Before I get to this week’s good news (and there was a lot!) I want to talk about why I am not sweating SCOTUS’s awful decision to let Texas Gerrymandering stand.
First, this SCOTUS is terrible and I only expect terrible from it. I keep my mental health by thinking “yah that sounds right” for most of their awful decisions and being genuinely surprised and pleased when they occasionally do the right thing. Some decisions (like overturning Roe) stayed with me longer but this one did not because…
They still won’t keep the House. The second thing keeping me from being upset is that, in this environment (see below) the extra seats would not be enough to keep the house.
Third, this awful decision also allows democratic states to fight back with their own awful maps. We are no longer the party of going high when they go low. Good.
Finally, with Dems overperforming and the loss of so many Hispanic votes, this Gerrymandering may backfire on them. If you turn two +20 R districts into four +10 R districts, you only gain two seats if +10 wins the seat. Based on how we are doing (see below) you may have just LOST two seats, not gained two.
We should all hate gerrymandering and want to end it and I’m glad to see Dems have a long term plan to do that. But, this particular news shouldn’t keep you up at night. At least not by my accounting.
Now onto the good news!
Reasons to be hopeful about 2026
Tennessee
Van Epps beat out Democrat Aftyn Behn by about 9 points in a district Donald Trump and Republican senator Marsha Blackburn each won in 2024 by 22 points. Yesterday’s vote shows a 13-point shift toward the Democrats in about a year.
Aaron Pellish and Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported the comment of a House Republican after officials called the election: “Tonight is a sign that 2026 is going to be a b*tch of an election cycle. Republicans can survive if we play team and the Trump administration officials play smart. Neither is certain.”
As G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers noted, “[t]he fact that a rural Tennessee district ended up just a high-single-digits win for Republicans should be a five-alarm fire for the party ahead of the 2026 midterms.” Morris explains that congressional special elections have swung 17 points on average toward the Democrats, while special elections for seats in state legislatures have swung toward the Democrats by about 11 points. Morris combines these results with turnout differences in special, midterm, and presidential elections, to estimate that—as of right now—the 2026 midterms can be expected to see a swing of 7 to 8 points toward the Democrats. These numbers would give Democrats control of the House of Representatives and put the Senate into play as well.
It is safe to assume, Morris says, “that something big has shifted in the national environment.” He adds that the Republican Party “will likely find itself defending an unusually wide array of seats next year, even in districts previously thought to be immune to national swings.”
Tennessee is best sign yet for Democrats' 2026 hopes
Republicans had to spend $3.5 million to defend this seat. Given that there are roughly 102 GOP-held House seats that voted for Trump by smaller margins than Tennessee's 7th, according to data from The Downballot, that would mean Republicans would need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in areas that were not expected to be competitive.
Even worse for the GOP is that if every House race in the 2026 midterms swung toward Democrats as much as it did in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, Democrats would knock off a whopping 44 Republican seats, according to Downballot data
What We Just Learned About the Battle for the House
Matt Van Epps, the Republican nominee, was a very strong candidate. The GOP had a spending advantage. And while Aftyn Behn, the Democrat, ran a vigorous race, she was a poor ideological fit for this very red district.
Earlier this year, Republicans (and some in the media) dismissed strong Democratic showings in special elections by pointing out the low turnout. The argument — which has some merit — is that Democrats tend to do better when fewer people vote. That helps explain why Democrats overperformed in specials in 2023 and 2024 but still lost the presidential race.
But Tuesday’s election in Tennessee was not a low-turnout special. The turnout was shockingly high — roughly on par with the 2022 midterms.
That midterm-level turnout makes this result far more instructive than your typical special election. The race drew big money and national attention. It was highly nationalized — just like the midterms will be. Tennessee-7 was about as close to a simulation of next year’s midterms as we’re going to get.
And check this out. They are a party of losers and we have so many great candidates and more and more:
and it isn’t just Tennessee:
The cracks keep getting BIGGER
Here is a shocker. They don’t like one another! And as things get worse for them (see election news above) they will turn on one another. And that will only make us stronger and Trump weaker.
The reason those headlines about “Dems in Disarray!” are so annoying (aside from that they are usually BS) is because (a) disarray makes things impossible to get done and (b) disarray usually means that things are going wrong.
