33 Comments

how are you doing? 💜

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You have been on my mind the past few days, Liz. Your dedication in the past few months (and much longer!) is stunning, and I can’t imagine how the results have been affecting you. We’re all going to keep fighting, keep loving, and keep believing together💗✨🫶

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I really appreciate this column.

I read it to my wife as well.

Having lived through Clinton’s balanced budget, Bush’s deficit, Obama’s restoration, Trump’s deficit and Biden’s restoration I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s coming next aside from the deportations, tariffs and the unpleasant surprises the absence of guard rails and “official acts” immunity will bring.

Regarding how I’m feeling, getting geared up for the fight. This sums up where I’m at, physically, emotionally and psychologically:

1) I’m in the Philippines - retired with my Philippine, dual citizen wife of 39 years. 2) I’m 69. She’s 68. We voted for Kamala. I donated. 3) We’re both on fixed income. That, among other things may likely change going forward. More than anything, we’re not energized, we’re demoralized. I feel no joy in this. More like resignation. I see an entrenched white christian nationalist resentment fostered by a mealy mouthed, mush brained, narcissistic, would be authoritarian, fascist untethered. I’m not optimistic about the future of America. I don’t know what I could or am interested in contributing.

I’m ready to move on. I’ll follow the conversation, but, carry on without me. Best of luck.

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I loved this newsletter. Thank you.

This is my current fear, and I haven’t known where to share it. One thing I feel worried about is how well, deeply, accurately, quickly reporters will be able to cover a Trump administration that surely won’t see any need to follow any rules or norms around press briefings or record-keeping. Will we be able to know what’s going on? Who’s in what meetings? Who’s making what deals? Who can get in there to ask those questions? Which media will have access at all, and who will publish anything resembling actual reporting? Will it just be the right-wing media breaking news and breaking it into propaganda, and everyone else will just have to react and piece things together?

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Thanks, Liz, for all your hard work and for sharing your thoughts. I’ve been feeling naive to be so surprised, but you’re right, there’s nothing embarrassing about having hope and believing in the best of us.

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hope is not cringe!! it’s beautiful!!

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Thank you for this beautiful newsletter that brought me to tears.

Over the last few months, as I've been trying to find scraps of hope, I keep coming back to your flirt campaigning. I'm a therapist, and I've told several clients about you doing this, as well, to help them build hope that bringing people over is possible and there are people out there doing grassroots work to change people's minds.

I was wondering - do you have any resources for people looking to do more work like that? - specifically, calm, level-headed conversations that are persuasive and that challenge opposing viewpoints? I tend to get so hot-headed and either clam up, or I boil over and start yelling. I'd love to get better at tethering those automatic responses to engage with people and help them to see the holes in their points of view.

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Fuck, Liz. Great piece. I'm overseas now, and while I'm having a fun vacation, this has been on the back of my mind. I couldn't completely articulate how I'm feeling until I read this. I accept the loss, as well as the fights to come. I feel sadness for those who will be most deeply affected, yet somehow I feel a sense of hope that things will be corrected with time and work. Thank you!

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yes! radical acceptance + being rabidly hopeful will get us through these next four years!!

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Thank you. For all of it.

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❤️❤️❤️

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Too many Americans have the memory of goldfishes. Biden won mostly due to not being Trump. Maybe things would have been different if Biden stepped down earlier and the Dems held an election for the spot. Buy we hypothesize all day.

What really failed was the lack of turnout by Democrats. You can't win if you don't show up.

I'm lucky to live in the state of New York and vote in my first election and recognize the privilege that comes with it.

All we can hope for now is that the Republicans take the chance and invoke the 25th ammendment on Trump due to mental incompetence. Based off his victory speech, he definitely has alzheimers. There is a stark difference between 2020 Trump and 2024 Trump.

JD Vance is all talk no bite. His job was to take focus off of Trump and secure a republican victory.

Liz, take your time. We all love you and deeply appreciate all the work you have done and will do in the future.

