This initially began as a three-part series of posts on the way forward for democrats with a small d, who want to see an end to the tyranny of Trump. I have long since come to realise that this is no longer about party politics; this is about a fight for societal survival. Only when we recognise this fundamental point can we move forward.
Please feel free to skip this section if you'd like to get straight to the story without listening to my self-analysis.
Because of the way I write, you get either the benefit or the irritation of my ramblings in real time, which can make structure challenging. It makes more sense to finish the whole piece, then edit it into a concise but detailed summary. I can see the logic in that, but I think I have taken a sort of comfort blanket refuge in convincing myself I have a connection with my readers who give me the space to share my musings as we go, so they are part of a journey of discovery. While I really like that idea, I’ve concluded that it’s a lame excuse for not being more disciplined.
I have made no secret of the fact that long-form writing is a whole new experience for me, and I’m just nine months in. I am not a writer or journalist by profession, and I will be the first to admit I sometimes struggle with structure when it comes to presenting big picture subjects, being a detail person. I am working on that, and I do have a new approach I want to try next week with a view to getting feedback at the end of the week. However, it doesn’t help with this piece, and I apologise for that.
For this piece, I plan to fix it so that, upon completion, I’ll produce a master summary as a single post that will serve as a summarised conclusion.
TODAY’S POST BEGINS HERE
If you need to catch up on the story so far, you can use the links below; they should provide better context for this piece today.
| PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE |
I think most people would agree that delivering transformational change requires transformative thinking, and, with the greatest of respect, in my view, that thinking is not present in the current Democratic Party leadership team. This has been a very challenging post for many reasons, not least of which is how best to frame it.
The one thing Trump has been successful at, as demonstrated by the off-season elections this week, is unwittingly mobilising his opponents. This is very important in the context of my closing thoughts on a viable proposition for 2026 and, more importantly, 2028.
I believe framing is all-important, and to that end, I will use the term Democrat and NOT the Democratic Party in large parts of the remainder of this piece, because I believe that the change required can only be delivered by a coalition of those prepared to look beyond party boundaries and take collective responsibility for providing a vision that respects political differences and recognises that compromise is the only way forward. The truth of the matter —and I know I keep mentioning it —is that 90 million people disengaged from politics who didn’t vote last November. This is now a larger single demographic than either of the two main parties.
Any political comm’s team director should have been mining gold in these hills for years; alas, they have ploughed the same furrow over and over, expecting to grow new crops from tired soil. What is, in some ways, unsurprising is that hope often springs from places you would least expect. Sometimes it’s accidental, and sometimes it’s a consequence of the actions of others. What happened this week is that disengaged Americans woke up to the reality that a convicted criminal conman has played them, but much more than that, he’s threatening to steal the future of their children, and that’s a red line too far. Hence, they arrived at the party this week and spoke in a thunderous voice.
It’s not that the Dems are back, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE BACK, and that, my friends, is a very different proposition. That’s something we can work with, which brings us back to the burning question: HOW? The challenge is, in my view, not political; it’s human. Humans didn’t get this far by being nice; they did it with a ruthless streak dedicated to self-preservation and a craving for security. First and foremost, we are a selfish species not frightened to adopt Darwinism when it suits us. Our instinct, once we have enough to live on, is to want more. First, it might be that we adopt an ethical approach to gaining more, but once greed sets in, we end up where we are today, willing to throw anyone under the bus to get ahead and get what we want.
I know this is a sweeping generalisation, and some will take exception to my assessment, claiming it doesn’t reflect who they are. To those people, I would say, we need millions more like you. Unfortunately, millions are equally proud to be the alpha participants in this cruel game of life. It’s a societal dilemma. Without the alpha risk takers, economic growth is less likely to deliver the innovation and dynamism required to support a rounded society. However, with that comes the evolutionary danger that the apex predators —in this case, the top 1% — have no intention of sharing the spoils of their human exploitation.
The 90 million Americans who walked away from political engagement because they don’t trust politicians need a reason to re-engage. On this front, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, as we have just witnessed. For the Democratic Party to believe that presenting no vision or policy agenda resulted in disengaged voters flocking back, is either absurdly arrogant or plain stupid. If it’s the latter, I fear there’s no hope; if it’s the former, we need to go on a treasure hunt for humility and common sense.
This is about American democrats with a small d rejecting tyranny, and that is the starting point. When it comes to politics, people tend to be pretty binary in their approach: screw me, and I’ll screw you at the ballot box. It’s really not complicated; if it hurts me, I’ll hurt you electorally. It’s the most primitive instinct in us all. It showed up in force this week and put the fear of God into Trump. Despite his wanting to appear unmoved, he delivered what can only be described as a bizarre comedy sketch, pretending that Thanksgiving will be cheaper for American families this year. Even worse, he did this in collusion with Walmart, the largest recipient of corporate welfare and a massive beneficiary of SNAP spending on EBT cards. It really is time for Americans to wake up and smell the coffee. We really do need to start talking about the corporate socialism that has become a central tenet of the US economy.
