying to protect a woman during an immigration enforcement operation. His death comes weeks after Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen and mother, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in the same city. The Trump administration falsely characterized the killings and contrived a misleading public narrative, portraying both victims as threats despite video evidence and eyewitness accounts to the contrary. Meanwhile in Texas, Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant, died in ICE custody, with an autopsy finding he died of asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.

These killings have occurred amid an expanded federal operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul that, in January alone, has included reports of agents detaining U.S. citizens, dragging a man from his home in his underwear, smashing car windows to detain occupants, deploying tear gas and crowd-control grenades near a car carrying six children, sweeping an airport and arresting clergy members, and detaining a 5-year-old child.

We’ve seen this before

Remember my post about Rene Good, when I said we’re long past the “stop comparing Trump to Hitler” defense? I wasn’t hoping to be further validated, but here we are. The pattern we’re seeing in the Trump administration, from the street-level enforcers up to its leadership, can only be described as state terror. To draw a few parallels:

• In Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s, the Nazi Sturmabteilung (“Brownshirts”) were a paramilitary street force—young, working-class men, many unemployed or embittered after World War I—deployed to intimidate and assault opponents and make public life feel unsafe. There’s no other way of putting it: the Brownshirts were gangs of politically loyal men who beat the shit out of people. That’s exactly what is happening now with ICE in Minneapolis and beyond: a heavily armed, politically empowered enforcement presence engaging in street operations that intimidate and destabilize communities, using force against civilians rather than restrained law enforcement.

• In his manifesto Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler warned that “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning,” in reference to immigration and racial mixing. Trump has directly echoed that language by repeatedly saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

• Nazi violence was never just random brutality; it was driven by a broader ideological project that sought racial purity, hierarchy, and rule by a self-described superior elite, with democracy dismissed as weakness and decay. The intellectual core of modern MAGA mirrors this structure: a movement increasingly shaped by anti-democratic thinkers who reject liberal equality, embrace hierarchy, and argue that society must be “purified” through mass purges of bureaucrats, opponents, and perceived internal enemies.

• The Nazis purged judges, subordinated prosecutors, and dismantled judicial independence so state violence was never meaningfully prosecuted and political enemies were aggressively targeted. The Trump movement has pursued the same logic: pressuring and purging DOJ officials, interfering in investigations, intervening in cases involving allies, dangling pardons, attacking judges as illegitimate, and now using the Justice Department to block Minneapolis authorities from participating in investigations into the recent civilian killings there.

• The Nazi regime, like all authoritarian governments, did not merely lie—it weaponized falsehoods at scale, systematically inverting reality so perpetrators became victims and victims became enemies. Hitler openly described this technique as the “big lie,” arguing that massive falsehoods are easier for the public to accept than small ones. The Trump administration has adopted the same method: when federal agents kill civilians, the response is not accountability but an immediate counter-narrative branding the dead as “domestic terrorists,” even when video and eyewitness evidence contradict it.

The playbook is clear: a government builds a large, loyal enforcement force for visible street intimidation, fuels it with dehumanizing rhetoric that recasts people as contaminants, bends the justice system to shield its own violence, and then lies to justify what follows. Together these form the bedrock of a larger project of national “rebirth” rooted in exclusion and strongman rule. Someone once told me, “fascism is always incremental, so there’s a point where you can’t keep saying ‘we’re not there yet.’” It’s happening now, and its perpetrators are only growing more empowered.

But so is the resistance.

What Fighting Back Looks Like

Where there is oppression, there is opposition. Embodying Newton’s Third Law of Motion is a nonviolent army of civil servants and private citizens alike who are defending our country from those dragging it into authoritarianism: state attorneys general and city leaders have successfully sued the administration, with federal courts and the Supreme Court blocking Trump’s attempt to deploy the National Guard into their communities; career prosecutors have resigned rather than be used to legitimize politically tainted “investigations” after the Minneapolis shooting; and Democrats are drawing lines in Congress by refusing to rubber-stamp expanded immigration enforcement funding without guardrails.

And in the streets, nationwide, ordinary people are still showing up in the freezing cold—thousands marching in protest against ICE, hundreds of Minnesota businesses closing in solidarity, and protesters filming raids and brutality in real time—proving to our government and the rest of the world that America will not go down without a fight.

How can you do your part? If you’ve already been protesting, great. Please stay safe and stay warm. Most importantly, stay nonviolent, because ICE is looking for any excuse to further justify its brutally oppressive regime.

If you’re skeptical about the effectiveness of protesting, I get it, but yes, it does matter: mass protest shifts what politicians believe they can get away with. It changes media narratives, fractures elite consensus, emboldens courts and lawmakers to push back, and forces abuses into public view. That’s how the Vietnam War became politically impossible. That’s how Jim Crow collapsed. Protests don’t replace elections or legislation—they create the pressure that makes both more impactful. (Mobilize.us is a great way for finding demonstrations in your area, along with campaigning and other volunteer events.)

