How to Win with Progressive Values after 2016

Many people from both parties have voiced concerns over how the country can move forward after such a toxic and divisive campaign. This toxic attitude will only dissipate with effort and action applied over an extended period of time over many election cycles across generations. 

We can't just come into people's lives every 2 or 4 years and expect them to start listening to what we have to say. 

We have to have to have a visible, active, and tangible presence in communities everywhere.

It's more than a 50-state strategy, it's a community by community strategy that gives us the opportunity to put a face and actions behind a message of togetherness and progressive values that all Americans actually share. 

+Wonderful World

It's so easy for far right conservatives to demonize liberals and progressive values when those groups don't stand up and speak out for those values when challenged in hostile territory. The same is true for liberals and progressives demonizing conservative and libertarian values and principles in cities.

The absence of rational voices for decades has left a vacuum and allowed one side to ram an intimidation and bully message in both rural and urban areas. Workers and the middle class have suffered as a direct result. 

+Wonderful World 

Most people's views are capable of being moved, but they're not going to be convinced in one conversation, in a series of conversations, or even in a decade of conversations. People are convinced by actions, by results, and by how they feel.

It takes a concerted effort to engage with Americans where they are, discovering why they feel the way they do, and adjust your own policy approaches and messages accordingly.

The most common liberal and progressive approach I've seen over countless election cycles is that being "right" should win the day. That's simply not how anyone convinces people about a belief or an opinion. 

+Wonderful World

We have to truly listen to others, not just tell them what to do and expect them to do it. 

If we can't translate a progressive policy agenda to these people in a way that they can understand and embrace, then we've failed them as well as our positive agenda for the country. 

We should be doing better. We can do better. And, we must do better.