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The community you've built is the sole reason I am who I am today. You have impacted my life in so many positive ways and helped develop the woman I am (and am becoming). Your individual impact is bigger than an election outcome. Pinky promise. (Although all of the feels are valid).

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Thank you for this Liz. I can’t imagine how much harder it was for someone so deeply entrenched in the fight than for me, a Canadian watching horrified by the result so I hope you are taking care of yourself ❤️

My line of thought is very similar to yours - the Dems have missed an important part of the conversation. We can be mad that it looks like men (and a lot of white women) and rail about how shocked we are and how upset we are by the way they voted, but where does that anger get us? No one but ourselves will suffer for it.

So I appreciate your suggestion of more listening and understanding being required. That it isn’t all racism and misogyny (though definitely plenty of that, and to me those are not the reachable people), that there is hope because there are absolutely people that just don’t understand or are focussed on their own circumstances.

I’ve also been hearing of how some people are going to shift their focus to local communities and making sure people have what they need. Maybe it isn’t up to the politicians to do that work. Maybe we should just turn our backs on all of them and just focus on doing the work day to day.

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PS - I think Biden should resign so she can become the first female and black Asian female President.

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Oh Liz. Thank you for this. The devastation is so difficult to verbalize. Especially to the ones around me who seem to just be able to carry on as normal. It occurred to me today, as I started to come out of the fog of the last few days, that I won’t be able to hear you every week anymore. In the depths of all of this, that was just unacceptable, so I ran here to subscribe. Reading this has brought a little peace to my heart, among many. Everything you did for this movement left the world a slightly better place. From the giggles you kindled to votes you swung. You’ll always be a beacon for those of us with, what some would say, is a little too much… love? Hope? Faith in humanity? I don’t have the words, but I am grateful for your fight and your joy. I look forward to reading but I sure will miss laughing along with y'all in my earbuds each week. Mend your heart and take of yourself 💪🫶

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I’m a new subscriber here because of that as well! New to Substack, but so many people I respect seem to be sharing here so this was the push I needed!

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I've been thinking about you this week. Thanks for all your tireless effort. You truly did all you could. Also this post is perfect.

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Thank you for this beautiful peace. I’m forever reminded of the both/and of it all.

I also appreciate the reminder that the fight isn’t just for the ones we agree with - it’s for everybody. I’ll be continuing to mutter the serenity prayer under my breath for the next few years. ❤️❤️

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Thank you Liz for everything you did, all the energy you brought and now your for comforting words. Nothing cringe about it! Now, please rest and take care of yourself. We’ve got mountains to move!

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Liz, as the conditions surrounding the election grew more and more chaotic and uncertain, your voice was a constant light in an often uninspiring landscape. After Biden's debate, when I felt down but still hopeful, your newsletter response lifted my spirit with its coherent vision. Each successive evolution of the Hotties for Harris campaign left me smiling and in awe of what you were able to help co-create. And again, today, you've offered us another heartfelt gift in sharing your vision for what the future can hold for us if we stay true to our values and stay in the fight. Thank you for all the work you put into being the compassionate and capable leader you are - you help me to trust that the future is bright.

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Hey Liz. I have been reading the free newsletter for quite some time and this one finally convinced me to become a paid subscriber. Thank you for this. I needed it. This past weekend we took our three young boys up to Wisconsin and knocked doors for Kamala as a family. They were such troopers, even in the pouring rain. And to go from that to the day after the election where we had to explain to them what happened while holding it together, it was awful. I'm still processing it all but I appreciate you sharing yourself here. It makes us all feel less alone in it.

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Hey Liz you are only guilty of drawing the rational conclusion that people would vote for her over Trump. She should have won in a landslide; instead he did! It's the people who voted for him who should be embarrassed but they lack the education or critical reasoning skills or moral intelligence to know they should be embarrassed because they don't know they did anything stupid. Now we have to worry about MSNBC going centrist/semi-conservative. They are already talking nonsense about a "realignment." Joe Scarborough as far as I'm concerned has exposed himself and his little staff of secretly Republican pundits. He doesn't really believe in LGBTQ + rights at all; he doesn't care!

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