And there’s plenty more you can do:

• Vote in the Midterms: If we’re past “stop comparing Trump to Hitler,” we are also past, perhaps counterintuitively, “my vote doesn’t matter.” Despite the trend toward fascism, ultimately the states still control the voting process, so in November we can still send a message by way of free and fair elections. A Democratic majority in Congress could block or condition ICE funding, launch aggressive investigations, subpoena officials, and pass limits on federal enforcement tactics—none of which is possible right now under GOP control. A massive blue wave would also send a clear message to Trump-aligned Republicans that continuing to back him is political suicide.

• Film everything—but stay nonviolent: Documenting federal agents’ actions serves two purposes: first, it holds ICE accountable by capturing unfiltered evidence of what’s happening on the ground, and second, it protects protesters themselves by showing nonviolent resistance. Nonviolent documentation has been key in shifting public perception and pressuring institutions in past movements because it keeps the moral focus on the injustice rather than giving authorities a pretext to crack down harder.

• Talk to everyone—including Trump supporters: It’s not enough to mobilize the like-minded; part of resistance is expanding the circle of awareness. If people you know still support Trump or are on the fence, talk to them instead of insisting they unfollow you. Frame it not as partisan politics but as a threat to civil liberties that affects all Americans—especially when killings and heavy-handed enforcement hit U.S. citizens and once-trusted institutions. Recent polls show that opposition to ICE’s tactics spans a broad spectrum of voters, which means these discussions can resonate beyond typical partisan divides.

• Support Minneapolis-area organizations: Donate to and amplify local legal aid groups, rapid-response networks, mutual aid coalitions, and immigrant-support organizations. They provide legal defense, emergency assistance, and on-the-ground support to families, detainees, and protesters:

  • Stand With Minnesota is a vetted donation hub linking directly to legal defense, rapid-response, and mutual-aid groups supporting people targeted by ICE.

  • MN NO ICE is a regularly updated Minnesota immigrant support directory connecting allies to trusted community organizations, legal resources, rapid response lines, “know your rights” materials, and ways to volunteer.

  • Community Aid Network is a volunteer-run Minneapolis mutual aid group providing free food and redistributing resources to help neighbors meet basic needs with dignity.

  • ACLU of Minnesota is litigating to stop ICE and CBP’s suspicionless stops, warrantless arrests, and racial profiling, while seeking court protection for protesters, legal observers, and journalists.

  • International Institute of Minnesota provides volunteer, donation, and employment pathways that help immigrants and refugees rebuild their lives through housing support, English classes, job training, and resettlement services.

• Help your neighbors who are worried about ICE detention: Offering know-your-rights information, helping them organize key documents and emergency contacts, and connecting them to reputable legal aid serves two purposes: first, it reduces panic by giving them concrete, lawful ways to protect themselves and preserve their legal options, and second, it builds a quiet web of support that makes them less isolated and more resilient.

The momentum is there. Keep it going.

If you ever wanted to be part of something meaningful—if you ever wanted to rage against the machine instead of just listening to music about it—if you ever, like me, had misplaced fantasies as a rebellious teenager about living through dark times just so you could leave your mark on history and join a cause larger than yourself—well, this is it. It turns out the reality sucks, but if it didn’t suck it wouldn’t be meaningful.

If there’s any silver lining I can dig out from this mess, it’s that Trump has turned himself into something that, for the first time in generations, nearly all Americans can unite against. In the 1960’s, the government overstepped its bounds both in Vietnam and at lunch counters, water fountains, and public parks all over the American South. The result was a massive, improbable coalition—Black civil rights marchers, coastal hippies, college students, blue-collar workers, and disillusioned veterans—who came together and reminded officeholders who they served and what our nation’s founding documents promised.

We’re beginning to see the same wide-scale backlash, and the polls prove it. Trump never had liberals and Democrats on his side, but now he’s losing everyone else. He’s lost the libertarians for his authoritarian tendencies. He lost support among cops after being convicted of 34 felonies, then pardoning hundreds of January 6 defendants—including people convicted of assaulting police officers—and will lose more now that he’s overseeing ICE operations in Minneapolis that local police chiefs say have racially profiled off-duty officers of color. He’ll lose gun-rights activists because the killing of Alex Pretti looks exactly like the nightmare scenario they’ve warned about: a tyrannical state using force against law-abiding citizens legally carrying firearms. He’ll lose veterans because Pretti was a VA nurse who treated veterans, and because Trump keeps attacking the very institutions meant to serve them. He’ll lose independents, moderates, and suburban families who don’t want masked federal agents roaming their neighborhoods and terrorizing communities.

In trying to rule through fear, Trump is accidentally building the broadest anti-authoritarian coalition this country has seen in decades. The best possible outcome of all of this, therefore, is not only a nation that has fully recovered from Donald Trump but emerged from the doubt and darkness more united in our values than we were before.

To draw one last historic parallel: even America’s founding happened because an unlikely alliance came together to resist tyranny. (Yes, by the standards of the time, even colonial America was one of the most diverse societies the world had ever seen.) We’ve since seen the same pattern through the 1960’s and now the 2020’s. It is a pattern bound to the founding idea of our country: the idea of an incomplete nation, built on promises yet unfulfilled but no less real or worth fighting for. With that, I’ll leave you with a quote from Founding Father Benjamin Rush:

“The American war is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the great drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government. Patriots, come forward! Your country demands your services... The Revolution is not over.”