That is why the Rs in disarray is such good news!
So enjoy the disarray:
Cracks have emerged in the Maga coalition
The sharks can smell blood in the water. After a decade in eerie command of the Republican party, with primary voters in his cult-like thrall and down-ballot elected officials feeling they have no choice – and often no inclination – to diverge from him, Donald Trump suddenly seems not quite in control of his own political machine.
Fractures have emerged in the Maga coalition; Trump’s approval is sinking; the Democrats, long anemic and risk-averse in the opposition, showed signs of life in elections last month; and the cumulative effect of a series of long-running scandals, most particularly the Epstein affair, seem to have alienated core components of the Trump faithful. Trump has faced some rebukes from a once largely compliant federal judiciary: his personal attorney, Alina Habba, was recently declared ineligible to serve in the US attorney role Trump had appointed her to, and his signature tariffs seem likely to be struck down by a conservative supreme court majority.
For one thing, more and more Republicans seem willing to break with Trump – something that would have been unthinkable for them, and a kind of career suicide, just a few months ago. While Trump was able to compel Republicans in the Texas state legislature to draw new congressional district maps with just a command (an effort that is now facing an uphill battle in the courts), Republicans in Indiana are resisting Trump’s push to have them do the same, with one GOP legislator saying that she “will not cave” on redistricting even as she announced a pipe bomb threat had been called into her house.
Republican Anger Erupts at Johnson as Party Frets About Future
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York called Speaker Mike Johnson a habitual liar.
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina has told people she is so frustrated with the Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he has run the House — particularly how women are treated there — that she is planning to huddle with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has gone around Mr. Johnson in a bid to force a vote he has declined to schedule on a bill to ban members of Congress from stock trading.
Less than a year out from midterm elections in which Republicans’ vanishingly small majority is at stake, Mr. Johnson’s grasp on his gavel appears weaker than ever, as members from all corners of his conference openly complain about his leadership. Some predict that he may not last as the speaker for the rest of this term.
Why Elise Stefanik went to war with Mike Johnson
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is now engaged in an open war with Speaker Mike Johnson, a very public rift at the highest level of the House Republican Conference.
This fight is ostensibly about a dispute in the NDAA, the annual Pentagon policy bill.
Stefanik is so frustrated that she’s prepared to tank the must-pass defense bill — approved by lawmakers every year for more than six decades — if the speaker doesn’t include a provision requiring the FBI to alert Congress if it opens a counterintelligence investigation into an elected official or candidate. Democrats are opposed to this provision.
“I’ll take down the rule,” Stefanik told us in an interview. Stefanik has made this message clear to House GOP leaders as well.
Pam Bondi is pissing off Republicans by dodging Epstein files release
A bipartisan group of congressional leaders has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi for a briefing on when, exactly, she’s going to get around to releasing the Epstein files.
They picked a good day to send a letter to Bondi, as the House Oversight Committee Democrats just released a trove of pictures and videos from Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, including an incredibly creepy photo of a room with what appears to be a dentist’s chair and multiple deeply weird wall hangings.
They also reportedly plan to release records from J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank soon.
The administration is no doubt incandescent with rage that two Republicans—Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky— signed onto this letter. But it’s not surprising, given that they were two lead sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
47 members of Congress deciding they’ve had enough
What’s remarkable about this mass exit is that it actually benefits Democrats more than it harms them. On their side, the retirements—Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler, Jan Schakowsky, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Danny Davis, Lloyd Doggett, Dwight Evans—are coming from solidly blue districts. These departures don’t weaken the party; they renew it. These are safe seats that will stay blue. Even Jared Golden and Jesús “Chuy” García’s departures, while notable, don’t spell doom. Democrats have the ability to hold those districts with a disciplined recruitment effort and a decent candidate.
Across the aisle, the picture is more chaotic. Don Bacon stepping down. Michael McCaul leaving. Jodey Arrington, Morgan Luttrell, Troy Nehls calling it quits. These aren’t fringe members or backbenchers. They represent districts that could become competitive with the right Democratic challenger, especially when independents and suburban voters are drifting away from the GOP in large numbers. And then there’s the noisy departure of Marjorie Taylor Greene, stepping down after clashing with the administration. Her district will stay Republican, but the political drama surrounding her exit says something bigger: the MAGA label no longer guarantees longevity. Loyalty to this administration is no longer a shield; it’s a liability.
