Being mad at Trump and wanting to ban and indict him isn't a strategy.
We need to build a movement like we never have before: attractive, fun, substantive, visionary, tomorrow-oriented, rooted in people's lives, open-armed, fiery, merciful.
A movement that understands the emotion and psychology and anxiety that are at the heart of politics. The right gets this; the left largely doesn't. We need a new movement that does.
A movement that isn't tedious and hairsplitting and gatekeeping and purist and more interested in petty internal beefing than outward expansion. We need a small-e evangelical movement more interested in finding converts than heretics.
A movement that gives people, as Alicia Garza has put it, a "home." That is physically present in people's lives -- a movement of block parties and college clubs and mutual aid and fireworks and donuts and daily help.
A movement that is self-confident enough to invite the imperfect inside and help walk with them toward progress, instead of requiring that people know it all already to come in.
A movement that has a sense of humor. That can tell the difference between people awkwardly trying to catch up with progress and people who are vicious threats to that progress.
A movement that knows how to provoke and command attention, get people talking, play to emotion, tell stories, constructively address anxiety and fear -- a movement that doesn't look down on communicating on more guttural levels, that isn't wonk-drunk.
A movement that finally gets over any aversion to patriotism. A movement that reclaims patriotism from those who befoul it. A movement that understands that regular people love their country, and that if you don't sound like you do, too, you're doomed.
A movement that listens. And has the fortitude to listen to people who think despicable things, and keep listening not out of masochism but because of an abiding, strategic impulse to win.
A movement that isn't just rebutting the awfulness and promising to be Not Them. A movement that vividly paints the beautiful tomorrow it seeks. That makes you see it. Almost taste it. That is for something utterly thrilling.
A movement that tells the better story about America, which, if we're honest, we're not doing. That sheds defensiveness and tells a muscular, galvanizing story of our attempt to build the first truly multi-racial democracy -- a country made of the world.
A movement that puts in the work of long-term base-building, "we"-building, including in rural America. That doesn't write any region or community off. That has enough swag to play everywhere.
I'm tired of all these futile and diversionary conversations about indictments and bans and the latest outrage. The work is building a movement that can smash American fascism to smithereens.
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For more where this morning’s thoughts came from, check my new book, “The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy.”
This post was originally published on The.Ink.
