Hello subscribers!

A quick note on the rebrand: after a mere 14 months of writing articles about how the Democratic Party needs to extend its brand beyond simply opposing America’s current president, I realized the irony of my former blog name, Patriots Against Trump.

I hope the new name better reflects the goals and themes of my blog, as well as what I think the Party as a whole should strive toward: forward-thinking, positive, and yes, still unapologetically patriotic in its efforts to reach out to voters (and non-voters)—and, more importantly, challenge ideas and explore new ones in the name of a more prosperous America.

That’s all I really wanted to say, but while I have you, here’s an ICMYI if you want to check out some of my recent posts:

The Socialists Are Onto Something, and It’s Not the Socialism: What a new generation of Democratic insurgents understands about winning.

America250, Chapter V: A Special Day, and The Great Task Remaining Before Us: On America’s 250th birthday, a look back at the milestones that shaped our nation—and why its greatest achievements may still lie ahead.

Pay Attention to James Talarico: How Texas’ young rising star is showing that the hope, faith, and unity politics Democrats embraced under Barack Obama may still win.

This Isn’t About Politics Anymore: How authoritarianism is beaten.

Thanks, as always, for reading. I hope the journey has been as fun for you as it’s been for me. Because yes, we can still enjoy the ride together while we play a part in these troubled times. America can be better, but only if you come aboard.

Vote on November 3rd.

I didn’t believe it at first. Decades of undying loyalty to my favorite hockey team, rewarded only with perennial disappointment (except that one time), have conditioned me never to get my hopes up—to assume it’s always brightest before the dusk.

And yet, even I can no longer deny it: Democrats are finally figuring out a way to appeal to voters. Amid a party nearly as unpopular as our celebrity dictator of a president, a new wave of “outsider” Democrats have swept to primary victories across the nation.

It started a year ago with Zohran Mamdani’s shocking usurpation of the Democratic Party establishment in New York. Many, including on the left, were quick to dismiss his upset as a blueprint for Democratic success nationwide. It’s New York, not Wisconsin, they said. A Democrat in a red or purple state could never campaign on such a far-left platform, they said.

Since then, more progressives and even self-proclaimed democratic socialists have won primaries (many of them for statewide seats), often while heavily outspent by more entrenched opponents. But the debate over whether their politics are universally electable misses the point—and reveals a misconception still present in liberal discourse heading into November.

Because it’s not just progressive candidates driving the new Democratic formula for success. Rather, the pattern emerging this spring and summer among victorious candidates—progressive and moderate—has been this: insurgency over establishment politics, organizing over advertising, material concerns over ideological labels, authenticity over message discipline, and mobilization over persuasion.

Crafting the perfect Democratic candidate

To best illustrate this pattern and introduce the candidates bringing it to life, I’ve built for you a Franklinstein’s Monster out of different bits and pieces of this Democratic vanguard. I haven’t decided if I took the “Franklin” from FDR—our Democratic Party legend whose undeniably socialist-leaning policies brought us out of a depression and a world war—or Benjamin Franklin—America’s favorite alcoholic wizard who set the very first example of the modern party’s need for fun, quirky, and innovative political figures (and who was known for his own experiments, too). I’ll let you pick.

With that, I hereby present to you my Obama Formulama for the perfect Democratic candidate:

20% – Talarico’s insurgency:

Given that James Talarico is vying to become the first Democrat elected statewide in Texas since 1994, the candidate for Senate is a prime counter-example to the notion that the Democratic Party’s new wave of outsiders is contained to the far left. (Not that that’s stopping Texas Republicans from calling him a socialist anyway.) If anything, Talarico is distancing himself from ideological labels entirely, reaffirming along the campaign trail that America’s defining issue is “not left versus right, but top versus bottom.”

In this, Talarico has tapped into voters’ distrust of institutions, concentrated power, and politics-as-usual—something that clearly resonates more than the traditional left-right divide weaponized by politicians and stoked further by media on both sides. Here he echoes the same framing of the democratic socialists—but he doesn’t need to adopt Mamdani’s politics to speak to the universal grievance of ordinary people against concentrated power.

