"If We Lose 2026, It’s Over"

Millions will march against Trump next week; but if Democrats think protests alone will flip Congress in 2026, they’re living in a delusion we can’t afford.

We’re nine days out from the No Kings protest; what’s shaping up to be one of the most widespread, coordinated acts of civil disobedience in modern American history. From Anchorage to Atlanta, from Boise to Brooklyn, millions of Americans are preparing to take to the streets and say what we’ve all been screaming into our pillows for the last two years: enough with the madness. Enough with the grift. Enough with the chaos. Enough with the orange autocrat and his bootlicking band of billionaire sycophants and enablers.

It’s powerful. It’s beautiful. It’s necessary.

But let’s not kid ourselves; it’s not enough.

I’m a numbers guy. So, let’s say, by some miracle, 10 million people show up to march. That’s incredible. That’s more people than live in 40 individual U.S. states. But here’s the thing: I guarantee you those 10 million? They’re not Trump voters. They never were. They’re not the problem. They’re the already-angry, the fed-up, the sane. They’re the 75 million who pulled the lever for Kamala Harris in 2024 and are now eating antacids for breakfast as they watch Trump’s second-term vendetta machine tear through our democracy.

So yeah, protest. Scream. Chant. Raise hell. But don’t confuse a righteous rally with a winning strategy.

We lost in 2024. That’s the cold, brutal truth. Trump got 77 million votes. Let me say that again: seventy-seven. Million. Americans. Voted for him again; after the first round of chaos, corruption, and criminality. And while I wish that number represented a clerical error or a collective hallucination, it doesn’t. It’s real. It’s America.

Now subtract the hardcore MAGA crowd; the 38% of the country who’d vote for Trump if he shot their dog and torched their house, and we’re still left with a chunk of voters who might, just might, be reachable. But are we reaching them? Or are we too busy preaching to the progressive choir while the house is burning down?

Democrats keep telling themselves the same bedtime story: “Don’t worry, the midterms will save us.” Are you kidding me?

We barely showed up in 2024! Turnout was 63.9%; down from 66.6% in 2020. That means over 90 million eligible Americans sat on their hands and didn’t vote. And a lot of them, let’s be honest, weren’t MAGA. They weren’t anything. They were apathetic. Disillusioned. Burned out. And maybe, just maybe, they were waiting for someone to show up and talk to them like they matter.

Instead, Democrats are busy drawing battle lines within their own damn party. Moderates want to play footsie with the same Republicans who helped hand the keys to Trump. Progressives want to swing for the fences on every issue at once. And while the left is busy arguing over who brought what to the potluck, Trump’s goons are torching the kitchen.

Let me be crystal clear: the 2026 midterms are everything. If we don’t flip the House; currently sitting at 220 Republican seats, and claw back the Senate, where the GOP is holding 53 seats, we’re in for two more years of executive orders so vile they’d make Nixon blush. We’re talking about forced deportations, attacks on reproductive rights, and a Department of Education run by people who think evolution is a hoax and libraries are a threat.

And let’s not forget the Supreme Court. Trump already stacked it. He’s gunning for the lower courts next. This isn’t just about stopping bad laws. It’s about stopping the erasure of decades of progress.

So yes, we protest. But then we organize. We register. We fund. We mobilize like our democracy depends on it; because it does.

Forget about flipping the die-hard MAGA base. They're lost in a cult of personality and delusion. What we need is to wake up the 10–15 million Americans in the middle; the ones who can still be moved by facts, empathy, and a vision for a better country. Because if we don’t? If we think protests are enough? We’re just lighting scented candles in a house fire.

This is a numbers game. A turnout game. A reach-the-unreachable game.

The GOP isn’t taking 2026 lightly. Trump is already holding his own rallies, military parades, raising cash, and threatening to primary any Republican who blinks wrong. Meanwhile, we’re celebrating viral protest signs on Instagram like that’s going to save Social Security.

It won’t.

We don’t win this war with TACO Trump memes. We win with math. With turnout. With strategy. With discipline. We win by dragging the disaffected back into the process and giving them a reason to care again.

So to all my fellow protesters: I’ll be there with you, side by side, marching for decency, democracy, and sanity. But when the chants fade and the signs come down, the real work begins.

We can’t afford another loss. Not this time. Not with what’s at stake.

Now stop scrolling and let’s get to work.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT PERSONAL NOTE:

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