We want to confess our naiveté right up front.
We thought that the news cycle might slow down for a hot second in the hours after the election. We are heartbroken at another mass shooting. We are tracking election results that are heading to recounts and legal challenges. Things seem to be moving faster than ever.
If you’re willing to keep reading after that confession, we do have a few more thoughts.
First, thank you to everyone who helped make this a record-setting election. We salute every single person who stepped up, volunteered, registered new voters, worked to make our representative democracy even more representative. Congratulations to all of our CtK Alums who knocked doors, did comms, wrote essays, backed candidates, shared expertise, and, at all turns, showed up on behalf of our democracy. We are immensely proud.
Second, let’s acknowledge that this is a complicated moment. We’re all being asked to grapple with a lot of complexity. We’re asking people to hold the tension of the opposites all the time. The ground keeps shifting and the world seems to be speeding up and contradicting itself nearly all the time. (Or, as Alexandra Petri put it: the news is like if the Augean stables were also somehow a hydra.) Reports are telling us of further polarization and an exhausted majority.
So we’re asking you, our alums, our loyal antagonists, to live into your training. Find ways to listen and be open. To be clear, when there is racism, misogyny, anti-semitism or a threat to the republic, we know you will work to reduce hate. But the only way forward is to believe that we are all in it for the sake of the nation, for the future of our country, for the rights of all people. Now is the time to forge productive alliances.
Now is the time for loyal antagonism.
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We want to share a few post-election reads and reminders, all focused on healthcare:
