A Message to both Parties from the Independent center.

Republicans

?You won.? Congratulations! It really was a stunning reversal from 2020.

?Your campaign was driven by the desire to get the respect you have long sought. You are angry at the ways the country has let you down, ignored your pain, and treated you with distain. And you have a right to be. Your homes were stolen from you by the big banks in the so-called Great Recession of 2008, no one went to jail, and you were left to fend for yourselves. Your kids are graduating with an inadequate education, can’t make it in college, and can’t get a job that pays enough to get out of your basement. The health care system is more likely to make you broke than get you healthy and doesn’t seem to care. Your jobs were taken away by globalization and then inflation savaged your ability to afford your own life and the dreams you have for your family.? You see both crime and immigration as a threat. You were called toxic, deplorable, and stupid. The establishment and elites didn’t just let you down, they put you down.? This was the campaign to change that – to wreck the establishment that wrecked so many things important to you.

?Trump channeled your anger into a campaign that won by just enough to have earned the right to govern (but not really the HUGE mandate he has claimed).? In doing so he outsmarted the pollsters, prognosticators, and pontificators once again.

?Now that you’ve won you are the establishment – you have power – and it feels good.? The urge to channel that anger into retribution and punishment is powerful. You despise the Democrats and all they stand for.? You want them to pay for what has been done to you. And you certainly can.

?Power like electricity must be handled with care. History as shown us over and over that power if overused or misused can become its own enemy. Those who rule through fear must ultimately fear those they rule leading them into ever deepening paranoia. Eventually those considered too fair weather in their support become fair game – friends become enemies. And then, what was a shock to the system short circuits into self-destruction.

?So here is a question to consider – when you are all done persecuting those who persecuted you – will you be better off?? Is that the revenge you really want?? Wouldn’t the sweeter revenge be to actually deliver what the Democrats couldn’t or wouldn’t – affordable housing, better and more affordable health care, real jobs, lower prices, less crime, more controlled immigration, and better schools.? Don’t settle for making America horrible for those you despise. Don’t settle for promises of a better tomorrow.? Promises without delivery are nothing but fantasies. Don’t only Make America Great Again make the lives of All Americans better than ever.

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Democrats

?You lost.? It hurts pretty badly.?

?One reason it hurts is that by almost any traditional measure you knew that your opponent was unfit to serve as President.? You cannot conceive how anyone could vote for a twice impeached, convicted felon, who stokes hatred, foments insurrection, and lies every time he moves his lips. But they did.

?Another reason it hurts is that despite all the evidence to the contrary you convinced yourselves that you could win with the oldest candidate ever to run, who was massively unpopular, in the wake of inflation that caused tremendous economic pain. You arrogantly told the American people that the economic facts were right and that their economic reality was wrong. And not only that they were wrong, but that the real issues in this campaign were abortion and keeping Trump out of office when every poll said it was about the economy and immigration. The American people wanted change, and you offered them a younger, female, Black and Asian defender of the status quo.? If there is one lesson from this campaign it is that the status quo is not your friend.

?And now you are genuinely afraid, afraid that Trump will do exactly what he said he would do, that Project 2025 is in fact the blueprint for the next 4 years, that you will, in fact, be persecuted. If you choose to let that fear paralyze you, all your worst fears are likely to come true.?

?One alternative is active resistance. That was the strategy you pursued during Trump’s first term, and it seemed to work. While such a strategy may be appealing, it would self-defeating.? Resistance would only reinforce the message that Democrats are against change and for maintaining the system that most people- from Trump to Bernie Sanders - know is rigged against them.

?The other option is to go on offense.? To un-rig the system that has enriched some at the expense of many. To blow up the status quo that has stunted the imagination of leaders and failed Americans. To deliver real, meaningful change, not just promises, that betters the lives of Americans. To foster a revolution that reaffirms and delivers on the American dream.

?How? Look to the states.? Trump wants to leave the hard stuff to the states.? Let him.? You are already winning on abortion when the states act.? Twenty-three states have Democrats as their governors. Over half of the population of the country lives in those states. Now is the time for those states and their governors to show what they can do. Kentucky’s Governor Beshear got it exactly right “The next several years are the Democratic Party’s chance to show the American people that we … can and will improve the lives of our people.” Don’t hide, don’t just fight, stand and deliver for all Americans.