Yes, door knocking didn't really happen this year. But some organizers and operatives say good riddance. There's a better way to beat Trump—if Dems are willing to throw out the playbook. My feature on relational organizing: motherjones.com/politics/2020/… Relational organizing is a buzzy new word with lots of apps to go with it. But at its heart, it's about empowering the grassroots to build movements the way the civil rights and women's rights movements did.

The Electoral College is another Confederate monument that should be taken down. From the beginning, the EC has given white southerners outsized influence when picking the president. That a white minority could elect Trump in 2020 is a feature, not a bug motherjones.com/politics/2020/… I spoke to @AlexKeyssar, Harvard historian and author of the new book "Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?" The answer, pretty plainly, is white supremacy.

Since 2016, voters have wondered if a woman can beat Trump, becoming a nation of amateur sexism handicappers. So I reached out to political scientists to find out if women can win. Spoiler: they can. But one of Trump's triumphs is convincing us they can't. motherjones.com/politics/2020/… Sexism, studies show, does hold women back. So does the media's narratives about electability. But studies show the biggest problem may in our own heads.