The next revolution is here. Don’t miss out on it.

Welcome to the first installment of my America250 series! Throughout 2026, I’ll be publishing a series of articles (in addition to my usual political and current-event thought dumps) where I’ll highlight some of my favorite figures, events, and writings that define our American identity and why they’re still so significant today. Because God knows Trump will be waging his own exclusionary, selective version of American history and patriotism–one that’s antithetical to everything this country actually represents and should take pride in.

For that reason it’s imperative that we celebrate our semiquincentennial (sorry I won’t use that word again) with open arms, not closed doors. Here’s my first attempt at that: by sharing my thoughts on a man who I believe embodied the true American spirit in a way that, even now, provides a roadmap for healing division in our country.

On Monday we recognized Martin Luther King Jr. Day (though not with free entry to national parks). We all know the fundamentals. Martin had a dream, a dream that his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” and led the Civil Rights movement to help secure passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, among other accomplishments. For good reason, the Reverend is celebrated as a hero by not only Black Americans but (almost) all citizens of the Republic.

But why him? The post-slavery fight for racial equality was nearly a century old before he came onto the scene. What did he do differently to break through Jim Crow and overcome the impossible?

His genius was this: rather than turning racist rhetoric back on itself with adversarial language, he instead spoke in terms that bridged the divide between Black and white Americans. He called out injustice not through the lens of identity politics but by speaking to the values shared by all Americans.

Again and again, Dr. King framed civil rights as an effort to redeem America, not reject it:

From AFL-CIO Convention speech:

“I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we shall bring into full realization the dream of American democracy - a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.”

From “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

“We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom.”

From “I Have a Dream”:

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, Black men as well as White men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

From “The Other America”:

“We are seeking to make America one nation, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

From “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”:

“And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy, which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”

Notice a pattern? Despite living in a country that had spent centuries subjugating his people, Dr. King consistently invoked the American Dream and the Declaration of Independence in his fight for equality. In doing so, he emphasized two things: that equal rights were guaranteed to all Americans because of our nation’s founding principles–because of “those great wells of democracy” dug deep by our forefathers–not in spite of them. And that those rights, and the American project as a whole, were “yet unfulfilled,” but not out of reach.

Only by stressing our shared Americanness was Dr. King able to establish a common ground in a nation being torn apart by racial divisions. What defined that “Americanness,” he knew, was belief in an idea not only compatible with ethnic and religious diversity, but born from it. That idea is this: a nation deliberately founded not on ethnicity or ancient heritage, but on Enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality, and self-government—an ongoing experiment in how a pluralistic society can thrive under those principles.

And upon that common ground was built lasting, concrete legislation that marked a major step forward in the fight for racial equality.

Yet, two hundred and fifty years after its founding, and six decades after Dr. King’s achievements, the American experiment is still incomplete. Economic security, let alone prosperity, is still far out of reach for many. At the same time, the country remains deeply divided—between not only Black and white, but increasingly between Red and Blue. It is more important now than ever to follow Dr. King’s example by not demonizing the “other side” but by focusing instead on our shared commitment to realizing the American Dream. Though today’s barriers may be different—less prejudice, more greed—the dream is the same for everyone: equal opportunity, success through hard work, social mobility, no matter what circumstances you’re born into.

We all want these things, but politicians and corporations and the media profit by convincing us we are more different than alike. Dr. King saw through this; he saw that the American experiment is a continuous effort in which we all have a mutual interest, and that we need only come together and keep striving to bring its promises to life.

Throughout my America250 series, you’ll see me return to this exact theme again and again. Because America was founded not on ethnic or religious identity, but rather on an idea, belief in that idea is the only adhesive binding our diverse nation together—as Dr. King so clearly understood. America in this sense remains imperfect and unfinished, but by fully committing to its promises we can begin an era of healing and, as he urged, stand up for the best in the American Dream.

During President Trump’s first term I often chided friends and family for falling into the “Trump is Hitler” trap.

“Mom,” I’d wisely admonish, “stop comparing Trump to Hitler. Yes, he’s a terrible person, but thankfully this is America so he won’t accomplish anything close to the architect of World War Two and the Final Solution, even if he tries. Plus, making that kind of comparison alienates and condescends Trump’s supporters, which is what drove many of them from our side to his side in the first place.”

Well, I’m done with that shit.

As if the murder of a U.S. citizen at the hands of ICE wasn’t enough, the Trump administration’s response marks a weaponization of the truth that goes far beyond the usual politicians’ flexibility with facts and into the realm of history’s most evil autocrats. It’s a pattern which—if we call it for what it is—reveals the authoritarian strategy now being deployed in our country and reminds us of the most effective means of resisting it.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” -George Orwell, 1984

On Wednesday morning, Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot after ICE agents confronted her vehicle in Minneapolis; witness video accounts show her trying to leave the scene when shots were fired, sparking protests and an investigation now being led solely by the FBI after Minnesota’s state-level investigative agency said it was cut off from case access.

In response, the Trump administration has rapidly pushed an alternative storyline portraying Good as a violent “domestic terrorist” who “weaponized” her car and “ran over” an officer, despite video clearly discrediting these claims and despite local leaders calling the federal narrative false.

