The midterm mandate

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I’m sitting on the same couch where two years ago, I couldn’t move. I’d fallen asleep in the living room before the election was called, and drowsily came to that morning to learn the crushing reality that Donald Trump had indeed been elected president for the second time, and that Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. Any fragments of Biden-era hope had been smashed beneath a fascist boot. 

It was different from 2016, which felt like an electoral sucker punch; by 2024 we knew too much. But for enough of our fellow citizens, too much wasn’t enough. After a campaign run on villainizing immigrants and weaponizing the government against perceived enemies, it wasn’t hard to predict what was coming. 

When you’re at the bottom of a deep, dark well with no ladder, it’s impossible to imagine a way out. Yet at the same time, the only way is up. On Tuesday, this past Election Day, those of us who still had some belief [however distant] in a flourishing, multi-racial democracy made a collective decision to find our way out—even if we didn’t know what it would look like when we emerged. And here we are, back in the light. What now?

Over the past several months when the shambolic state of the country would come up and people would say to me some variation of “we just have to make it to the midterms,” my body would noticeably tense. Because of everything I’ve watched so closely these past two years, it was hard to access any sense of optimism. I’d go so far as to say that in particularly low moments, I found optimism grating and perhaps even a bit ignorant. Friends, family and neighbors were being kidnapped off our streets in broad daylight; A tech billionaire destroyed the federal government as we knew it; Our highest ranking public health official was making it easier to get the measles. All of life’s necessities seemed to be of worse quality and more expensive.

But if history has shown us anything, it’s that nothing is permanent; not the good, nor the bad.

Now with a slate of electoral wins beyond anything the most optimistic prognosticator could have predicted, an entire world of possibility has been unlocked. The most prominent question in my mind is how do we bottle this joyous moment in time while confronting the enormity of all that must be done with this power?

To that end, it was distressing to hear current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ comments in the hours after the results came in.

“This is not a partisan moment. This is a patriotic one,” Jeffries said at his election night watch party in DC. “This is not a blue moment or a red moment. It’s a red, white and blue moment, because America has won tonight.” Wednesday morning appearing on MSNOW, Jeffries said "The American people don't want us to get even; they want us to get things done on their behalf."

And while perhaps 15 years ago this would have been considered strategic politics, here in 2026 it does not reflect reality. The results of these elections don’t demonstrate a mere interest in accountability for what Trump and his administration have done to us the past two years; they represent a demand to begin the arduous task of reweaving the fabric of this country from scratch. 

After two years of brow-beating by a merciless administration that revels in human suffering, the people are ready for a politics not of retribution, but of justice. In 2020, Joe Biden understood his mandate to be healing the nation by attempting to unite repellant factions. With these midterm results, the mandate is to heal those who’ve been harmed, and to impede those who caused harm. Some might call it revenge, but if we look at the law, it’s basic accounting. The coyotes will always revisit the hen house if we leave the door open. 

The time is now to seize power. With a Republican party that allowed itself to be so thoroughly bankrupted by MAGA, it’s hard to see what’s left to rebuild. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together was pushed out in Trump 1.0, leaving the MAGA backwash to run the show. And while in the short-term, hitching to Trump's wagon seemed politically expedient, he ended up driving them off a cliff. With no consolidated opposition currently nipping at our heels, it could be tempting to pump the brakes. But that would be a grievous mistake: It’s time for full-throttle democracy. 

As Congressman Robert Garcia—the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform who will lead the committee when the new Congress is sworn in— said in a statement Tuesday night directed at Trump, DHS and ICE: “Lawyer up.” 

There were many races this election season where you could reasonably say the Democrat was running against an unusually bad Republican candidate; but I don’t think that’s quite right. The current Republican party went as deep into their bench as they could possibly go, and fielded their best available players. But as it turns out, the people who could win in GOP primaries in a non-presidential year where turnout is typically quite low are not the same people who can win general elections; being brain-poisoned enough to emerge victorious in a far-right primary is not the same as competing for votes from people whose kids haven’t gone no-contact with them. Elon Musk’s X is not real life, and Donald Trump is not a broad reflection of America. Real America has spoken. 

Soon we will have the first Black woman governor, with Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia; the first Muslim US Senator, with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan; the first Latina governor, with Gina Hinojosa in Texas; the first female Native American governor with Deb Haaland in New Mexico; the first female Native American Senator, with Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota; the first openly gay man elected to the Senate, with Chris Pappas in New Hampshire. Seeing their wins is like watching flowers bloom out of scorched earth. 

Seeing all these communities brimming with happiness because they finally, at long last, see themselves reflected at the highest echelons of power, is an extraordinary gift. The glow of their joy warms my soul. And the victory isn’t theirs alone: Remarkably smart and talented people are assuming offices up and down the ballot, across the entire country, and we will all be richer for it. This incoming class of lawmakers and executives decided to run for office at a time when hope reserves were low and there was little reason to believe. These are the people we need in office right now. And these are the people we ought to empower to fight tooth and nail to reclaim all that’s been stolen from us.

A common refrain in times of victory is “now is not the time for” XYZ, but in this moment of victory, it couldn’t be more inappropriate. Now is the time for everything. We get to play both defense and offense, mending things that have been broken, and building things that are brand new. The only thing constraining us is the boundary of our political imagination.