Politics

After Trump’s win, it’s time for Democrats to throw out the old playbook

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

After Trump’s win, it’s time for Democrats to throw out the old playbook

This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 10 episode of “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

Since last week’s electionI’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what just happened. I’m sure you have, too. I’m trying not to wallow in it, though if you’re doing a little wallowing, I get it. Mostly I’m trying to learn from it and think about what comes next.

Because now is a time to reflect and be humble. It’s also a time to be very, very curious. I know there’s an instinct right now to try to find some very clear-cut explanationbut, the truth is, there isn’t just one.

No one American, and no one group of Americans, owes anyone their vote.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that there were lots of factors at play here. Yes, there have been some major trends wiping out incumbents all across the world post-Covid. Yes, there is a lot of sexism and racism in our country — something that definitely exists and something that can be frustratingly hard to measure. And yes, Vice President Kamala Harris ran a campaign in just 107 days.

During those 107 days, she did have moments of complete brilliance. The debate and the Democratic National Convention both come to mind. Many of us thought she might be able to overcome the burden of an unpopular governing party, introduce herself to voters, bring back the members of the Democratic coalition who had left and massively outperform every single global trend. Maybe that was an insurmountable expectation all along, especially on a short timeline.

But beyond those structural challenges, we also need to be clear-eyed about some hard truths in the results from election night. President-elect Donald Trump improved his share of the vote with almost every demographic group. He improved with men, women, young people and Latinos. If that’s not a hard truth, I don’t know what is.

While we try to understand why that happened, I think there might be an instinct to assign blame to this demographic or that demographic. But despite how hard this moment is and how challenging the years ahead will be, we have to resist that urge.

That’s just not how democracy works. Winning elections is about convincing more voters that you are the right choice. No one American, and no one group of Americans, owes anyone their vote. People choose with their own free will who they think better represents their interests. People are either motivated to turn out to support what a party is offering, or they aren’t. And we need to reflect on that.

We need to reflect on why an anti-labor, anti-working-class candidate won voters who didn’t go to college; why an anti-immigrant candidate who ran on the promise of deporting millions of people made historic gains with Latino voters; and why a country that ranks democracy as one of its top issues elected the guy who promised to be a dictator on Day 1.

Man, those are big questions, and it might be a while before we have answers to all of them.

But there were also some bright spots, including the election of Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin in Michigan and the re-election of Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jacky Rosen of Nevada. Arizona’s Ruben Gallego is leading in his Senate race, too. Those races all happened in states Trump won, and those candidates all outperformed the top of the ticket.

What I do know for sure is that not nearly enough people turned out to vote for what the Democratic Party was selling nationally. I look at this from my vantage point as a college-educated white person, which is one of the only demographics Trump didn’t increase his share of the vote with, and I can tell you that the message of the party is geared too much toward me.

I happen to believe that Trump is a major threat to our democracy. I believe that as much today as I did this time last week. Fascism is a threat. A dire one. So is authoritarian leadership. I believe that in my bones, and I believe it’s what we’re facing.

But clearly that message just didn’t connect with enough people, and maybe it was the wrong closing message. Too many people either didn’t buy it and didn’t show up or were willing to price in the risk because other issues were more important to them.

The answer to that failure isn’t to say fascism doesn’t matter or to say everyone who didn’t vote for Harris is to blame for not hearing or understanding the threat; it’s for candidates to rethink how they prioritize what they talk about, to rethink how they engage.

Part of the answer here is to stop diagnosing and start listening. Over the last few days, I thought a lot about my first presidential campaign in 2004, because I think there are some important lessons there. For one, it produced an outcome that also made very little sense at the time. It did not make any sense that the country chose George W. Busha man who had started a deeply unpopular war in Iraq, over John Kerrya decorated Vietnam War veteran who had spoken out against it — but they did.

Even amid exhaustion and anger, it’s important that we don’t fall into the trap of believing that things can’t get better or that we can’t get to the other side of this.

Kerry’s loss left the Democratic Party with a huge leadership vacuum, and it turns out, vacuums can be a good thing. Two years later, the country rejected Bush’s failed presidency and Democrats won back the House for the first time in 12 years, making Rep. Nancy Pelosi the first female speaker.

Two years after that, the Democratic electorate, after a hard-fought primary with good candidateschose a Black man with the middle name Hussein over the party establishment candidate as their nominee. And the country chose that same man, Barack Obama, to be their president,twice.

I traveled with him to nearly every event he did on both presidential campaigns. I can tell you that he won by throwing out the old playbook and showing up for years to places people didn’t expect. He won by being fearless. He refused to accept the notion that the country would only elect someone who looked or sounded a certain way.

He did it by believing that “Yes, we can” as a country. The man is a once-in-a-generation speaker, but he didn’t win by talking at people. He won by listening. He won by listening to the country and charting a new path forward based on what he heard.

So, I know you are feeling confused, upset and pissed off. I’m sure you’re feeling exhausted. I get it. But as painful as it is right now, even amid that exhaustion and anger, it’s important that we don’t fall into the trap of believing that things can’t get better or that we can’t get to the other side of this.

Because they can and we can. So let’s listen carefully, let’s learn a lot, let’s be super curious and let’s get to work.

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

23 hours ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”

Politics

Missouri Supreme Court pauses GOP gerrymander, likely netting Democrats 1 House seat

Published

3 days ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.

The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.

Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.