It’s a textbook case of a political strongman and his sycophants turning a narrative on its head to serve their own agenda. Trump is taking a page from the playbook of the likes of, yes, Adolf Hitler, not to mention Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong… you get the idea. As history shows, manipulating the truth to defend the indefensible is both the foundation and the culmination of any authoritarian takeover.

“A definite factor in getting a lie believed is the size of the lie, for the broad mass of the people in its primitive simplicity of heart more readily falls victim to a big lie than to a small one.” -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

The Reichstag fire is the classic template: a shocking act of violence instantly blamed on a political enemy, then used to justify emergency powers and mass repression. Hitler used the burning of Germany’s parliament to suspend civil liberties and crush dissent overnight. Stalin perfected the model with invented conspiracies and show trials, while Mao conjured “counterrevolutionaries” to unleash purges and mob violence. The formula never changes: lie about what happened, manufacture a threat, declare a crisis, and demand obedience until truth itself becomes treason.

Trump has made abundant use of this formula, and that’s nothing new. From his false claims about the crowd size at his first inauguration to his “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, Trump has wielded “alternative facts” merely as another resource to serve his purposes. Just one day before the incident in Minneapolis, the White House published a blatantly false retelling of the January 6th insurrection—recasting the pro-Trump mob who stormed the Capitol as “peaceful protesters,” blaming law enforcement and Nancy Pelosi for the violence, and portraying the rioters as victims while glorifying Trump for pardoning nearly 1,600 of them.

(A rare exception is Trump’s blunt honesty about kidnapping the leader of a sovereign nation to seize its oil reserves. But such transparency is hardly justification for a foreign policy act reminiscent of 19th-century imperialism that most pundits are predicting will be a legal, political, and economic disaster.)

“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth… Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” -Joseph Heller, Catch-22

While the distortion of the facts around Good’s murder is not Trump’s first “big lie,” what it confirms more than any abhorrent precedent of his is that he is now governing with absolute indifference to electability and accountability. A year ago I would have been relieved if you’d told me that Trump was finally making it clear that he had no plans to attempt running for a third term in 2028.

Actually, this is way worse. Trump would not be desecrating the memory of a murder victim of his administration—not to mention weaponizing the DOJ to pursue and publicly target his political opponents, firing dozens of independent inspectors general to weaken government oversight, and dismantling civil-rights and accountability institutions—if he had any plans of being democratically reelected. No, his and his MAGA circle’s ambitions are far grander than that.

Mark my words—the Trump administration will continue waging its disinformation campaign not only to defend the shooting and discredit its victim, but to justify even more violent law enforcement tactics to come. Remember that from the moment Charlie Kirk was murdered, Trump and his allies immediately blamed, without evidence, “the radical left” and promised a sweeping crackdown on progressive organizations, liberal donors, and critics. It’s no coincidence that, like Kirk’s assassin, Renee Nicole Good was immediately labeled a “domestic terrorist” by Trump. Her murder and the untruths that Trump has built around it, like Kirk’s, will be used to justify retaliatory action against Trump’s political opponents and silence dissent.

Lie about what happened, manufacture a threat, declare a crisis, and demand obedience until truth itself becomes treason.

Despite the stakes—despite the greatest threat to the Republic in our lifetimes—we must not meet violence with violence. Whether you are the perpetrator of political violence, like the man who killed Charlie Kirk, or its victim, like Renee Nicole Good, the Trump administration has made it clear that it will waste no time in telling lies about you to strengthen its grip on power, as its many historical counterparts have done.

But while MAGA has its historic role models, so do we. The same century that produced Hitler, Stalin, and Mao also gave us Gandhi, King, and Mandela. We need look no further than them to see that the answer to tyranny—and the fictions upon which it is built—continues to be peaceful protest and civic engagement. And in our case—because this is still the America of this century, in enough ways that count—voting in elections that, for now, remain free, fair, and worth fighting to protect.

Vote in the midterms this November, so that more Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans can join the ranks of Congress and keep Trump’s authoritarian ambitions in check. Vote in 2028 against Trump’s heir apparent—likely J.D. Vance—to bring this dark chapter in American history to a close, once and for all. Volunteer, donate, advocate; there’s no shortage of options. Democracy must be saved by democratic means… by all means necessary.

What a fucked up year it’s been. I hope you all have found effective means of coping with the downfall of the Republic happening before our very eyes–mine, somehow, was writing about it. But my blog posts are only as good as the audience reading them. If you know me personally and I made you subscribe in the early days, thanks for sticking around. If you somehow found me in my little corner of the internet and subscribed too, thanks for hearing me out.

