What a Progressive Champion From Rural Maine Can Teach Democrats About Winning

What a Progressive Champion From Rural Maine Can Teach Democrats About Winning

What a Progressive Champion From Rural Maine Can Teach Democrats About Winning

Chloe Maxmin can show Democrats new paths to victory.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

The 2022 midterms are still 10 months away—but if much of the media is to be believed, the fight is already over before it’s even begun.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “alarm bells are ringing in the Democratic Party.” Politico says Democrats are confronting “the prospect of a 2022 hurricane.” CNN depicts “dejected” Democrats facing a “grim 2022 outlook.” One prognosticator at Vox has pegged Democratic chances of losing the House and Senate at 95 percent.

It’s true that history doesn’t bode well for the sitting president’s party during a midterm election. But if Democrats accept failure as inevitable instead of changing course, resignation will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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