The lesson here is that the same messaging framework works independently of ideology or policy platforms. So long as a candidate presents themselves as an outsider challenging the existing power structure, the appeal may well launch them to victory in the primaries and beyond. The actual policy solutions can come then—whether through centralized public authority in New York City or a more moderate approach compatible with red-state politics.

20% – Mamdani’s organizing:

Speaking of Mamdani, America’s favorite mayor first burst onto the national scene last summer not only with his socialist platform but the way he promoted it. One of his early viral hits was a video on social media in which he interviewed halal food cart vendors about the cost of permits and how it affected the prices they charged.

Where a traditional campaign might identify and contact voters with a consultant-tested message before asking for their vote, Mamdani demonstrated a superior model while campaigning through a circuit of street corners, mosques, and basketball courts: enter community spaces, listen to people and identify shared problems, then build relationships and give them something to participate in. It was a strategy that not only won over Democrats but turned out voters at a level not seen in New York City in decades.

By treating disengaged and irregular voters as a constituency that can be created through relationships—not just targeting already-registered voters through tested messages and paid canvassing—Mamdani recruited an army of impassioned volunteers who helped him win a mayoral election with the highest turnout in over half a century. In other words, he put a new spotlight on a question every campaign should now ask itself: Does this candidate simply make people want to vote for them, or to vote and convince all their friends to turn out and vote too?

25% – Sand’s material focus:

You can think of Iowa’s Rob Sand as the moderate version of New York’s mayor. Where Mamdani talks about rent and halal-cart prices in New York, Rob Sand talks about cancer rates and fertilizer-contaminated water in Iowa. Different ideology, but the same basic political orientation: something isn’t working for ordinary people, powerful interests benefit from it, and I’m going to fight it.

It’s not that establishment Democrats don’t talk about affordability. But traditionally they may have relied too heavily on anti-Trump messaging—Kamala Harris’ campaign for president, for example, closed the race with increasingly dire warnings about the threat Trump posed to American democracy. Candidates like Rob Sand, on the other hand, ask what problems made Trump’s version of populism attractive to voters in the first place.

The answer, in many cases, is simple: material needs and local outcomes. While Harris was warning about the death of democracy, Trump centered much of his campaign around promises to close the border, impose tariffs, bring back American jobs, and generally make life cheaper and more prosperous for working Americans (which has worked great so far, I’m hearing).

In a similar vein—but one that will hopefully prove far more effective—Rob Sand has spent his time on the campaign trail connecting a critique of broken systems to specific local outcomes: struggling public schools, farm economics, contaminated water, healthcare costs, corruption. “I go everywhere and talk to everybody,” Sand has said, familiarizing himself with the everyday attitudes and concerns of Iowans. This part of the blueprint is perhaps the simplest: speak to the problems that stare voters in the face, and explain concretely how you intend to make their lives better.

15% – El-Sayed’s authenticity

Another young rising star in the Democratic Party just won his Michigan primary for U.S. Senate in large part on the strength of his charisma, energy, and rhetorical skill. Abdul El-Sayed turned his platform into a simple, visceral refrain—“Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All”—delivered with the kind of conviction that could turn a stump speech into a call-and-response rally.

His establishment-backed opponent, Haley Stevens, meanwhile, increasingly dialed up her Midwestern accent on the way to electoral defeat, proving that authenticity is a case of “you know it when you see it”—and voters can sense the fake version in the same way you can tell a workplace email was written by AI. It’s not enough to say “affordability” seventeen times at a campaign rally. Voters can sniff out whether you’re doing it because your consultants told you it tested well with the focus group, or because you genuinely care about affordability and are excited to do something about it.

And a huge number of Americans are disengaged from politics entirely. The candidates breaking through give those people something tangible to care about, reject canned partisan messaging, and convince voters they really mean what they say.

Go back and watch Obama’s 2004 DNC keynote speech, then look me in the eye and tell me Chuck Schumer or Andrew Cuomo have ever made you feel that way. Perhaps that energy and authenticity can’t be taught, but some candidates just have it. Abdul El-Sayed is one of them.