For those of you newer to Patriots Against Trump, here are my personal favorites since I started the blog back in June. As with all my posts, I promise that these are relatively short reads:

1. I Think I Just Became a Progressive

My analysis of Zohran Mamdani’s popularity as a blueprint for the Democratic Party

2. J.D. Vance vs. the Founding Fathers

My take on the Vice President’s uniquely horrible misreading of the Founders’ vision for America

3. Democrats Need Their Own Brand of Patriotism

My reflections following a road trip through small-town America

4. The Real-Life Sith Lords of American Politics

My comparison of the Trump administration to literally the Sith from Star Wars (just hear me out)

5. The Future of Elections - 2026: Local Government

My guest feature on the University of Arizona Discourse Series podcast in Tuscon, Arizona

I really appreciate the traffic these posts and others have generated in just six short months. All of you have made writing fun for me again, and more importantly, given me a community on Substack that shares my concern and love for our country as well as a passion for intellectual engagement. As we move into 2026, I ask of you two things:

If you’ve enjoyed my writing, please share the blog with your friends (or, if you have your own blog, DM me and we’ll trade recommendations). I make no claim to true originality nor exceptional insight, but in growing my readership I see the benefit of continuing to build online communities that exchange ideas about American life and politics and debate their merits (so if any of your friends are Trump supporters, all the better).

A hundred years ago, the Lost Generation of writers fled to Paris following the First World War to try to make sense of the senseless and tragic world they had inherited; they confronted the essential facts of life, challenged their milieu and produced artistic and intellectual works of lasting consequence. Let’s be the Substack version of that. To that end, I invite you to make more noise in the comments section of future posts, whether in agreement or disagreement. Civil discourse is sorely and increasingly lacking in today’s America. Change won’t happen until we change that first.

Secondly, I’d love to hear your ideas on what else you want to see included in Patriots Against Trump in 2026. Any new topics of focus? More guest features? If you have a Substack blog too, is there anything you want to collaborate on? What’s something in politics or history that interests you that you don’t hear enough about? I may never be the first person to have a brand new opinion on something, but we can at least refine ideas and spread them further.

We are living in a unique time in our country, to say the least. The type of decade that could one day be the subject of a Ken Burns documentary. Yes, it sucks. It sucks a lot. But if you’re here reading my blog and others, then you’re already among friends who are paying attention and debating what should be done to see America through the challenges currently facing it.

So thanks for being here, guys. We’re just at the beginning of something awful, historic, and possibly epic, all at the same time. And with that, I’m going to leave you with one of my favorite scenes in literature, one that I hope leaves you with motivation heading into the new year, as it has for me:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Ah, the holiday season. A chill is in the air. The sound of eternally recycled, money-grabbing covers of Christmas classics rings through our cities and towns. Scents of fresh-baked cookies and crackling fireplaces waft down from YIMBY-enabled affordable multi-family housing developments. And for every proud American who would see our great Republic endure through its latest internal threats, Santa has brought a giftbag of fat L’s to President Trump and his little MAGA elves.

The last time it was this cold out (at least in Central Texas), it was the Democrats who were eating it, again and again. Remember how bad things felt? From January 20th onward, we were met with no cozy winter vibes but rather the Grinch Who Stole Democracy. Even as the days became longer and warmer, it was hard not to feel like the sun was setting on much of what made America great. Trump diagnosed many legitimate shortcomings of our country, but then took a wrecking ball to our laws, norms, and checks and balances in ways that approached textbook authoritarianism. But now, as we close out 2025, a chill is not the only thing in the air, but change, too.

In other words, Trump is no longer getting his way. To really run this Christmas analogy into the ground, here’s some of the coal he’s gotten recently from his party, the courts, and the voters for being on the naughty list:

A Widening Party Rift

Trump is losing touch with parts of his own base as the GOP fractures internally. Trump’s sharp break with the GOP over the Epstein files marked one of the clearest signs yet that his party is no longer fully aligned behind him. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation, coming after he attacked her for backing the release of the files, underscored just how deep that rift has become. Her departure revealed broader frustration among core MAGA voters over rising living costs, unaffordable health insurance, and Trump’s focus on foreign policy while their economic pressures at home continue to mount.

Add to that the blowback over reports of possibly unlawful boat strikes—a controversy that had Republicans publicly contradicting the administration—and the meltdown around Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, which sparked chaos within the GOP and conservative institutions like the Heritage Foundation. The result: a party that no longer moves in lockstep.

Repeated Rebukes in the Courts

Since November, the courts have shown a new willingness to push back on Trump’s most aggressive moves. Federal judges in Oregon and Illinois blocked his attempts to deploy the National Guard. Multiple attempts at prosecuting Trump’s political rivals, including Letitia James and James Comey, were thrown out after a judge found Trump’s hand-picked U.S. attorney was unlawfully appointed. In Comey’s case, the court also cited gross procedural incompetence. (Maybe that’s what happens when you appoint a former insurance lawyer with no criminal experience to headline your revenge tour.)

Even the Texas redistricting fight, though complicated by a Supreme Court administrative stay, revealed rare judicial resistance. A three-judge panel, including a Trump appointee, ruled that the Trump-backed map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and the stay does not erase those findings. Taken together, these decisions show judges tossing out weak arguments, blocking overreach, and beginning to reassert the judiciary as an independent check on Trump’s attempts to stretch executive power for political ends.

Peril in the Polls

Most importantly, Trump and MAGA are losing substantial ground among their voters. Last month’s elections made one thing clear: Republicans are getting beaten badly on the issues voters care about most. Suburbanites, independents, and non-college-educated voters that had drifted right in 2024 moved sharply back left. Across the board, voters blamed Trump and Republicans for inflation, healthcare costs, and affordability crises.