TWO POSSIBLE DIRECTIONS OF TRAVEL
It wasn’t until I started formulating this vision for a way forward that I created even more work for myself. I think the best way to handle this is to split my conclusion into two parts to avoid complicating matters.
Before we can reach any real conclusions, we have to consider how Republicans plan to take control of elections. My thoughts are based on the assumption that there will be free and fair elections, which is certainly not a given. In this respect, I feel it is essential to draw your attention to the fact that Dominion Voting Systems, a company that supplies voting machines to 27 states, was acquired by Trump ally, election denier and former GOP operative Scott Leiendecker. The company has subsequently been renamed Liberty Vote.
If you would like to read more on this dangerous development, read this report by Kim Zetter from Wired, this piece by Miles Parks and Scott Simon from NPR, and finally this article by Alex Isenstadt from Axios. All are well worth a read.
It is beyond fanciful to think that Trump and his allies will not leverage this acquisition to place their thumb on the scale, which is why the DNC should contract Marc Elias of Democracy Docket to assemble an army of top-drawer election lawyers and constitutional experts. Let me tell you without fear of contradiction, without this, the battle is lost before it begins. All democratic activists should step up their support for Marc, because he and his organisation will be critical to this fight.
What you have to understand is that gone are the days of ‘The honourable lady/gentleman’. Honour tragically no longer exists in politics. It shouldn’t be the case, but war has been declared on moral decency, truth and integrity. Elections are seen as a zero-sum game where you are either the victor or the victim. I cannot begin to tell you what advocates for democracy and a better tomorrow for the bottom 90% will face in the year ahead, but mark my words, failure is not an option.
The facts are really very simple, and everyone must grasp the true gravity of this moment. This is not fear-mongering or hyperbole. It’s the very reason Truth Matters — and your support for it—is mission-critical.
It’s straightforward: Republicans can’t win on a level playing field, especially given the current public sentiment, which will only worsen as we move towards the midterms. If he loses the House in 2026 to a large Democrat majority, Trump is toast. Not only will it halt his ability to legislate and his march toward absolute power, it will also expose him to almost certain impeachment and possible removal from office. A point already not lost on Speaker Johnson. The cascading consequences for him and his enablers are beyond dangerous and could, without question, expose people to the possibility of jail time.
If Democrats win big, Republicans will flee the sinking ship, claiming that they knew Trump was a crook all along, but were just following orders. In a strangely bizarre twist, Marjorie Taylor-Greene seems to be one of the very few Republicans reading the tea leaves and putting distance between herself and the regime. Without Trump on the ballot, the Republicans are finished, and believe me, JD Vance is no saviour successor. The cabal for whom Trump has been their useful idiot, has been wide awake to the possibility that Trump would be crushed in the midterms; that’s why they insisted on passing the Big Beautiful Bill as soon as possible, to cement their policy agenda into law. It’s the very reason Trump’s loose lips declared that people won’t have to vote again, claiming, ‘We’ll have it sorted. ’
One thing about good research is it’s like deep cleaning: you find all the bad shit around every corner and in every crevice. If my words provide anything, they should give an overwhelming sense of hope and optimism, because armed with knowledge, this fight gets easier as you begin to separate the wheat from the chaff. The facts are elementary: Trump cannot afford to lose, and in his words, he will ‘Fight like hell’ to prevent it.
Steve Bannon understands the threat all too well; he knows that without Trump on the ballot, millions disappear from the Republican base, and there’s nothing to replace them with because of the political carnage Trump will leave behind. This is why Bannon is desperately trying to find a way to put Trump on the ballot in 2028. Traditional Republicans find themselves in the 90 million sitting on the sidelines with the dilemma that if they don’t help elect a Democratic president next time around, they will never be able to reclaim their former party, because it no longer exists. What’s also not lost on Bannon is the potential for prison time for Trump and those aiding and abetting his crimes in office.
The double dilemma they face is that Trump would be handing over governance to a new president who would inherit extraordinary powers. Powers strong enough to ensure Republicans are banished to the political wilderness for a generation if not longer, allowing any new administration to reshape America for the greater good. Please make no mistake, Republican leadership in the Senate understand the threat that a resurgent movement presents; that’s why they are resistant to abolishing the filibuster, despite Trump’s insistence that they do so.