15% – Flanagan’s mobilization

Finally, Peggy Flanagan’s victory in Minnesota offers one more reason to rethink one of the Democratic Party’s favorite words: electability. Her opponent Angie Craig made the traditional case for it, pointing to her record winning a competitive congressional district and arguing that her appeal to moderates made her the safer choice for November. Flanagan made a different bet: expand the electorate instead of chasing its hypothetical median voter.

Flanagan spent years building relationships with labor, faith communities, young voters, and rural Minnesotans, then turned that coalition into a nearly 20-point victory with record Democratic primary turnout. Even more strikingly, she beat Craig across much of rural and small-town Minnesota—the very territory where Craig’s supposedly superior appeal was expected to make her more electable.

That gets at a distinction Democrats too often miss between persuasion and mobilization. Millions of Americans aren’t choosing between Democrats and Republicans at all; they’re choosing between voting and staying home. That’s where Flanagan’s coalition-building meets El-Sayed’s ability to inspire: giving someone who normally tunes politics out a reason to care can be more valuable than persuading someone already planning to vote.

Maybe Democrats have been defining electability backward. Instead of asking who is safest among people already planning to vote, ask who can create a larger electorate. The opposite of “electable” isn’t necessarily “too progressive” or “too moderate.” Sometimes, it’s just uninspiring.

Bonus 5% – wrapping all of the above in patriotic language:

Given the title and theme of this blog, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one last rhetorical approach that any candidate adopting the above qualities should take. I’ve written before about how Democrats have too readily surrendered patriotism to the right. Rather than rejecting such language outright, I’ve argued they should redefine patriotic values through the lens of Democratic policies—and it looks like some Democrats are finally catching on.

El-Sayed has defended capitalism by arguing that concentrated wealth and monopolies undermine it; he has made the case that opposing costly foreign wars and investing at home is more authentically “America First” than Trump’s policies. Rob Sand expresses uncomplicated patriotism, opening town halls with “America the Beautiful” rather than letting anti-flag and anti-Thanksgiving cultural outliers define Democrats. James Talarico reclaims faith and family, contrasting Christian compassion with political cruelty and asking whether “family-values” politicians actually enable people to afford to raise their own.

Clearly people—yes, even liberals—still like to feel pride in their country and culture. Look how much patriotism was on display earlier this summer during the World Cup—and it’s not like all of those watch parties were in rural small-town America. The doom-and-gloom framing of America as democracy’s latest deathbed was never a winning message. It’s time Democrats reclaim patriotism from the right–and those who are doing so are already being rewarded.

To be sure, all the candidates I named more or less embody the qualities of the others. (The percentages are somewhat arbitrary—I just wanted to sound smart.) The successful candidate is the one who can effectively combine all of the above one way or another, and that matters far more than their actual policy platform.

So no, Democrats don’t need to become socialists. They need candidates from across the ideological spectrum who fight the establishment, organize people, speak to their material lives, actually believe what they say, and give people a reason to show up—all while reminding them that loving your country doesn’t belong to one political party. The Obama Formulama is already working. Now comes the harder part: winning on November 3rd. Go vote.

Happy birthday, America! The big Two-Fifty—I hope you’ll be celebrating accordingly, with barbecues, fireworks, Herb Brooks’ Miracle speech on repeat, and, most importantly, by reflecting on where our country stands on its milestone birthday.

Yes, Donald Trump is president, the economy is shit, buying a house seems unreachable if you’re under 30; no doubt we’ve still got a long way to go as a country. But what are birthdays for if not for reflecting on both how far we’ve come and on the work still left to be done?

So let’s look back on some other important milestones throughout our country’s tumultuous yet ultimately positive evolution before looking forward to the path left ahead of us. If we zoom out far enough—as we’re about to do—I hope the progress we’ve made in 250 years, and the common theme shared by our leaders throughout our history, will be enough to convince you that we have every reason to celebrate not just who we are as a country today, but also the country we can still become.

1776

First, back to where it all began. Two-hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow, the Second Continental Congress finalized and signed the Declaration of Independence, breaking off from the Crown by defiantly claiming that “these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” Yet it signaled far more than a political separation. Rather, America’s founding document established a commitment to a radically new idea: a nation founded not on a common religion, language, or racial identity, but on a shared adherence to the Enlightenment principles of liberty, equality, and self-government.