Polling since the elections reinforces the same pattern as Trump’s approval hits a second-term low. The looming spike in ACA premiums has put the GOP in an especially bad position—especially since the shutdown—as voters overwhelmingly support extending subsidies while blaming Trump and congressional Republicans for risking major cost increases. Even immigration—the GOP’s traditional lifeline—isn’t saving them with swing voters or Latino voters feeling economic pressure. Combined with infighting and increased resistance in the courts, the party heads into the 2026 midterms with a brutal outlook.

I think the throughline of all of the above is this: Trump has taken things so far in his disregard and disrespect for our country that more and more Americans—from independents and swing voters to Trump’s base, from the courts to even lawmakers in his own party—are drawing the line. America—not just the left—is finally showing it has standards it is willing to uphold.

Republicans seem to know they have their backs against the wall; perhaps that’s why J.D. Vance finally acknowledged Americans’ affordability concerns and Trump lowered tariffs amid near-universal opposition. I’m so used to the Democrats being the party consumed by infighting, it really does feel like Christmas has come early. But the fight is far from over.

In a few weeks we celebrate not just the new year, but a midterm year. Voting congressional Democrats back into office next November is the most important thing you can do to help keep Trump’s authoritarian impulses in check. And beyond that, there are plenty of other ways to show civic and patriotic responsibility. So do your part, especially now, with the momentum of the growing anti-Trump resistance finally at our backs. Because all I want for Christmas is the survival of these United States.

Now everyone go listen to my Christmas single.

The Future of Elections - 2026; Local Government (UA Discourse Series)

Last weekend I had the honor of featuring on the UA Discourse Series podcast, hosted by the modern-day iteration of the University of Arizona debate club of which I’m a proud founding member. We discussed Election Night 2025, the current state of civil discourse and media, and the future of the Democratic Party.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UADiscourseSeries

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uadiscourseseries/

Everyone is saying that the Democrats caved. That after finally taking a stand in the shutdown fight, they struck a “bargain” that gave up everything they wanted and got nothing in return—namely, an extension of Affordable Care Act healthcare subsidies. And that in doing so, they squandered all the momentum and optimism they gained in last Tuesday’s Election Night victories.

But that’s not what happened.

First of all, the Democrats getting their way on healthcare was never a realistic outcome. That’s what happens when you suck at winning elections: you don’t hold a majority, and you don’t write the budget. If there’s anything you want to fault the Democrats for, fault them for having faith that Republicans would come around on healthcare subsidies. In reality, Trump responded to the shutdown by announcing plans to lay off thousands of federal workers, creating widespread airport disruptions, and attempting to withhold SNAP benefits (food stamps) for 42 million Americans. It’s almost enough to make you question his level of compassion.

With so many Americans hurting for 40-plus days, can you really fault those Democrats for voting to end the longest shutdown in history, even on a bad deal? It’s not like they’ve completely given up, either—the deal will fund the government only through January, so the fight isn’t over. Such timing would suggest that the Democrats took a temporary L to ensure that, ahead of the holiday season, furloughed federal workers could return to their jobs with back pay; that Americans wouldn’t face thousands of airline cancellations; and that SNAP-dependent families wouldn’t go hungry. Those bastards!

At the same time, Democrats still used the shutdown—effectively, in my opinion—as an opportunity to tie Republicans to rising healthcare costs. Whether you agree with the point of the shutdown in the first place, I think that thanks to Democratic messaging, the average voter understands that this shutdown happened because Republicans flatly refused to extend ACA subsidies. Because they “won”, healthcare premiums will indeed go up—and now most Americans will know which party to blame.

Moreover, Trump spent the last 40 days gifting Democrats with a year’s worth of talking points on how little he cares for the average voter. “The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let it limit SNAP payments during the shutdown” should be repeated constantly from now until the 2026 midterms, alongside the Democrats’ original “message” with the shutdown that Republicans are the reason healthcare costs keep rising. If the Democrats get this right, they’ll head into next November as the party of compassion, in a practical way (“We stand for affordability, healthcare, and federal workers”), not a woke way (“Guys, it’s Latinx”).

Finally, by the time the midterms come around no one is going to remember this shutdown anyway. The amount of crazy shit Trump will reliably pull in the next month—let alone the next twelve—will ensure that Democrats’ supposed “cave” quickly fades from the headlines and voters’ minds. If Democrats stick to last Tuesday’s winning blueprint—talking about affordability and casting Republicans as its greatest threat—the shutdown won’t dent a 2026 blue wave. And now (because this point is worth restating), they can really drive home that Republicans are to blame for rising healthcare costs, precisely because the GOP got its way when reopening the government.

This fact will only be made clearer next month when Republicans inevitably vote down healthcare subsidies (again) in the upcoming Senate vote required by the shutdown deal. They were never going to agree on extending those subsidies, but now Democrats have forced them to make their intentions loud and clear.

