The American people have done their job. What next?

On November 3rd the people didn’t just speak up and speak out; they screamed for change. Now they have to hand the job over to politicians, and that, I fear, is where the point of failure often lies.

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

I wrote in an early morning Substack note today at a little after 5 am:

The American people have handed Democrats the opportunity of a lifetime to deliver transformative change that can not only save America, but also make America care again and restore the reputation of a nation currently viewed as a bully and extortionist.

Be smarter, be bolder, be audacious and ambitious in endeavour. Anything less is an insult to those who made the ultimate sacrifice that we might be granted the freedom to choose our own destination in the face of tyranny.

REMEMBER, the people voted NO to abuse; that was not a yes to REPUBLICAN LITE. It’s time to LISTEN to the people, not patronise them.

I believe, with every fibre of my being, that this is the greatest opportunity to change the world ever granted to an opposition party in modern history. That’s how significant I believe this moment is. The question, however, is: will Democrats grasp the opportunity, or squander it as they have too many times before? Over the decades, America's political class has converged on the belief that people should be happy to settle for the crumbs left behind after politicians have done the bidding of those at the top of the economic food chain. Corporate interests have trumped public interests. This is the moment to effect change; it HAS TO STOP.

If together we’re to create a better tomorrow from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, those who claim to represent us MUST be bold and have the audacity to challenge a world increasingly built on fealty to special interests. We’ve been programmed to believe those at the top know what’s best for those struggling to put food on the table. Now, call me old-fashioned, but if you have no solutions to working three jobs to feed your kids, I suspect the acceptance that those at the top know what’s best for you might, in reality, be you being played.

We now stand on the precipice of redefining what represents progress for society. The problem, however, is that time and time again, we are presented with these chances for change, only for greed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Will this time be different? That’s up to the American people, and that makes me very nervous given past experience. In a society with low tolerance for inconvenience and sacrifice, I fear it may not bode well. That said, I’m a glass-half-full guy, and I remain hopeful we all still have within us the capacity to put others first in times of critical need. It remains to be seen if I’m just an old romantic or whether society can reintroduce the compassion, hope and empathy that this regime extracted through political waterboarding over the last two years.

I crashed out last night after the anxiety and fear that dominated election day. The love of my life told me that I was out of it by 9 p.m., which is unheard of for me, so at 6 am when I started writing this, I felt positively refreshed. Before I sat in the writing chair, I pondered for a while as I did my usual social media scan to gauge the nation's mood. The euphoria of those seeking change sits in stark contrast to those who, for the past decade, have tried to convince us that demanding better is a bridge too far.

I’m 67 years old, and I’ve largely had a good life. I’ve brought up three kids who’ve all gone on to make good lives for themselves in a world that, because of my generation's failings, has left them worse off than I was at their age. And that’s an indictment of those of us who should and could have done better. I believe we’ve reached an inflexion point where we can make amends for our errors, should we choose to. My fear is that we’ll drink in the euphoria of this feel-good moment, then move on with more of the same old same old. I so want to be wrong, but I have to admit to being on edge at the thought that the humanity that has surfaced in this moment will soon be drowned again in an ocean of selfish ambition and disregard for anything standing in our way of climbing to the top of the ladder.

I’ve said many times, much to many people's objection, that, like it or not, the capitalist model remains the only truly viable model we have to rebalance society, provided we insert critical guardrails. Before you start screaming at your screen or jump into the comments, let me explain. The capitalist model is NOT the problem. Just as a gun is harmless until someone loads it and pulls the trigger, it’s not the tool that’s the problem; it's the hands that hold it. Government should and can be a force for good. That is, until it’s placed in the hands of those determined to serve themselves and the few, at the expense of the many.

Since time began, politics has been a double-edged sword: for all the good it can deliver, it can destroy society. It’s long been the biggest weapon of mass destruction the world has ever known. Humans sadly just can’t help themselves when it comes to ambition. It has blighted society forever; by nature, we are predators, greedy to secure power and wealth.

That hunger has given us some of the greatest inventions of our time, but as ever, with good comes the downside of the obsession with power and greed, whether for land or money. It’s a disease we can’t seem to control. Social Darwinism is tragically at the very core of who we are. It goes to the very heart of who we are as a species. Sensible, pragmatic regulation is NOT the enemy; it’s society’s protection against those who would sacrifice everything at the altar of malign intent.

Wars are choices, as are poverty and starvation. We could choose to end it all TODAY, but we choose not to and that, my friends, is the real challenge we face at this crossroads of opportunity. The very reason I chose to join this fight against tyranny during Trump’s first term was that I identified the threat and made a conscious commitment to fight it at its source and not wait for it to consume my own country. Tragically, I’ve failed miserably. The cancer that has blighted America has metastasised to the UK in the form of Nigel Farage and his wannabe MAGA movement called Reform UK. It’s the same poison, just dressed up in a different suit.

The victory over tyranny in the US on November 3rd was a victory not just for Americans, but for people around the globe. Let me say without fear of contradiction that the world is cheering on the American people. YOU are the allies we fought alongside, the friends we came to love and respect. You are the partner we remember with fondness, the partner who, when you were attacked on 9/11, came to your aid. Yours was a cause for which 636 young British men and women laid down their lives. What has been so hurtful is that those lives meant so little to the politicians who took us all to war on a false premise. That’s not the fault of the American people, and it’s certainly not the fault of those who stepped up to end Mad King Don's ambitions on November 3rd.

The American people now carry the burden of making this victory matter, and that is a far greater challenge. I wasn't exaggerating yesterday when I said the biggest obstacle to delivering change is NOT the American people; it’s the current leadership of the very party entrusted with bringing America back from the brink of destruction. Corporate Democrats are as big a threat as any ‘small government’ Republican government of the last half century, and I don’t make that statement lightly.

However much Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries might claim this week's victory was a resounding endorsement of the Democratic Party, nothing could be further from the truth. This was a victory for the American people, not American politics, because, sadly, politics in the US remains on life support. It’s been dominated by snake oil salesmen who have got rich on the suffering of the many in service of the few. I worry that the current Democratic leadership are part of the problem, not the cure.

Please don’t misunderstand, I absolutely believe that the Democratic Party can deliver transformative change. The American people have done their job. They have sent some of the most capable political talent to Washington in a generation. They have sent young men and women hungry to deliver the kind of change that can rebuild trust. These are politicians who can reshape America and deliver a society for the many, not the few. In the next episode of my thoughts for the week, I’ll share my vision of how the change these fresh faces demand CAN be delivered.

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