Yes, over a third of the Declaration’s signatories were participants in an institution that, in 1776, enslaved half a million people. Women were still a century and a half away from being allowed to vote, and countless Indigenous Americans would be killed or displaced in the century that followed.

But in the words of historian Edmund S. Morgan, “The creed of equality did not give men equality, but invited them to claim it, invited them, not to know their place and keep it, but to seek and demand a better place.” It is in this sense that America has been an ongoing project from the very beginning: the Declaration, though inherently contradictory, set the foundation for all Americans—gradually but surely in the coming centuries—to invoke its guarantee of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” to claim their rightful place as equal citizens.

1826

Here’s an insane true fact, and if you don’t believe me look it up: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, on July 4th, 1826—fifty years to the day after both signed the Declaration of Independence.

In those fifty years, Jefferson and Adams had witnessed America prevail against the British Empire (twice), permanently cementing its status as an independent nation, while nearly doubling in size and beginning the exploration and settlement of its vast western territories. Yet they had also watched slavery become more deeply entrenched as new slave states entered the Union. Perhaps recognizing that the nation’s greatest contradictions would have to be confronted by future generations, Jefferson used his final public letter to urge his countrymen to renew their devotion to the Declaration’s principles.

From his deathbed just ten days before he died, Jefferson wrote of the Fourth of July, “Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.” A nation founded on an idea, in other words, is only as strong as its continuing commitment to that idea. Indeed, just five years after Jefferson’s and Adams’ deaths, French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville toured the young nation they had left behind. Though he noted the irony of its treatment of Indigenous Americans and its embrace of slavery, he praised the egalitarian spirit, civic-mindedness, and culture of self-government of the nation Jefferson and Adams had helped build. America had not yet fulfilled the Declaration’s promises, but it had already begun building the kind of society capable of doing so.

1876

On its centennial, America was in the process of rebuilding itself from the ashes of the Civil War. This defining moment in our history was not only a battle fought over slavery, but the ultimate test of whether a nation unlike any other—a pluralistic society bound to a national identity based not on a common heritage but on the ideas laid out in the Declaration—could survive and prosper.

The Union had not only survived—it had slain, at an unthinkable cost, the seemingly undefeatable institution of slavery. But in 1876, prosperity remained out of reach for many, especially newly freed Black Americans in the South. Though the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments had abolished slavery, guaranteed equal protection, and extended voting rights to Black men, those gains remained fragile. Reconstruction would end the following year, allowing Southern governments to roll back much of its progress through disenfranchisement, segregation, and racial violence.

Perhaps it was because, like Jefferson, he anticipated the nation’s long road ahead to achieving true equality that President Lincoln had spoken to the “great task remaining before us” in his Gettysburg Address. Though he was commemorating a battle that had brought the Union a major step closer to victory over the Confederacy, he knew, perhaps, that the nation’s struggle to achieve “a new birth of freedom” would continue beyond the war, beyond his lifetime, even beyond the nineteenth century.

1926

One hundred and fifty years in, the United States had just emerged victorious from the First World War as one of the world’s leading industrial and military powers, women had secured the right to vote soon after, and the economic prosperity of the Roaring Twenties seemed to signal a bright future.

America had undeniably become a nation unlike any the world had ever seen. Yet just as the United States had become the world’s first truly global nation of immigrants—more than thirteen million Americans in 1926 had been born abroad—it began closing the door behind itself. Building on the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Immigration Act of 1924 had virtually banned immigration from Asia and sharply restricted it from Southern and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, Jim Crow was entrenched across the South, Black Americans remained widely disenfranchised, and the Ku Klux Klan had reemerged as a national force.

With this as the nation’s backdrop, everyone’s favorite 20th-century president spoke to the Declaration’s significance in a speech commemorating America’s 150th anniversary. That’s right—Calvin Coolidge, echoing Jefferson’s parting words one hundred years earlier, reminded the nation that it was celebrating its birthday not “for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles... but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound.” Consciously or not, Coolidge highlighted the widening gap between America’s founding ideals and its realities. Yet his words also reaffirmed that the nation’s work was unfinished—a project that would see extraordinary progress in the decades to come.