Then you have the career climbers: twenty-four House members running for higher office. Elise Stefanik wants to be governor of New York. Nancy Mace is going for South Carolina. Byron Donalds wants Florida. Andy Biggs, Dusty Johnson, David Schweikert, John Rose, John James—heading out in search of statewide power. In another era, this would be chalked up to ambition. Right now? It looks a lot like strategic distancing. Politicians don’t abandon comfortable House seats when they believe their party is strong. They do it when they see the ground shifting under their feet.
The Senate isn’t immune either. Mitch McConnell, arguably the most consequential Republican leader of the modern era, is retiring. Joni Ernst and Thom Tillis are leaving too. These aren’t minor exits; they reshape the political map. On the Democratic side, departures from Dick Durbin, Gary Peters, Tina Smith, and Jeanne Shaheen matter, but those seats are winnable. They don’t create a structural disadvantage.
Trump Allies Are Freaking Out About Him Abandoning MAGA Voters
Those close to Donald Trump are increasingly concerned that the president is neglecting the needs of his MAGA base during his second term in favor of frivolous or controversial pursuits.
A damning feature in The Atlantic describes how the 79-year-old Trump has become more isolated in office, drastically reducing domestic travel, and appears out of touch with what voters want from his presidency.
“People voted for him to lower prices, to bring manufacturing back, to stand up to those taking advantage of them,” a close Trump ally told the magazine. “They didn’t vote for him to build a damn gilded ballroom. He’s not hearing them.”
There is reportedly growing fear among Republicans and within the White House that Trump is not only ignoring the concerns of the voters who elected him, but actively dismissing them.
These worries come as multiple polls show Trump hitting all-time low approval ratings, with backlash to the president expected to severely damage the GOP in next year’s crucial midterm elections.
Which leads us to….
Everyone Hates Trump
Devastating Poll Shows Even Trump Voters Blame Him for Painful Prices
The MAGA base is turning on Donald Trump over the cost-of-living crisis, which nearly half of Americans say is the worst they’ve ever seen, a stunning opinion poll reveals.
A staggering 46 percent of all Americans say soaring unaffordability across the United States is firmly the responsibility of the Republican president, the Politico survey found.
Trump’s Job Approval Among Independents Is Astoundingly Low
the “polarize, mobilize, demonize, then win” formula that Donald Trump has perfected depends on a relatively neutral state of mind among independent voters. And lurking within Trump’s generally sinking job approval ratings are some really bad numbers among independents
that 25 percent job approval number among independents is significantly lower than any Trump registered in
Gallup’s monthly surveys during his first four-year term. His job approval rating among independents was at 39 percent the day he lost his 2020 reelection bid. And it was still at 30 percent in
January of 2021, immediately after the
January 6 Capitol Riot made him look dead politically for a good while. He’s in uncharted territory right now.
Let’s compare this terrible standing among the unaligned with the famously unpopular presidents of the past. At this same point in his one term as president,
Joe Biden’s job approval rating among independents was 37 percent. It hit an all-time low of 27 percent among independents in November 2023, before improving back to 37 percent by the end of his term.
George W. Bush actually did worse late in his second term, when the bottom was falling out of the economy; his October 2008 job approval among independents was at 19 percent, but that wasn’t much worse than his 25 percent approval rating among all voters.
Bill Clinton briefly plunged below 30 percent among independents during his rocky first few months as president, but was up to 44 percent prior to a disastrous 1994 midterm election, and eventually reached 67 percent by the end of his presidency.
Richard Nixon didn’t reach Trump’s low levels of job approval among independents until he was in the depths of the Watergate scandal; he hit 23 percent when impeachment proceedings against him began, and 22 percent the day he was forced to resign.
Suffice it to say that it takes a lot of controversy and bad vibes for independents to sour as much on a president as they have with Donald Trump. Since his appeal to Democrats is nil, and his appeal to Republicans has all but maxed out (and may be
declining slightly), this era of bad feelings among the non-aligned is worth watching.
