Midterm elections create a historic opportunity to offer people a vision for the future that welcomes them in, one they can help build.
I am glad that voters in Kansas, my home state, helped give Trump his final rebuke in the midterm elections. After all, Kansas was home to a girl named Dorothy, who pulled back a curtain to reveal that the Great Wizard who claimed only he could solve the world’s problems was nothing but a fraud.
Dorothy is the hero of L. Frank Baum’s classic novel, The Wizard of Oz. Written in 1900, this beloved children's story is also considered a parable about the injustices faced by working people during the Gilded Age. Swept away from her home by a storm, Dorothy believes only the Great Wizard has the power to help her. Then, when she visits his castle, she discovers that all along he was lying - and that she had the power to make her own way home.
Like Dorothy in the Land of Oz, voters have just pulled back the curtain to reveal Trump’s lies and deceit. And also like her, while we have the power to find our own way home, Tuesday marked the beginning of our journey.
In Tuesday’s election, Americans of all kinds and in every place stepped up to say we have had enough of Trump’s cruelty and corruption. And we want solutions to the real problems we face in our daily lives, not division.
Kansas elected a Democrat to the senate for the first time in nearly a hundred years. And Texas, a deep red state for three decades, elected Democrats to EVERY statewide seat, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court. In 22 states, there will now be Democratic trifectas with full control of State government.
This is a historic shift of the tides. For those of us who are organizers, it is a historic opportunity. Because when the tides shift, you can sometimes advance quickly towards things that seemed unattainable just days before - like Medicare for All, healing the planet, and getting big money out of politics.
We must take full advantage of this opportunity to deliver tangible, material improvements in people’s lives. We must also recognize that the other side will not give up without a fight.
Many of those who voted to reject Trump’s cruelty didn’t do so out of their love for the Democratic Party or for a full progressive agenda. So there is still a lot we do not yet agree on.
What we all agree on is that the time has come in this country to end Trump’s cruelty, and to “Love Thy Neighbor,” in the words of the Bible verse Texas’s senator-elect James Talarico chose as the slogan for his campaign.
What “Love Thy Neighbor” comes to mean in this country is, in many ways, up to us. We have a historic opportunity, yet a lot of harm to undo. So we must also expand our imagination of what’s possible: offer people a vision for the future that welcomes them in, one they can help build. And we must demand that a new generation of leaders come up with real solutions for our health care system, our energy, our economy, our environment and more.
It will be an uphill climb, at least for the next two years. Trump still has the power to create conflicts overseas, issue executive orders, veto legislation, and sow chaos and fear, with a well-funded private militia - ICE - at his command.
Until Congress acts, ICE is one of the largest, and least accountable, armies in the world. $200 billion has already been approved to fuel Trump’s deportation campaign, which Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said will continue. This, combined with Trump’s decision to elevate Stephen MIller, the author of some of his cruelest policies, to chief of staff suggests he and the extremists in his inner circle will not go quietly, nor seek common ground with the new Congress.
So the new Congress must act swiftly and decisively to rein in Trump’s powers and his cruelest intentions, and claw back as much as they can of the Republicans’ $1 trillion cuts to health care, food aid and other essential services to families.
While their powers will be limited, our new leaders must find ways to deliver material results Americans start to feel in their daily lives. If they fail to deliver real economic relief, they run the risk of losing the support of voters well before 2028.
We can also rebuild the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the other institutions created by Congress to defend our people and the environment which Trump has illegally sought to dismantle.
There are many ways newly Blue states, especially those with governing trifectas, like Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, can lead the way in our recovery and build momentum towards 2028. We can, for instance, expand Medicaid and other health care at the state level, restore funding and local control for education, and refuse to cooperate with ICE.
Community organizers have a specific role to play in this moment. We can help build this momentum by honestly analyzing the power that we have built - the power that fueled Tuesday’s election victories - and the power we need to achieve even greater victories in 2028 and beyond. It is our responsibility to do this. In this moment, more than ever, it is truly up to us.