1976

America on its two hundredth birthday was a nation reeling from what would arguably prove to be the most divisive and socially fraught period of the twentieth century. Its national psyche was still recovering from the Vietnam War, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Watergate scandal—events that collectively shook our faith in our institutions, our leadership, and all that America stood for both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, inflation, unemployment, and an energy crisis weighed heavily on the economy (sound familiar?).

Yet the United States Bicentennial became a moment of national optimism. The previous decade, after all, had brought generational gains in the fight for civil rights, with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally giving meaningful federal enforcement to the Reconstruction Amendments. Women were entering professions and public office in unprecedented numbers, we had just put the first man on the Moon, and, let’s face it, the music fucking rocked.

President Gerald Ford addressed the nation from Independence Hall on America’s Bicentennial—and you probably already know where this is going. Invoking the same theme as so many of his predecessors, Ford proclaimed that the concept of American liberty was “a living flame to be fed, not dead ashes to be revered.” He went on, in the same speech, “The American adventure is a continuing process. As one milestone is passed, another is sighted. As we achieve one goal—a longer life span, a literate population, a leadership in world affairs—we raise our sights.” Two hundred years after independence, America was still defining itself—not by abandoning its founding ideals, but by striving to more fully realize them.

2026

And so that brings us to July 4th, 2026—America250, or the semiquincentennial if you’re feeling fancy. If you’re having trouble feeling patriotic lately despite our milestone birthday, I get it. Our president is a self-serving egomaniac intent on bulldozing our democratic institutions for his own gain. The economy has put college, healthcare, and homeownership out of reach for anyone outside the privileged classes. Our country’s historically marginalized groups, especially, remain behind in opportunity, wealth, health, and educational attainment.

But, just in case I haven’t beaten it into the ground yet, the theme of my post today is this: we’re not done yet. Keep that notion in mind as you celebrate and reflect on America250 (since Trump is already making it about himself). Because at every other milestone anniversary—at each opportunity we’ve had to reflect on our nation’s history and where it stands now—our leaders have emphasized the continuity of the American project, the idea that for every stride forward we’ve made, many more remain to be taken.

And so I choose to believe in America. I choose to believe that the arc of our nation, for all its setbacks, ultimately bends toward justice and will continue thus. Just look at the achievements we’ve made since our Bicentennial alone: we elected the first Black president, the first woman vice president, confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, recognized same-sex marriage nationwide. More broadly, American public office today reflects a far more diverse leadership than it did fifty years ago, with historic increases in the number of women and racial and ethnic minorities serving in Congress, state legislatures, governorships, and local government across the country—all in the name of expanding the circle of Americans able to claim the promises of the Declaration as their own. (Not to mention two gold medals in men’s ice hockey!)

So what changes might we see in the next fifty years to come? What progress will our kids and grandkids be able to remark on in 2076, America’s tricentennial? (Maybe I’ll even have a girlfriend by then, instead of just this dumb blog.) It’s impossible to say, of course, but I know what I’d like to see. For all the progress we’ve made in our first 250 years on racial justice, I think the defining issue of our generation and the coming ones will be closing the opportunity gap between the rich and everyone else. Over the next half-century, I hope we’ll see more attainable homeownership, alongside affordable healthcare, a college education within reach, and an economy that once again rewards hard work with genuine upward mobility.

And to be clear, it’s not a matter of just waiting around for these changes to happen. We can and should play a role—even when things may feel hopeless—whether through voting, organizing, protesting, advocating for our community, running for office, or supporting those doing the work. It’s our turn to carry on the torch from the past generations who got us this far, to ensure, in Langston Hughes’ words, that “America will be!” Or in Lincoln’s words, once again: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

That’s how we continue to make this great nation great for everyone, regardless of the circumstances of one’s birth, as was promised on a piece of paper signed 250 years ago. Because if a nation as large and diverse as ours can accomplish that—hence the American Experiment—the whole world can look to us with hope.

So tomorrow, let’s go out and show all these foreigners who are here for the World Cup how Americans can party, express our patriotism and celebrate America’s progress thus far, and enjoy the fireworks.

Because come Monday morning, we’ve got work to do.

