People like to describe a “pendulum swing” in politics, where public opinion swings towards one side of the political spectrum for a couple years and then back in the other direction. This implies we’ll forever move back and forth, tug-of-warring over our rights and freedoms, and never forward. 

Stasis like this keeps us from realizing the dreams for the country we’ve had for so long: that we all are treated equally, and that people can create a good life for themselves no matter their background. We keep repeating the same mistakes and wonder why we haven’t seen change. 

We are over halfway through this first year of the second Trump presidency, and I worry that progressives are falling back into the same communications patterns that got us here in the first place. So many important conversations about the need to re-strategize happened around the inauguration, but now that the shock of the election has softened, it seems like many of us are settling back into our routine of talking to the same audiences, using the same channels, and largely speaking the same language. I see a lot of great pieces of research coming out about where the communication gaps are and where we went wrong, but I’m not seeing enough of that translating into change in the field. 

Every day this year, one of the darker chapters of our history is being written. Progressives failed to connect with enough fellow voters to defeat a serious threat to our rights and needs, and we lost big time. We had the illusion of progress, but soon enough the people we failed to bring on board were successfully pulled apart from us. 

As a long time student organizer and early-career political communicator, it was hard to understand why the racism, sexism and homophobia I thought we had overcome bubbled up and took over. It truly feels like the clock has been turned back. I fear for my queer friends and immigrant neighbors like I never have before. I walk around knowing there are young men who see me as no more than a potential wife and mother, thanks to the podcasts they listen to and the leaders they admire. I pass people in military dress with various badges in herds on the street as they prowl for D.C. residents of color to interrogate or kidnap.

Three years into my career, and thanks to a new perspective on organizing, I am starting to better understand how we got here and have some ideas on how we can change our strategy in order to win. Winning doesn’t just mean electoral races: It means changing minds, reconnecting communities, restoring essential programs, taking back rights and building back up the progress we lost. It starts with reconnecting with the Americans who progressives lost on the critical problems we all share.

Everyone has the same basic needs and wants. Healthcare when they are sick, nutritious food so they don’t go hungry, shelter that they can afford without sacrificing other needs, and the freedom to be who they are. So much of political messaging is designed to distract from those needs that unite us all, and that distraction strategy worked to win the election. We were caught up in conversations around dismissing pronouns, blocking trans people from playing sports and fear mongering about immigrants. They were perfect political traps, important enough to trigger a response among progressives and cause them to pull away from those basic needs and complex enough to sound radical and be easily misunderstood by those with less exposure to those issues. 

But voters are realizing that the promise of a better life they were sold was snakeoil after all, as the people they elected not only neglect, but take away the departments, research and programs that fulfill their basic needs. Progressives must take advantage of this change in the tide to experiment with new ways of reaching people, and there are two important ways I suggest we do that.

First, progressive legacy news outlets cannot be the only media channels we consider high value. They do a great job of preaching to the choir, but are not reaching the people progressives lost. Second, we need to combat the deterioration of information and conversation online by showing up in person. 

Change, notoriously, is hard. As we transition to reaching out farther than we have before to new audiences, through new mediums (podcasts, social media, Substack, etc.), and with new language, every attempt will not be a slam dunk. But we must experiment to find what works. 

It will likely feel very uncomfortable for scientists, nonprofit leaders and other professionals to film casual, selfie-style videos for the first time. Or to practice the conversational style that is successful on podcasts. But research shows that people are turning to social media for information, and it’s where people are led astray by misinformation. 

In our fight against all the downsides of social media - screen addiction, rampant misinformation, unregulated propaganda, the radicalization of young people into misogynistic beliefs - one powerful tactic is to show up offline. We are so disconnected from each other as humans online, making it easy to cyberbully, mischaracterize and jump to conclusions. Having a conversation about disagreements or misunderstandings in person is an entirely different ball game, and it’s becoming a lost art.

Besides practicing this on neighborhood walks and around family dinner tables, there’s a way to incorporate this tactic in the nonprofit and philanthropy world. I want to see more leaders showing up in the communities they serve instead of experiencing most of them through a screen, behind a desk. What if more researchers and advocates who focus on health issues in rural communities traveled around visiting town halls in rural areas and just listened? What if more nonprofit leaders working on campaigns to improve civic engagement among young people hosted a talk and roundtable at a local high school to hear what young people really care about? What if we brought back canvassing at a larger scale? Set up “change my mind” tables in parks?

The opportunities are endless, and I worry they are being ignored by our field of advocates, nonprofits, and philanthropies. No one tactic is a perfect solution for every organization, but I want to see more experimentation, creativity and bravery from the people who so badly want to find what works. Starting tomorrow, flip your everyday communications practice on its head and begin the hard work of doing something new. Our collective missions, as people working to try and improve this country, depend on it.