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GALLUP poll: President Trump's job approval rating is 36% positive, 60% negative. It is down among Republicans and independents. One warning sign: just 69% of Republicans approve of his handling of health care, a major 2026 issue. And US approval of Congress has fallen to 14%.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur.bsky.social) 2025-12-01T14:55:52.586Z
CNN Data Guru Reveals How Much Americans Hate Trump’s Signature Policy
CNN data guru Harry Enten revealed damning numbers on the signature Trump policy informing his economy: tariffs.
“On the key policy that Donald Trump has been pushing since the start of his second term, the American people have shifted completely away from the president,” said Enten, 37, on Wednesday’s CNN News Central.
Reviewing polling on tariffs conducted in November 2024 and October 2025, Enten found that American opinion on tariffs went from a +4 favorable rating to a -24 unfavorable rating in 11 months, with 62 percent of Americans now opposing Trump’s signature policy.
I spent most of the Biden presidency trying to convince people that economic data was good. I did so because economic data was good. Biden and his team did a lot of amazing things to help us recover from the COVID related economic issues. Unempolyment was at record lows. Child poverty: record lows. I could go on, but it wouldn’t matter because no matter how good the data was, people did not believe it
Why? Inflation. It doesn’t matter if most people’s pay bumps covered the increasing costs. Seeing higher prices on everything is a daily distressing thing. And no one can convince anyone of anything else.
So when I saw this:
The president will go on a national tour to insist there is nothing wrong with the economy.
Donald Trump is preparing a national public-appearance blitz amid concerns that he is ignoring the financial anxiety of tens of millions of Americans.
The president will appear in the key swing state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday to try to convince voters that his economic plans are working, with additional events expected this month and into the new year across the country, Axios reports.
Oh girl! That is NOT going to work. LOL LOL LOL LOL
Biden actually had GOOD economic numbers and he couldn’t make this work. Trumps are… not good. So him lying to people’s faces is going to BACKFIRE.
Moron.
King Trump's indifference to affordability will cost MAGA everything.
There is no universe, in this one or any alternate timeline, where “let’s lock up the economic data and build a shiny new ballroom” is a winning affordability message.
Yet here we are.
You saw Donald Trump’s 18th iteration of his affordability message yesterday, when he said of affordability, “It doesn’t mean anything to anybody…The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats.”
The vibe is late Bourbon decadence and indifference, King Donald the Corpulent in his palace, while the peasantry starves. I’m going long on pitchforks and tumbrels.
At the precise moment when Americans are standing in the cereal aisle doing battlefield math over whether the kids get brand-name or generic Wheat-os, Donald J. Trump is obsessing over chandeliers, parquet floors, and the sightlines in his new, ever-expanding plan for a White House ballroom with the square footage of a large Costco.
He is micromanaging the golf-leaf design for a ballroom that only the upper tier of the donor set will ever enjoy, while telling the rest of the country they ought to be grateful for the privilege of getting economically hit in the face.
Other Good News
hey look! A backbone! → New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights
The New York Times accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday of infringing on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set of new restrictions on reporting about the military.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, The Times argued that the Defense Department’s new policy violated the First Amendment and “seeks to restrict journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done — ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements.”
Federal grand jury declines to reindict Trump target Letitia James
A federal grand jury on Dec. 4 rejected an attempt to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, a key target of President Donald Trump's ire, less than two weeks after a judge threw out the Trump administration's first indictment against her.
The grand jury’s rejection of charges marks the Justice Department’s second attempt at indicting the New York attorney general whom the president has railed against in recent weeks. James brought a lawsuit against Trump in 2022.
In a statement, James slammed the attempted indictment, calling the charges against her "baseless."
Trump-MAGA are *losing* the online culture wars over deportations, because the humane side is info-warring better
x
Trump's white nationalist aides are churning out vile videos glorifying migrant suffering. But Trump-MAGA are *losing* the online culture wars over deportations, because the humane side is info-warring better.
Check out @paulwaldman.bsky.social and me on this:
newrepublic.com/article/2038...
— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) 2025-12-03T14:55:56.342Z
You all are great
I started a substack to share joy midweek (via my job as a behavioral scientist) and so many of you have followed me there and subscribed and supported that effort. I can’t even begin to tell you what that means to me. I am humbled and happy.