I don’t think the Democrats caved. I think they sparked a 41-day conversation about how they’re the party that tries to fight for healthcare, SNAP benefits, federal workers, and functional airline travel, and the Republicans, well, aren’t. Beyond that, our political reality hasn’t changed: if the Democrats want healthcare policy that helps the most vulnerable Americans, they’ll have to go about it the old-fashioned way: by winning elections and passing new legislation with a hard-earned majority.

That means spending the next twelve months building not only on the success of last week’s elections, but on the contrast made clear during the government shutdown. Democrats now have a clear messaging strategy to carry into the midterms: explain why they made sacrifices to reopen the government while Republicans were driving up costs and hurting working families, so that it’s abundantly clear to voters which party showed up for them when it mattered.

That model is this: Talk about the economy, affordability, inflation and the cost of living, and ditch the fringe social issues. But beyond that, don’t even worry about leaning too far left or too into the center—as long as you talk about the things that hit closest to home in the first place, and acknowledge that Americans are fucking done with the same-old—the votes will come.

Republicans will tell you that Mamdani’s victory is a harbinger of communism’s takeover of the Democratic Party. Leftists will use it as the proof they’ve sought for years that American voters are ready for socialism. But Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, the Democrats’ other big success stories of the night, won their respective governorships running on relatively centrist platforms. The through-line of all three Democrats’ campaigns, regardless of their differences in actual policy, was their sustained messaging on economic issues over culture wars. The lesson here is that voters reward relevance, not ideology.

Pundits will also cite Tuesday’s results as a repudiation of Trump. Generally speaking that’s true, but it’s less about Trump himself and more about his policies—namely his policy on, you guessed it, the economy. Polls show that Trump’s approval rating on the economy has tanked along with Americans’ perception of the economy in general. Tuesday night’s victors built their campaigns not on a generic “anti-Trump” message but on an honest confrontation with Americans’ dwindling faith in the American Dream.

I don’t think Mamdani’s self-described socialist policies, in particular, will work. But here’s the thing: I don’t give a shit. I care about winning elections. Yes, in normal times we could fret over policy debates within the Democratic Party, but that’s not a luxury we have right now. Just like how, in a perfect world, I’d make some pretentious, high-minded case against California’s Prop 50 because when they go low, we go high, blah blah blah… but if Trump wants to fuck around, he’s going to find out.

The Democrats have needed a W for a long time. Things have been bleak for our country. Much work remains to be done. But Tuesday night gave us enough reason for hope, and, more importantly, the roadmap for sustaining it.

There is an undercurrent of intellectual thought that is beginning to gain traction across the highest rungs of power, counting among its adherents some of the closest advisors to President Trump. The so-called “Dark Enlightenment” —or Neo-Reactionary movement—rejects democracy and individual liberty, calling instead for rule by a single, unrestrained authority. So dangerous is this notion that it wouldn’t feel out of place in a classic Hollywood showdown of good versus evil.

Let me put this in simpler terms: the followers of the Dark Enlightenment are literally the Sith from Star Wars. And I don’t mean just the cackling Emperor Palpatine from the films with his generic movie-villain threats to rule the galaxy. Rather, the Sith of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (the collection of stories beyond the films, told through books, comics, and games) are an organized and deeply ideological movement who meticulously pull the strings of government behind the scenes to realize their grand plan of usurpation and conquest.

The Sith find their real-world counterpart in the Dark Enlightenment. Both view the world order as controlled by corrupt elites responsible for societal decay, curable only by an internal purge of its civil servants, and in need of a monarchical leader to spearhead a new technocratic state.

Author’s note: for the purposes of this article, I’ll be referring only to the pre-Disney Star Wars canon. I could write a whole separate post about the controversy around that, but this old man has other clouds to yell at.

War on the Establishment

The Dark Enlightenment and the Dark Side of the Force share a seething distrust of what they see as the entrenched establishment. Curtis Yarvin, a key intellectual figurehead of the Neo-Reactionaries, warns of what he calls “the Cathedral”—an elitist coalition comprising mainstream media, universities, and bureaucracy—which conspires to maintain the illusion of democratic systems and suppress dissent.

In Yarvin’s view, this institutionalization of modern liberal values perpetuates moral decline, cultural decadence, and social disorder. Among his admirers is none other than Vice President J.D. Vance, who has called Yarvin a friend and shares his view of establishment bureaucrats as enemies of the people who must be removed from power at all costs. To this end, Yarvin and his allies legitimize the disposal of their political enemies by casting them as agents of widespread dysfunction—just as the Trump administration has repeatedly done with its Democratic opponents.

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? Darth Plagueis by James Luceno, which I’ll be quoting extensively in this article, illuminates the long-term vision of the Sith in far greater detail than the Star Wars movies. Mirroring the Dark Enlightenment, the intellectual bedrock of the Sith is a hatred for the established system of governance: the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order. They see the latter as “perpetuat[ing] a myth of equality, serving the Force as if it were a belief system that had been programmed into them.”

To the Sith, the Jedi’s “vanity and blind obedience to the Republic” has helped to uphold a deteriorating galactic government. They see them as guardians not of peace and justice, but of a broken civilization whose deterioration will continue unless the slate is wiped clean.

