Things can be good actually
The last week has been an absolute hurricane of bewilderingly terrible news, but things can be good, actually. Holy shit!!
The Overton window is crazy now, folks. On one end it encloses straight-up nazis and a full beat for beat retread of the war in Iraq, and on the other end it encloses socialist grocery stores and free buses. If the Mamdani campaign continues to be as well-run as it is, the real world might eventually include those things, too.
I hope that nationally (and globally, even) leftist groups take this as an invitation to swing big. A lot of American leftist energy is baldly and unabashedly driven by intense envy of peaceful countries where governments give you nice things... and do anything at all for the working class. You can turn that envy so quickly into openhearted optimism if you just meet it with practical conviction: it's possible, it's real, it's within our grasp. Our longing isn't foolish. We can be that kind of place, too. People want it... so promise it to them!