We’ve been here before, but this time it hits different.

In 2016, people were dazzled by Donald Trump, and he ran up against a great but unpopular candidate.

In 2020, Trump barely lost, but hey, incumbency has its advantages.

And here we are, with people knowing full well who and what Trump is, and they still voted for him in big numbers.

Vice President Kamala Harris was not a flawed candidate. She was near spotless. And she was objectively more popular than Trump. (Exit polling shows Trump’s favorability at 44/54, with Harris at 48/51.)

And we did what we needed to do.

And it was still not enough. All the money in the world, all the door-knocking in the world—none of that could overcome the reality that more people were convinced that Trump was the better choice.This loss is far beyond any internal petty party debates such as “Harris should’ve picked Josh Shapiro” or “She should’ve done more on Gaza,” or whatever other squabble we may have had. This loss was outside the margin of any Harris campaign decision.

So once again, we grieve for our country, because it is more broken than we ever feared. And then we figure out what to do.

How do we get back Latino men, who swung hard against Trump?

How do we get through to white women, who stuck with Trump for a third election in a row?

How do we arrest creeping fascism among young men?

We have internal matters we need to take care of, too many allies demanding allegiance to issues with little popular support.

We need to finally learn as a movement that The New York Times and other mainstream outlets are not “liberal,” and that we need to replicate the right’s far-ranging media ecosystem.

We need to rebuild. But even in this dejected, demoralized place I currently inhabit, I can see that better future. We have been tested, and we’ve found ways to succeed because we believe in each other and our fellow Americans, even the ones who chose wrong in this election. That’s what drives us.

There’s no doubt Trump is about to make things bad. He’s promised it, as has Elon Musk. If Republicans don’t talk Trump out of his tariffs, prices are going to skyrocket, and Democrats will have a chance to do what usually happens during midterms, and claw back Republican gains.

But we need to aspire for more than that. We need to look at how we build a movement that can actually weather the worst Republicans can throw at us.

And honestly? That starts with us listening to those we disagree with, with open hearts and curiosity. And then we need to hear what they don’t tell us, what’s really driving them. And yes, some of them are hopeless racists and misogynists, and nothing we do would change that. We’re not talking about their 30 percent fringe. But the other 20 percent? They aren’t lost.

Let’s find them and bring them home.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos