The Days Are Just Packed

Taxes. Supreme Court Vacancy. No justice for Breanna Taylor. Coronavirus fatalities top 200,000 while Friday showed the largest spike we’ve seen in months. May you live in interesting times, indeed.

Many of you shared with me Barton Gellman’s Atlantic essay about the ways Trump might refuse to concede the election and lead us into a constitutional crisis. We have ample evidence from Trump and the entire elected corpus of the Republican Party that they might try something like this. Reading his essay is enough to give you a severe panic attack.

The country is asking something of us: believe in the promise of America, and come to it in this moment with personal courage, sound nerves, and stark beauty.** To quote my friend Eli Pariser, “confidence is essential to winning”. Here’s what he wrote on Facebook:

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last two months listening to experts on disputed elections and folks involved in democratic movements against autocrats all around the world. One thing that comes through very clearly in case after case: as a movement posture, confidence is essential to winning.

This isn’t just for tactical reasons — as a hedge against hopelessness and despair. It’s actually critical to the strategy, because fights against autocrats are fights for “defectors.”

Ultimately what determines whether autocrats maintain a hold on power is the behavior of a bunch of feckless bureaucrats, who are constantly assessing which way the wind is blowing. The more it…