🚨 🚨

To those who just ran and didn’t succeed:

Thank you.

You just performed the highest level of service you can in our democracy.

And if you ran in a tough/gerrymandered district, thank you even more.

1/ Running in a one-sided district in order to engage voters, lift turnout and hold an incumbent accountable is an act of patriotism of the highest order.

Your entire run for office was an act of public service. And courage.

Again, thank you.

2/

🚨 🚨

A 🧵 on appointments

In my book “2025,” I try to capture the mindset that will drive Trump’s selection of unqualified loyalists to the top jobs in his administration.

It’s bearing out so far, and will only get worse for the less high-profile jobs:

1/ ““JJ, they want you, dude,” Blake said. "They want you.”

“Who wants me?”

“The president does. And his people. They love that you were willing to take one for the team. No apologies. No remorse. That’s fucking loyalty—willing to give up 10 years for the president. 

2/

🚨 🚨

The Long Battle — a 🧵

Meet Rhoda Denison Bement.
She was at Seneca Falls. But it’s complicated.

Rhoda Denison Bement was actually a regular parishioner at the Wesleyan Methodist Church, where the historic convention took place.

1/ But she was only a member there because, 5 years earlier, she’d been banished from the Presbyterian church down the street.

It seems the ferocity of her abolitionism erupted into a showdown w that church’s pastor, who put her on trial for disorderly “unchristian” conduct.

2/

🚨 🚨

What Would FDR Do/Say About the Billionaire Takeover

A 🧵

So…

Elon Musk (who has had multiple calls with Putin) was on Trump’s call with President Zelensky!?

Jeff Bezos sent Trump a fawning, congratulatory note after spiking a Washington Post endorsement.

1/ JD Vance rose to be VP, from nowhere (and hardly a moment in Ohio) and with no real experience, largely due to a single billionaire backer.

Trump is talking about another round of massive tax cuts at the top, while Musk suggests an era of pain for everyone else.

2/

🚨 🚨

Anticipating What’s Coming

A 🧵

Here’s an alarming @AP headline from yesterday: “CDC Calls for More Testing for Bird Flu After Blood Tests Reveal More Farmworker Infections”

1/ Here’s the opening sentence of another story: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to have tremendous influence over the way the United States regulates and distributes its vaccines.”

2/

The Pattern

A quick 🧵

At the highest level, far above the back and forth events of the election cycle (and given how wild the cycle was, it’s hard to see beyond those events right now), all that we’re living through perfectly aligns with the long arc of American history.

1/ And any unvarnished look at that history reveals a clear and brutal pattern—that every time there are advances in growing a diverse democracy, a fierce backlash erupts against that expansion.

Every time.

2/

🚨 🚨

A Canary in Kentucky

A 🧵

Tuesday, an election was held in Kentucky on an issue that occupies the core of every level of the right-wing movement that just dominated the national election.

1/ Both billionaires and far-right special interest groups prioritize this particular issue as paramount.

This issue is the top priority in every gerrymandered statehouse.

It’s a core plank of Project 2025.

Trump himself made it clear it’s a top priority of his.

2/

My GOTV Walk

A 🧵

I so enjoyed knocking on doors Monday in N. Avondale (a D stronghold in Cincinnati).

But one thing haunted me.

The precisely calculated targets I was given largely led me to single-family homes. 1 or 2 adults, w perhaps a voting-age child or 2.

1/ And perhaps an elderly parent.

As I went to these homes, enjoying the conversations, the list I was given had me skipping over large apartment buildings up and down the very same streets.

Each building: Dozens of people. Many doors, units and floors.

2/

Sunday Painting 🖼️ 🎨

“Keep Rowing”

A 🧵

Some good polls yesterday. Some decent ones this morning. Late deciders appear to be trending Kamala Harris’s way.

1/ Let this give you hope.

Do NOT let it make you complacent (and I know those who follow me here wouldn’t let that happen).

If we have momentum, it’s for the same reason we’ve had a winning streak ever since Dobbs. A winning streak that has defied history and polling.

2/

🚨 🚨

Trump bringing a family together

A veteran’s message, shared by a friend:

The following statement “Not This Time” was written by my husband Terry’s brother, a life long Republican and retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel.

1/ We are life long Democrats and our great differences in political views and affiliations have led to mostly not talking about these matters at all, too great a gap.

But NOT THIS TIME!

Cody reached out across this painful gap to share his remarkable conversion…

2/

🚨 🚨

NEW EPISODE — “Hurricane Trump”

It’s just so damn predictable.

