To Our Members, Neighbors, and Friends,
As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, we were unable to take a definitive stance on the presidential election before it happened. With the election results out, the current situation is disheartening and the future of our country is uncertain. This is a historically significant moment, and we should reflect on how we got here and what we can do about it.
Many across the country are wondering where it all went wrong. In the wake of major defeats like these, there is often a gut reaction to cast blame on some individual factor. Perhaps the defeat came from some strategic decision that may have lost a few thousand votes in some swing states, the failure to employ some clever political messaging in the final hour, or from certain populations who refused to exercise their “sacred duty” to vote for Kamala Harris.
These explanations miss the forest for the trees.
The conditions that enabled Trump to win initially in 2016, and again this Tuesday, have been gradually laid for the past few decades.
Since the 1980s, wealth and income inequality has risen unchecked. Rents have skyrocketed and, with it, homelessness. Working class people are struggling to afford insulin and other basic medications. The cost of basic necessities has driven many into poverty. Private corporations facilitate the proliferation of misinformation to line their own pockets. Sectors across most critical industries have increasingly become consolidated and are exercising immense economic and political power. Our industrial capacity has been outsourced, and organized labor has been gutted. Private equity firms continue to snatch up productive enterprises, stripping everything of value in the name of maximizing quarterly profits. Wages for the working class have stagnated with a dominant share of created wealth funneled to a class of asset owners. We have an oligarchy that owns and controls our media and, by extension, our political system. Both of our parties are swimming in money from wealthy donors.
There is a fascinating and depressing study that found that, while the affluent wield significant political influence over their representatives, the policy preferences of Americans with low to average incomes have little to no relationship with how their representatives actually vote.
It should come as no surprise that members of our electorate have felt increasingly alienated and embittered with the government.
The zeitgeist of our age is outrage. Historically, outrage is often the catalyst that spurs societies to adapt and change for better or for worse.
Engraved in my memory is the moment when Joe Biden said that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he was elected president. True to his word, nothing did. This year, Kamala Harris was asked whether she would have done anything differently from Joe Biden over his four years in office, and she answered, “there is not a thing that comes to mind.”
There was genuine excitement in the Democratic Party in the last decade. Universal healthcare, free access to higher education, and campaign finance reform all attracted immense attention and enthusiasm, especially from those who did not align strongly with either party. Taken together, these policies represented something more than a hodgepodge of talking points: it was a broader commitment to fix an economy and a government that is dysfunctional and broken. However, despite the broad popularity of these promising reforms among the American people, the Democratic Party leadership consciously undermined this agenda in both 2016 and 2020, and instead chose moderation as its strategic ethos to win elections. Biden went as far as to say that he would veto Medicare for All if it managed to pass both the House and the Senate.
Moderation does not inspire confidence or constancy when people believe the country is falling apart. Unfortunately, as the American people continue to lose enthusiasm and confidence in the Democratic Party, the call to “vote harder” has rung increasingly hollow. The national Democratic Party platform has consistently failed to present a vision for the future that would meaningfully address this frustration, and that has now simmered and boiled over. When circumstances appear bleak and uncertain, people gravitate toward bold and decisive leadership.
The Republican Party has taken the last 8 years to opportunistically position itself as the champions of the enraged. They have appropriated and weaponized this current of fear and uncertainty into a far-right populist movement. This is a familiar story in the history of many democracies around the world– the big bellies in the capital routinely fail to meet the demands of their constituents, creating a demagogue-shaped hole to be filled by some mediocrity. We are not the first country to have such a man who promises a glorious return to some idealized past that never existed, nor are we the first to elect someone who opportunistically scapegoats some marginalized group of people as the cause of our national crisis.
If the Democratic Party’s legitimacy once rested on winning elections to keep bad actors out of the government, that legitimacy has been gravely damaged. The fact that the Democratic Party, the “Big Tent” moderate party, lost both the popular and the electoral vote to a convicted felon with a documented history of sexual abuse should be a moment of reckoning– a signal that the Democratic Party’s national leadership is staggeringly incompetent and out of touch. What was the point of all of that compromise when it just lost every swing state it had won back in 2008? The decisive factor was that Democrats lost almost ten million votes across the country from 2020 to 2024.