Having established they can’t afford to lose, you can take it to the bank that their current primary focus, beneath the tsunami of distractions, is tampering with the election system to ensure they can control the outcome. Just as they have placed loyalists in government positions, MAGA has been infiltrating the poll worker pool as well as election official posts in state government. They are not messing around. This is about survival and avoiding jail. There is no better motivation to cheat than an aversion to subjugation in the showers, prison food and an arranged union each evening. They have several objectives, not least of which is using AI to purge voter rolls. This is also tied to challenging votes cast, where the AI identifies votes that could be challenged. Expect to see this in full flow in 2026.
What you have to remember is that Team Trump operates a cult, which works under the assumption that their base is loyal come what may, so we can assume, they perceive the majority of the 90 million that did not participate in the last election as potential votes against them. Much is spoken about the use of AI to spread misinformation to influence elections, and that is unquestionably a danger. However, the greater risk lies in its ability to prevent people from voting in the first place.
Elections are controlled by States, which is the first potential point of failure. Electoral rolls contain a voter’s identity. Trump’s association with Palantir plays a critical role here because if Republicans contract them to do election data analytics, then this can become a game-changing threat to democracy. We know that the administration has already been seeking and sometimes demanding electoral data from states. That action in itself should be sounding alarm bells.
Given that voter history is commonly included in datasets provided by state electoral data controllers. This is the key that unlocks a vital door for malign data analytic operations. How do I know? Because, as a database designer and analyst myself, I understand the data points. If voter registration data were fed into Palantir's data analytics capabilities, Pandora’s box would be opened, becoming a potential electoral weapon of mass destruction. The key to the puzzle is your identity. We also know that Elon Musk data-mined IRS and other government data, and Trump has already contracted Palantir to aggregate data across government under the guise of efficient data use. If you introduce electoral data—including voter history—into the data pipeline, you have the political Holy Grail.
To add some important context, the U.S. has no comprehensive federal data privacy law, which further reinforces the state-centric approach to data regulation, including electoral data. Election administration, including voter data management, falls primarily under state and local government control; thus, there is a “patchwork of policies” across the country, introducing increasing points of vulnerability. Trump is absolutely right when he says America has an election integrity crisis. However, it has nothing to do with illegals registering to vote; it’s about disrupting the very ability to cast a vote, the manipulation of voter rolls and subsequent ballots cast.
Given the lack of Federal law providing explicit protections for electoral roll data, I would go so far as to suggest that the US has always had one of the most vulnerable systems in the world, not in terms of being able to manipulate votes once cast which is typically the common denominator for ‘rigged elections’, but rather controlling who has access to the ballot box. The key here is that I believe Trump’s puppet masters have identified the weak points in the system and have every intention of exploiting them to the full.
With this in mind, they will run an aggressive roll purge algorithm not only to target those known to have voted against them, but also to prevent, or make it more difficult for, those who didn't vote in November to vote in 2026. The smaller the voter pool, the better. The ability already exists to scrape public social media feeds, analyse the content, and politically score a voter just like a credit score. If they can tap into your voter history and aggregate the data, they know your voting intentions sometimes even before you do, just by analysing your social media feeds. If they also have access to your browser history, then all the better.
If you think this is just for movies, it’s not. These tools exist. And Palantir are at the forefront of constantly refining the technology. Trump will attempt to utilise every lever of government to retain power, and any legal attempt to stop him will hit a logjam in the courts.
Remember, Palantir is the company that assisted the Israeli government, which developed a program called ‘Daddy’s Home’ to target ‘alleged’ Hamas operatives, by waiting for them to return home, then providing targeting coordinates to kill everyone in the house. It’s time to dispense with the romantic vision of technology for good and look clear-eyed at what technology Trump will have no problem using against the American people. I’m not suggesting for a moment that they are going to blow voters up to stop them from voting, even for Trump; that would be extreme. What they can do, however, is kill your vote by removing you from the electoral roll.
I firmly believe that they are about to run the most sophisticated voter suppression campaign in American history, and it will all happen silently and go unnoticed. I would add that once a voter is off the roll, Trump will place numerous obstacles in the way of re-registration. We already know about the Save Act and the barriers it introduced for married women, where their birth certificate doesn’t match their ID, following marriage. I’m not selling you the script of a Hollywood movie; I’m warning you that what I describe is absolutely possible.
With all the essential but necessary preamble out of the way, tomorrow we can get down to a whole post about my thoughts on a detailed way forward to break the chains of this Trump tyranny. I'm sorry it's taken so many posts to look at all the angles, and I WILL provide a single post summarising this proposition once this series is completed tomorrow.
If I may steal a quote from your article, I think this sentence sums it all up; "It’s not that the Dems are back, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE BACK, and that, my friends, is a very different proposition".
This is indeed a fight for survival. What happens to the people getting deported and who's going to disappear next? What will how will we move forward? I do know that this fight has just begun. Midterms are one year away. We have to make a better plan than what we are doing. "A monkey can win against the Republicans today" Tomorrow is another story.