Order Through Destruction

What begins as intellectual disdain for democracy soon becomes a bureaucratic purge disguised as purification. Both the Dark Enlightenment and the Sith seek to “reboot” society by purging the corrupt ruling class and dismantling the status quo. With the former, this is best exemplified by RAGE (“Retire All Government Employees”), a radical proposal by Curtis Yarvin to purge a large portion of the state bureaucracy and rebuild it under a single executive’s control.

J.D. Vance publicly cited Yarvin on a 2021 podcast when, speaking about a possible second Trump term, he endorsed a nearly identical idea. “Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people,” Vance said, “and when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’” Indeed, Trump’s return to the White House has seen mass DOGE-led federal layoffs, followed by another wave of thousands more federal workers being let go during the ongoing government shutdown.

The Star Wars parallel here, of course, is the Jedi Purge (“Execute Order 66…”), as portrayed in Revenge of the Sith. Darth Plagueis justifies the end of the Jedi Order in Luceno’s book. “An era of warfare [is] necessary to purge the galaxy of those who have allowed it to decay,” he warns his apprentice, a young and power-hungry Palpatine. “For decay has no cure; it has to be eradicated by the flames of a cleansing fire. And the Jedi are mostly to blame.”

In Revenge of the Sith, we see the Sith’s grand plan come to fruition. Having falsely accused the Jedi of an attempted coup to justify their annihilation, Palpatine declares triumphantly to the Senate, as the Jedi Temple burns, “The Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire! For a safe and secure society.” He evokes the imagery and applies the tactics of raising a new order out of the ashes of the old, under the guise of legality, security, and necessity.

Technocratic Empire

This civil purge is, to both movements, the means toward a shared end goal: a techno-authoritarian regime led by a near-monarchical ruler promising to restore order. The ideology of Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and close advisor, echoes this idea. He has repeatedly asserted that the president possesses broad powers to protect the nation. As recently as last week he slipped up in a CNN interview, citing the president’s “plenary authority” (meaning complete and absolute control) before stopping mid-sentence and feigning a technical glitch.

The technocratic strain of the Dark Enlightenment is embodied by Peter Thiel, the billionaire PayPal co-founder who backed Trump’s 2016 campaign and funded J.D. Vance through Mithril Capital. Through ventures like Palantir, he advances a fusion of data, surveillance, and governance that fuels techno-authoritarian ambitions for a post-democratic world. Meanwhile, Thiel uses his wealth to mainstream these ideas through media, think tanks, and political networks.

The similarities of these goals to those of the Sith are striking. In the Star Wars films, Emperor Palpatine’s ambitions for galactic dominance are less than nuanced. But Expanded Universe books like Darth Plagueis reveal a Sith vision for a utopian society brought about by an enlightened elite who “seek to rouse beings from their stupor and lead them to glory.” In their worldview, salvation depends on the rise of a single, despotic ruler—one strong enough to rescue the lesser masses from the tyranny of their own passions, jealousies, and desires.

Darth Plagueis even introduces a technocratic dimension to the Sith’s grand design that closely mirrors its Neo-Reactionary counterpart. Beyond his obsession with conquering death, Plagueis and the Sith are portrayed less as warriors than as dark alchemists. They experiment with the fusion of the Force and advanced technology to fuel their designs for galactic domination and render both the Jedi and the Republic obsolete.

The Star Wars franchise serves as a warning for how authoritarian takeovers succeed: not in plain sight but through the careful manipulation of shadowy figures behind the scenes. To be clear, I don’t think Donald Trump himself is a Neo-Reactionary; he is a man driven not by ideology but merely self-advancement. But his political and financial backers—J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller, Peter Thiel and others—are disciples of the movement and work mostly out of the public eye to make the worldview of the Dark Enlightenment a reality. Indeed, our country slides deeper and deeper into democratic decline with every passing month of the Trump administration.

“So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause,” Senator Padmé Amidala laments in Revenge of the Sith as Palpatine completes his takeover of the Republic. The Sith rose to power not by brute force alone, but by convincing the galaxy they were its saviors. The Dark Enlightenment seeks the same illusion. One need look no further than the Star Wars original trilogy to see what it’s like in a world where this plot succeeds. It is up to us to continue our own, nonviolent forms of rebellion—through civic participation and exercising our freedoms of speech and assembly—to foil their ambitions before the applause begins.

Source Material:

The Dark Enlightenment by Nick Land

“A Guide to Some of the Key Movers and Influencers in Trump’s Orbit” by Chris Lehmann (The Nation)

“JD Vance thinks monarchists have some good ideas” by Gaby del Valle (The Verge)

“Anti-democratic ‘Dark Enlightenment’ ideas have spread from Silicon Valley to Washington” by Christopher Collins (Cascade Institute)

Darth Plagueis by James Luceno (2012)

He lays out a pragmatic path to rebuilding public trust — one rooted in civic participation and the hard, long-term work of reforming our institutions. Together, we unpack that vision and talk about what it means to still believe in American democracy at a time when so many feel disillusioned.

Resources shared in this episode:

Let’s fix, not abandon, our broken political system (Cascadia Daily)

https://www.nokings.org/ (Next event: this Saturday, October 18th)

https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/

https://vote.gov/