We Showed up. Our Leaders Schemed.
76% oppose the war. Democratic leaders blocked the vote anyway.
Welp, millions of us were in the streets today. All 50 states. More than 3,300 events. Lebanon, Pennsylvania and Midland, Texas and Boise, Idaho. Almost half the protests took place in GOP strongholds. Texas, Florida, and Ohio each had over a hundred events. Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah had events in the double digits. The third No Kings protest, and by every account the biggest in American history.
For every one of us that showed up today there were dozens that felt the same but stayed home convinced showing up wouldn’t matter. We have to make sure it does matter. That means action. That means change.
While we organized, they schemed. Drop Site News reported that Senate Democrats privately wanted Trump to prosecute this war. Let him weaken Iran. Let him take the political hit. Win-win. Except 76 percent of their own voters oppose this war. Nine percent support it. Nine percent. They left the war powers of the United States in the hands of a man they call a threat to democracy because it was politically convenient to do so. That is not opposition. That is complicity.
House Democrats had the votes. Three Republicans were ready to cross the aisle. They declined to bring the resolution to the floor. When Trump deployed military and federal authorities to DC, Hakeem Jeffries pointed to a letter from the DC Attorney General. “I thought that was a strongly worded letter,” he said. More than 1,900 people are dead. The war is a month old. Strongly worded letters.
Democratic leaders made a decision. Let Trump keep his war powers unchecked. Let the threat to our democracy run the table on Iran while they calculate the political upside. It is sickening. And there are better leaders available to us.
They stay comfortable doing this because nothing in their political lives forces them not to. That insulation is not an accident. It is a structure. Hakeem Jeffries won his last primary with 23,145 votes. His challenger got 3,402. Fewer than 27,000 total votes is what made him the unbeatable House Democratic leader. He is not invincible. He is a guy who won a low-turnout primary in a safe district and parlayed it into leading the opposition to the most aggressive consolidation of executive power in modern American history. With ongoing conversations.
Primary turnout in congressional races runs between two and five percent of eligible voters. The people making these decisions are not a majority. They are a small organized group. It does not have to stay that way.
On the Senate side, Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who has been in office since 2009, was asked this week whether he supports Chuck Schumer as minority leader. His answer: “Do I look stupid?” His best defense of Schumer was that nobody fundraises harder. Not that he’s winning fights. Not that he’s stopping anything. That he raises money. That’s not a defense. That’s a eulogy.
More than 80 Democratic House candidates across the country are either non-committal on backing Jeffries or outright opposed to him. Warner won’t defend his own leader. The press is asking the question. The candidates are hedging. The base is done.
The energy in the streets today, the frustration that has been building for two years, the growing list of candidates who won’t say Jeffries’ name with a straight face — that is an ember. It needs to become an inferno of demands. Every candidate running in a competitive district should have to answer one question before they get one dollar of grassroots money, one hour of volunteer time, one endorsement from anyone who was in the streets today. Will you fight to replace this leadership. Yes or no.
This is the path to defeating MAGA in 2026 and 2028. Trump is at 36 percent. The war is unpopular. The conditions for a wave election are forming right now. But waves require contrast. Voters do not turn out to replace one party that manages the decline with another party that manages the decline. They turn out when they believe something will actually change. That requires leaders who understand what is at stake. Jeffries and Schumer do not. Their answer to an illegal war, a cratered approval rating, and the biggest protests in American history is ongoing conversations and strongly worded letters.
That changes when the leadership changes. Not after 2026. Before it.
NotKeem.com and ChuckSchumerIsBadAtHisJob.com launches today.
Both go to the same place. The goal is simple: find out, on the record, where every Democratic incumbent and candidate in key districts stand on leadership. Will they support new House and Senate leadership or will they defend what we have. Yes or no. No process concerns. No timing objections. Just the answer.
Show up. Town halls. Campaign events. Candidate forums. Anywhere a Democratic candidate is taking questions in a district that matters. You ask the question. You film the answer. You film the dodge. We will help you find the events. We will give you the questions. We will help you get the footage out. What we cannot supply is a constituent in the room who lives in that district and has every right to demand an answer. That is you.
Share everything. One video of a candidate saying yes becomes a template. One video of a candidate dodging becomes the story. The press is circling this. Warner proved it this week. What reporters need to write the bigger story is evidence that voters are asking it too. You showing up in that room and putting it online is that evidence. If you have a following, even a modest one, push the clips. This spreads through people, not algorithms.
Sign up at NotKeem.com. Tell us your district. Tell us if you have a platform. Tell us if you can show up. We will connect you with everything you need.
Donate at AFightWorthHaving.com. I’ve spent a long time writing about what’s broken. People ask me what to do about it. A Fight Worth Having is my answer. It’s a super PAC that runs independent expenditure campaigns behind candidates willing to take on their own party, take on corporate money, and take on the lobbying operations that have turned Congress into a permission slip for the donor class. We don’t wait for the party to anoint someone. We find the fighters and we back them.
The millions of people in the streets today were not asking for a strongly worded letter. They were asking to be heard. The leaders we have now cannot hear them. They are too insulated, too funded, too comfortable.
We do not fix that by waiting. We fix it by replacing them.
Go to NotKeem.com. Sign up. Show up. The ember is lit. Let’s make it an inferno.
Corbin
I've spent a long time writing about what's broken. People ask me what to do about it. A Fight Worth Having is my answer. It's a super PAC that runs independent expenditure campaigns behind candidates willing to take on their own party, take on corporate money, and take on the lobbying operations that have turned Congress into a permission slip for the donor class. We don't wait for the party to anoint someone. We find the fighters and we back them. AFightWorthHaving.com
I’m a recurring donor to your PAC. The Dem Old Guard needs to be kicked out, and all its enablers and its billionaire owners.
This system is broken. One side is evil, and the other side thinks it’s a game (that they’re rigging, but not for us). Meanwhile the world is burning. It’s a fight for existence.
Establishment Democrats are not a legitimate opposition party. They are responsible for Trump being in office and this must change if we are to rid ourselves of these toxic fascists.