Democrats in my comments keep falling into the trap of electability panic about the 2028 presidential election. Were three years out and people are already catastrophizing about who can’t win. Its frankly exhausting.
Lets be real. Dem voters didn’t really want Hillary in 2016 – that’s why the party had to put its thumb on the scale against Bernie. Dem voters didn’t want Biden in 2020 – he was just the anti-Trump vote. Dems didn’t want Kamala in 2024 – she lucked into being the nominee with no primary. Three cycles in a row of settling for whoever seems electable instead of fighting for what you actually want.
And now you’re doing it again. Before a single candidate has announced. Before a single debate. Before a single primary vote. Youre already talking yourselves out of the people whose policies might actually get people excited. Can we stop? Please?Stop gaslighting yourself about who can’t win and start asking what you want. Because the electability calculus you’re doing in your head right now is based on vibes and trauma, not data. Youre pre-rejecting candidates based on fear of what other people might do. Its a doom loop of strategic surrender.
You know what’s wild? This is actually a manifestation problem. And before you dismiss that as delulu bullshit, let me be clear about what manifestation actually is.
Manifestation is not some kind of cosmic vending machine where you think really hard about the thing you want and poof – it materializes. Thats the TikTok version. Thats not how any of this works.
The version of manifestation that actually produces results looks like this: you think through every step required to get the thing you want, and then you do those steps. Thats it. Thats the whole mechanism.
So let’s apply that to 2028 – figure out what policies you actually want. Research which candidates support those policies. If no candidate addresses your priorities, you tell them and lobby them to take up your issues. You show up to primaries. You volunteer for campaigns. You talk to your neighbors. You donate what you can. You vote in every single election. You recruit people to run for office. You show up to town halls and organize.
The thought process matters. When you sit down and map out what it would actually take to get the leaders you want in power, you’re doing strategic planning. Youre identifying obstacles. Youre breaking a massive systemic problem into manageable pieces. Thats valuable.
You know what fucks up the whole thing? Deciding you can’t have something before you even try to get it.
Thats what’s happening right now – you’re manifesting defeat by convincing yourselves the thing you want is impossible. Then you settle for someone you’re lukewarm about. Then you’re surprised when that person generates lukewarm turnout. The pattern is right there. You keep watching it happen. And you’re about to do it again.
Thinking about what you want is step one. Thinking about how to get it is step two. Actually doing the things that change who holds power is step three. The label doesn’t matter. The steps do.
Every terrible politician currently in office got there because people showed up and did the work to put them there. Every candidate who wins does so because people fought for them, not because pundits declared them electable. If you want someone in the Oval Office in 2029 that you’re actually excited about, you have to do the work to get them there.
Its 2025. The Iowa caucuses are three years away. You have time to build the thing you want instead of pre-negotiating with ghosts about what you think you can’t have.
Stop sabotaging yourselves. Figure out what you actually want. Then do the work to get it.