For your barbecue needs:

For the vibes:

And this one has nothing to do with this post, but here’s my latest track:

We’re two weeks into the first World Cup hosted in North America in 32 years, and foreigners abound. Croatians to the left of me, Japanese to the right, here I am—having an absolute blast welcoming millions of visitors for the greatest international tournament in sports.

And yet, upon closer inspection, far fewer of these soccer fanatics are joining us from overseas than one might assume. Rather, the World Cup has showcased the extraordinary diversity of America’s longstanding ethnic communities, reminding us that our multicultural character is one of our greatest strengths and one of the qualities that sets us apart from other nations.

Sure, most of us were probably already aware of the Mexican American communities in Southern California, Arizona, and Texas, Cuban Americans in Miami, and San Francisco and New York City’s Chinatowns. But the World Cup has done what sports does best by bringing people out into the streets to display their national pride, which has shown just how many diaspora communities have come to call America home.

Overnight, many of us became familiar with ethnic neighborhoods across the U.S. that we maybe never knew existed: Bosnians in St. Louis, Cape Verdeans in New England, Moroccans in the Boston area, Vietnamese in Texas, Ecuadorians in Queens and northern New Jersey, Brazilians in suburban Boston, Iranians in Los Angeles, and Haitians in South Florida. Our flag may be red, white, and blue, but the World Cup has pulled back the star-spangled banner to reveal a “rainbow nation”, of sorts (yes, I know that’s South Africa’s thing)—one that is arguably the most diverse in the world.

We’ve seen the images of thousands of Polish supporters caravanning across the Midwest, Iraqi flags flying through Dearborn, and South Korean fans transforming Dallas into a sea of red. But now let’s dig into the numbers. Is America really the most diverse country in the world? How do you measure that in the first place?

For example, we are not the world’s most diverse country simply by the number of ethnic groups it contains. India, China, and Nigeria, after all, are home to hundreds of distinct ethnic communities. Nor is America uniquely diverse in racial—or what might be called continental—terms, meaning the share of its population with origins in Europe, Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, or among Indigenous peoples. By that measure, countries like Canada and several Western European nations are similarly diverse.

The real distinction is this: no other country has drawn such a large population from virtually every region of the world and united it under a single national identity. India and China have far larger populations, but are far less racially diverse (if not less ethnically diverse). Canada, Australia, France, and the U.K. may have populations that represent nearly every corner of the world, but none has a total population size close to America’s.

No other country combines America’s level of diversity with its population scale, common political institutions, vast integrated economy, and national identity. In this sense, we are an outlier not only in the modern world but in human history, with more than 330 million people drawn from every continent, with no ethnic majority, high rates of intermarriage, and a civic culture rooted in shared institutions.

It is for this reason, above all, that the success of the American experiment is critical not only to us but to the prosperity of human civilization. Does that sound dramatic? Maybe. (Yes.) But hear me out.

Recall how radical the notion was that “all men are created equal” when it was enshrined in our founding document 250 years ago. The principle was especially revolutionary in a nation that, even then, was unusually diverse by the standards of the eighteenth century. In Lincoln’s words, we have been “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure” ever since. To be sure, we still have a long way to go, but the progress that our country—unique in human history for the diversity and scale of its population—has made toward achieving equality among all groups of people is undeniable.

This matters: if a nation of such size and diversity can sustain a peaceful, prosperous democracy under a shared civic identity, it will prove that people of vastly different backgrounds can build and sustain a free society together—and mark a monumental step forward for the human race as a whole.

As we enjoy the rest of the World Cup, let’s continue to appreciate the remarkable diversity of the American communities that have proudly celebrated their heritage throughout the tournament. If so many different groups of Americans can come together to celebrate the world’s favorite sport, surely we can continue to work together on improving this shared democratic project of ours, too. What better way to celebrate America250 than that?

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 shit-post 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 know the stakes. 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.

Tomorrow, we get another shot at it.

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

But this team isn’t a bunch of college kids shocking the world against a geopolitical enemy. They’re NHL stars who have looked like contenders from the start. This isn’t about calling on a miracle to beat Canada—it’s about doing it because, this time, we have all the tools in place to do so.

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.

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, at least 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. But tomorrow morning, we get one of the few remaining civic rituals that still feels authentic and universal.

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/