Here is this week’s post on not forcing yourself to try to “connect” in ways that don’t speak to you throughout the holidays.
Stop Forcing Holiday Cheer—Connection Comes in Many Forms
Thank you. 💛💜💚
What can you do to save democracy?
First, continue to find joy in your life! Don’t let that fuckface live rent free in your mind! This is your life!!!!!
Second, if you can, it is time to start donating. I set up a fundraising page!
It splits our donations among the 15 seats held by Republicans in swing districts. These are seats that were either won by a margin of 4% or less or were won by Harris in 2024. In other words, these are seats we can win in 2026. None of them are in CA or TX (and thus likely to be redistricted). Any money you donate will go directly to whomever our candidate will be in 2026. We only need to flip three of these!
Here is the link:
Some other ways to get involved
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If you can, I strongly recommend going to an in person meeting in your area. One way to find a local group is through indivisible: indivisibleproject.formstack.com/…
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Election Response Center is a project hosted by Working Families Party, MoveOn Civic Action, Indivisible, and Public Citizen. They are organizing lots of events to get people fighting. Join one at this link
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The ACLU plays a key role in filing lawsuits that often stop voter suppression. Get involved with them at this link.
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Get involved with the Democratic party. We aren’t perfect, but they are fucking evil.
- Get involved with the States Project They are working on turning state legislatures blue
- Get involved with Swing Left. They are working on races right now!
- People For the American Way is a national progressive advocacy organization that inspires and mobilizes Americans to defend freedom, justice, and democracy from those who threaten to take them away. Get involved with them here
- Center for American Progress Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan policy institute and advocacy organization that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. Get involved with them here
Looking for something more specific?
Want to focus on the ENVIRONMENT:
Want to focus on CIVIL RIGHTS:
HUMAN RIGHTS - GENERALLY:
LGBTQ+:
WOMEN:
Huge thanks to DKos user dabug for help with this list.
Don’t let the options overwhelm you! Try to pick one thing and see if it calls to you. If it doesn’t find something else.
There are so many ways to get involved and help!
Some inspiration before I say goodbye
“Whatever happens, stay alive.
Don't die before you're dead.
Don't lose yourself, don't lose hope, don't lose direction.
Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.
Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.
Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also outside, fill yourself with colors of the world, fill yourself with peace, fill yourself with hope.
Stay alive with joy.
There is only one thing you should not waste in life,
and that's life itself..."
by Virginia Woolf
.
At Albany Bulb with Elaine
By Alison Luterman
Side by side on a log by the bay.
Sunlight. Unleashed dogs,
prancing through surf, almost exploding
out of their skins with perfect happiness.
Dogs who don't know about fired park rangers,
or canceled health research, or tariff wars,
or the suicide hotline for veterans getting defunded,
or or or. We've listed horror upon horror
to each other for weeks now, and it does no good,
so instead I tell her how I held a two-day old baby
in my arms, inhaling him like a fresh-baked loaf of bread,
then watched as a sneeze erupted through his body
like a tiny volcano. It was the look of pure
astonishment on his face, as if he were Adam
in the garden of Eden making his debut achoo,
as if it were the first sneeze that ever blew,
that got me. She tells me how her dog
once farted so loudly he startled himself
and fell off the bed where he'd been lolling,
and then the two of us start to laugh so hard
we almost fall off our own log. And this
is our resistance for today; remembering
original innocence. And they can't
take it away from us, though they ban
our very existence, though they slash
our rights to ribbons, we will have
our mirth and our birthright gladness.
Long after every unsold Tesla
has vaporized, and earth has closed over
even the names of these temporary tyrants,
somewhere some women like us
will be sitting side by side, facing the water,
telling human stories and laughing still.
.
please, keep this in mind when you despair:
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The Third Reich didn't last 1,000 years.Pinochet was ousted with a referendum.And the US isn't exactly dealing with the smartest, most competent fascists.Those of you insisting that 2025 is forever need to read a book, touch grass, go to therapy, anything other than trying to make others quit.
— Nicholas Grossman (@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social) 2025-09-18T15:02:19.789Z
I am so proud and so lucky to be in this with all of you. ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 💙❤️💛💚✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