How predictable?

We wrote and @MarkRuffalo recorded this chapter of “Trump’s Project 2025: Up Close and Personal” BEFORE both Hurricanes Helene and Milton…

1/ tore through so many communities in the American South.

Yet many of the communities hit in our fictional episode are the very same ones that were just ravaged in real life.

Why’s it so predictable?

2/

🚨 🚨

Straight talk from FDR in 1936—captures what we face today

A 🧵

“Freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy –

1/ “from the eighteenth century royalists who held special privileges from the crown.

It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed…that they put the average man’s property and the average man’s life…

2/

🚨 🚨

With billionaires, autocrats and would-be autocrats dangerously close to upending American democracy—from billionaires bankrolling Trump’s campaign, others censoring their own newspaper editorial boards from endorsing Kamala Harris…

1/ and others dumping money into extending illegal gerrymandering—I recently dove back into one of my favorite books — “FDR on Democracy,” a compilation of FDR speeches put together by Harvey Kaye.

2/

🚨 🚨

NEW POD Episode, starring @MarkHamill

Trump Sicks the Army on “Enemies Within”

🧵

When it comes to Trump, it’s not hard to connect the dots. Or to know what he wants to do.

He’s pretty easy to figure out.

1/ As he reminded us just the other day, he wants to crack down on what he considers “the enemy within.”

And as he’s made clear for years, he wants to use to United States military to do it.

2/

🚨 🚨

NEW WHITEBOARD

What does it tell us if a politician spends almost all their time and energy trying to defeat a measure to bring fair districts and accountability to their legislature…but they hardly focus on their own election at all?

Everything!

WATCH, RT and….

1/ Just look at the feeds of Ohio politicians, currently running for reelection themselves….

For many, their only opponent seems to be Issue 1.

Their only concern.

Even though they themselves are on the ballot.

2/

🚨 🚨

NEW Episode — The 2025 Attack on Public Education

Narrated by @EverCarradine and Don Cheadle!!!

🧵

If something is failing miserably, why would you ever double down on that failure?

The answer may be….that you want it to fail.

1/ And that’s exactly what’s happening when it comes to Donald Trump and Project 2025’s plans for public education.

They propose to elevate to the federal level the very anti-education policies that are already kneecapping public schools

2/

🚨 🚨

NEW WHITEBOARD: A Grotesque Battle for Ohio’s Democracy and Rule of Law

A 🧵

On the merits, the race between Joe Deters and Justice Melody Stewart is one of the greatest mismatches I’ve ever seen up close.

On an absolutely crucial election.

1/

WATCH, RT and… Justice Stewart is the most experienced appellate judge on the Ohio Supreme Court. A model public servant and jurist. A barrier breaker who’s earned everything she’s ever achieved.

Honestly, Deters really isn’t a judge:

2/

🚨 🚨

A City of Lessons—Let’s Make Them Real

A 🧵

Our family always loves visiting Washington D.C.

Touring it with our kids is especially meaningful. So we have spent our Fall Break here.

1/ But touring it the last few days, knowing what lays in the balance at this moment in our nation’s history, and that things are far too close, hit me in ways I haven’t felt here before.

My emotions have run the gamut.

2/

🚨 🚨

Under the Ohio GOP gerrymander, Ohio’s most recent economic growth rate ranks 45th in the nation.

Under the Ohio GOP gerrymander, Ohio’s education ranking has fallen from 5th to the mid-20s in 14 years

Under the Ohio GOP gerrymander…

1/ Ohio’s life expectancy is 42nd out of 50 states.

Under the Ohio GOP gerrymander, Ohio’s population grew at the 48th worst pace from 2011-2020.

And then shrank from 2020-2023 (first time in decades)

2/

🚨 🚨

Question: what if you were so bad at leading your organization—what if the results of your work were so terrible, so screwed up, so unimaginably bad—that the organization you led became a curse word?

And that derogatory word was said so often among young…

1/ …people, all over the country, that it actually had to be banned from being said?

If that was happening, would you take a hard look at what you were doing, knowing that your organization itself was suffering from your terrible leadership?

And that if young people associate

2/

🚨 🚨

INTERVIEW: The Disturbing Details and Deep Injustice of Ohio’s "Boneless Chicken" Case

A 🧵

The case went viral within days.

Chicken listed on an Ohio restaurant menu as “boneless” turned out to have bones in it.

1/ One hidden bone punctured a customer’s esophagus, leading to a disastrous infection that nearly killed him—and forever changed his life.

2/