Primaries. Indivisible. Sunrise. A revolt years in the making.

This is the opening we’ve been waiting for — if we learn from our mistakes.

The Cost of Going It Alone

Eight Senate Democrats recently caved to Trump. They voted to reopen the government and got basically nothing in return. No concessions. No wins. Just caved.

They were able to do it without fear of political retribution. They either aren’t up for reelection for years or are retiring. Why’d they cave? I think they caved because they weren’t fighting for anything big enough to make the pain worth it. They didn’t have a mission. Just a position. And when you’re only holding a position instead of fighting for a vision, eventually the discomfort of the fight outweighs whatever you think you’re defending.

A lot of Democrats have seen enough. The political organizations that represent that disdain are done with the lack of leadership from the Democrats in power. Indivisible announced they’re going to primary Democrats. So did Sunrise Movement. Leaders We Deserve. Justice Democrats. A few groups that spent years deferring to party leadership have declared war on Democratic incumbents who won’t fight.

As it happens, I’ve got about ten years of experience in insurgent politics. Co-founded Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats. Recruited dozens of people to run for Congress. We helped elect AOC, Cori Bush, Jamal Bowman, and Summer Lee. I was AOC’s communications director and senior strategist. Worked on Bernie’s campaigns.

I know what it takes to primary an incumbent. I know what it takes to win. And I have seen what makes those wins so uncommon.

The voters, candidates, donors, and organizations are finally on the same page. They all see the need to fight. The candidates are running. The money is flowing. The record breaking rallies and protests are turning into record breaking voter turnout. This is the biggest opportunity for change we’ve had in my life time. Brought about by the cruelty and lawlessness of the Trump admin and the cold calculation of the Democratic Party elite that are waiting to get back to normal.

The problem is this moment might slip through our fingers unless we can solve two problems: unity and a mission big enough to matter.

What Happens When You Go It Alone

The energy is real right now. Justin Pearson raised $200,000 in 36 hours after launching his primary in Tennessee. Graham Platner out-raised incumbent GOP Senator Susan Collins in Maine. Abdul El-Sayed is raising serious money in Michigan. James Talarico in Texas. Challengers are out-raising Democratic incumbents across the country. Aftyn Behn in TN-07 has a real shot in the December special election.

But look at what happens when folks go it alone.

David Hogg’s Leaders We Deserve raised millions. Spent most of it on consultants and infrastructure. Backed three candidates, the only winner was Zohran Mamdani, and that was a $300,000 contribution. Not nothing but not a game changer.

CORRECTION

Leaders We Deserve has in fact endorsed two candidates AGAINST incumbent Democrats. Justin Pearson in TN-09 who is running against perennial incumbent Steve Cohen.

And Donavan McKinney in MI-13 is running agaisnt Corporate Democrat Shri Thanedar.

These are really good choices and I applaud the effort.

Still I think there is too much of “going it alone.” You raise money. You build infrastructure. You get terrified of picking wrong. You protect your brand instead of building power.

Justice Democrats has done fairly well. Helping elect AOC, Cori Bush, Jamal Bowman, Summer Lee. But we operated as an island too. Working Families Party had theirs. DSA had theirs. Sunrise had theirs. We’d occasionally coordinate, but mostly we competed for the same donors, the same activists, the same attention.

We won some. But we didn’t transform the party. Because islands can’t build movements.

The Same Disease Everywhere

This isn’t just a problem in movement politics. It’s the same dysfunction that stops us from building anything in America.

Here’s the thing about public abundance. We’ve built so much water infrastructure in this country that when undocumented immigrants get here, you don’t hear people rallying that they shouldn’t be allowed to drink our water. But if we lived in Dune, a desert hellscape where water is scarce, you absolutely would hear that cry. People would be screaming about every drop going to those who “don’t belong here.”

We don’t hear calls to stop immigrants from drinking our water because we have enough of it. We created abundance, so we don’t fight over who drinks.

We could do that with healthcare. We could build so much of it, so many doctors, so many clinics, so much capacity, that we stop fighting over who deserves it. Same with housing. Build enough that we’re not fighting over scraps.

Our fear of losing control keeps us from building anything that requires working together. We’re terrified of someone else getting something that they don’t “deserve.” We’re afraid one of our dollars might go to gender-affirming surgery or abortion. But we hardly blink when our budget supports a genocide or builds bombs for export.

And that’s infected progressive politics just as deeply.

What It Actually Takes

Here’s what it would take for these organizations to build transformational power: unity behind a mission big enough to justify the pain.

“Primary bad Democrats” isn’t a mission. It’s just “not them” politics. That’s the same problem the Democratic Party has with Trump. “Not him” doesn’t win. You need something affirmative.

MAGA has that. Small government. America first. Anti-immigrant. Anti-establishment. That shared mission let them take over the Republican Party. They primaried incumbents. They fought their own leadership. They lost some. But they had enough unity behind a clear mission that they eventually won.