I’ve heard people blame white women, people of color, and boomers and zoomers alike for Tuesday’s outcome. I’ve heard people blame third party supporters and non-voters, the apathetic who couldn’t take an hour or two to cast their ballots. I’ve heard people blame the squeamishness of certain prospective voters who couldn’t bear watching innocent civilians get torn apart thousands of miles away by American weapons. There are many who sincerely believe that the Democratic Party is the only legitimate custodian of American democracy, and is therefore entitled to their votes. Many believe that, if only a handful of people in key battleground states decided to tow the party line, our democracy would be saved thusly, providing a fertile ground for genuine change to finally come. With Tuesday’s results, many feel a sense of betrayal– populations who had consistently supported the Democratic Party “abandoned” it in its time of need.
This worldview is condescending, entitled, and ultimately counterproductive. It is precisely this elitist, highly exclusive mentality that has alienated so many people. When we turn to this type of blame, we lose sight of the much larger historical picture and lose our opportunity to create real change.
I do not say any of this to rub salt into a fresh wound. Any of you who has met and talked with me personally for more than two minutes might just be able to guess how I voted. The reason I say all of this is because a lot of people genuinely believe that voting in elections is the only way a person can meaningfully participate in a democracy.
But the ballot box is only one arena of many. Not all is lost.
In actuality, most sweeping positive changes in the United States have been driven by collective action outside of elections: I am talking about the union workers who went on strike, civil rights activists who marched and were often murdered for their beliefs, suffragists who agitated in the streets, and LGBTQ+ folks who rioted and campaigned to liberate themselves and their loved ones. Elections are important, but when we lose, we must organize and engage. What kind of democracy is it for your deeply held beliefs to count only once a year, or once every four? We must do more than that to uphold a real democracy, to ensure the interests of the people are represented in the halls of power. All the real work is done before we are ever handed our ballots. It’s that work that determines what choices we have when election day arrives. We cannot afford to wait another four years.
As individuals, it is natural to feel dwarfed by the crises that threaten to engulf our nation. Despair is natural, but don’t give into it— that is exactly what the Republican Party wants you to do. Use it. The answer has always been collective action. The answer is to organize. Don’t just sit there and fantasize about moving to another country… get out there and do something. If all the good people leave, or decide to simply sit idly by and watch, there will be nothing good left. The highest expression of democracy is to be directly involved in your community and engage in acts of mutual support and solidarity.
It will sometimes be frustrating, messy, and exhausting, but it is also powerful, rewarding, and beautiful. Collective action is also the only tool we have right now. Turn off your television, get off your smartphone, get out there, and fight for every inch of ground.
Here are five things you could do today:
(1) Commit to being active with the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition to ensure we can continue to make our community better and more equitable despite the national change in leadership. For the last four years, we have effectively advocated for anti-racist curriculum reform and local policies that promote a racially and socioeconomically diverse community. We also administer a Rental Assistance Program that helps keep households on the verge of eviction in their homes. We have delivered over $50,000 to almost 100 households since we started the program last June. If you are able, we highly encourage donations, where you can donate here. Because we have almost no overhead and our program is 100% volunteer-run, it is one of the most cost-effective donations possible.
Reply to this e-mail to commit to helping us make change locally at least three times in the next year. If you are interested in being more involved by volunteering for our Rental Assistance Program, community organizing, education reform, and other initiatives, please fill out this form. We can certainly use your help.
(2) Take your work national. There are many groups working simultaneously on anti-racism, democracy, and blocking Trump across the country. The NAACP has a long and storied history of fighting for racial equality and justice (and yes: anyone can join).
(3) Another well-established organization is Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), which focuses on helping organize white voters to move away from the far-right.
(3) Indivisible is keeping up the fight. For those who live in Los Gatos, there is an active local chapter whose leaders I personally have great respect for.
(4) The Silicon Valley DSA is a diverse and active left-leaning political force. They still champion the policies that energized much of the Democratic Party in 2016 and 2020. A lot of their work is effective and admirable, especially their Mutual Aid Working Group.
I would like to emphasize that the most important decision is not the organization you decide to participate in. The most important decision to be politically active and committed outside of election season. In doing so, you will meet similarly motivated people and learn how a well-organized handful of individuals can punch far above their weight class. In the coming four years, there will be a need for leaders who are well-connected and organized to engage with what is to come.
Nothing is lost as long as determination remains. In the words of 1960s Civil Rights activists who had endured cruelty and defeat in every shade and color: We Shall Overcome.
In Solidarity,
Jeff Suzuki
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President of the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition
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