We have good ideas. Medicare for All, Green New Deal, public housing. But no shared story that connects them. No North Star.

Without that, we stay fragmented. Progressive organizations compete instead of coordinate. They protect their turf. They stay defensive about picking candidates because they know other progressive groups will attack them for choosing wrong.

You can see this playing out right now. Saikat Chakrabarti, someone I’ve known and worked with for ten years, is running for Congress in San Francisco. The San Francisco left is enraged about campaign donations he made. They’ve pieced together an image that couldn’t be further from the person I know.

If it can happen to someone with his track record, co-founded Justice Democrats, recruited AOC, was her chief of staff, it can happen to anyone. This is the pattern everywhere. Local purity tests and fragmented endorsements filling the space where a shared mission should be. You will be attacked. The candidate will be attacked. Local activists will show you screenshots, tell you why they’re wrong, why it’s a betrayal.

That fear hamstrings everything.

But unity behind a real mission gives you cover. Not perfect cover. You’ll still get attacked. But survivable cover. When multiple organizations stand together behind a shared platform, it’s harder to pick them off one by one.

And it gives candidates something real to run on. Not just “I’m challenging the incumbent,” but “I’m part of a national movement to build a country that works for all of us.”

Building Together

Call it public abundance. Build enough of what people need so we stop fighting over scraps.

It’s basically taking the best parts of the New Deal and the Arsenal of Democracy, when we built massive public capacity fast, and updating them for today.

During the war we built weapons, planes, boats, and supplies at an unprecedented scale. We can do that today with housing, energy, transit. You name it we could have it. Build, baby, build. (MLK)

A Mission for America at that scale could connect Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan to James Talarico in Texas to Graham Platner in Maine to Justin Pearson in Tennessee to Donavan McKinney in Detroit. Not because they’re all “progressive” or “mad at leadership,” but because they’d running together to build what we all need.

And when those candidates stand together, Michigan with Maine, Texas with Tennessee, Memphis with San Francisco, you show the country something different. Not just candidates fighting local battles. But a national movement to build together.

Imagine Graham Platner, James Talarico, Abdul El-Sayed on Zoom calls talking about the mission they share. The vision they’re building. How a win in Maine helps a candidate in Texas. How organizing in Michigan strengthens the fight in Tennessee. They wouldn’t just share messaging, but strategy, donors, struggles, and victories. That’s what unity looks like. Not organizations handing down endorsements, but candidates building power together, learning from each other, standing with each other through the attacks.

That’s a mission big enough to make the pain worth it.

The Path Forward

Chuck Schumer isn’t up until 2028. Many senators who caved aren’t up until 2028 or they’re retiring. But Hakeem Jeffries is up every two years. So is Steny Hoyer. If you wanted to make an example of Democratic leadership, that’s where you’d start.

It would take real coordination. Working Families Party, Indivisible, Leaders We Deserve, Justice Democrats, Sunrise, Bold Democrats, etc., pooling resources, sharing infrastructure, standing together behind candidates and a platform. And those candidates coordinating with each other, building a movement that’s bigger than any single race.

Right now, we don’t have that. We have organizations announcing they’re going to primary Democrats. Which is different from organizations announcing they’re going to work together to win.

But here’s what gives me hope. It only takes a few groups to show the way.

If you saw a handful of organizations joining forces behind a candidate primarying Hakeem Jeffries, pooling money, coordinating field, standing together through the attacks, other groups would follow. If you saw those candidates on stages together, in group fundraising emails together, defending each other when the attacks come, you’d see something start to build. Courage is contagious.

I’ve seen what’s possible when people work together. When Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats coordinated with local groups to recruit AOC. When multiple organizations came together to help Cori Bush defeat a ten-term incumbent. When we defended Summer Lee against millions in corporate spending.

We won those because we worked together. We didn’t win more because we didn’t work together enough.

The infrastructure exists. The candidates are running. The money is there. The energy is real. What’s missing is the willingness to stop going it alone.

The opportunity in 2026 is bigger than any we’ve had. More open seats. More viable challengers. More energy. More organizations ready to fight.

But if we can’t figure out how to work together in politics, we’re not going to figure out how to build anything that requires more than individual action.

We’ve become a nation of individuals so afraid of someone else getting something that we’d rather have nothing at all. So afraid of losing control that we can’t build anything that requires trust.

That’s the cost of going it alone. Not that you fail to try. But that you never build something big enough to win.

Unless we change course. Unless organizations unite. Unless candidates stand together, not just against bad leadership, but for building the country we all want to live in.

That’s a fight worth having.

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Corbin Trent

This is the fourth essay in a 12-part series where I lay out how we got to where we are and the next steps required to move forward. You can find them here: first, second, and the third. The fifth essay will be published at America’s Undoing on Tuesday November 18.

On December 9th I’ll be announcing a new initiative designed to bring power to the people, not the wealthy.

Please join me on the journey by subscribing and sharing, and let me know what you think in the comments.