A Big Effin’ Tent

Pundits want us divided, but Democrats proved we can win everywhere

Now that’s how you do an Election Night!

Tuesday was a HUGE night for Democrats and shitty night for Donald Trump and his cult. It was also a bad night for pundits who have devoted the last year to throwing trans people under the bus and elevating one Democratic candidate over another irrespective of where they were running.

What those pundits don’t get is that Democrats won on Tuesday night by sticking to a core set of values — focusing on affordability, standing up for the marginalized and standing up to President Asshead. Whether it was Abigail Spanberger in Virginia or Zohran Mamdani in New York City, Democrats ran by running authentic and disciplined campaigns that flew in the face of post-2024 conventional wisdom.

We are a big tent. And we stay a big tent by being true to ourselves. Contorting ourselves into more palatable versions of Republicans was always a loser idea, and that should be crystal clear after Tuesday night. Thank goodness our candidates and their teams ignored that noise and ran campaigns they could be proud of. We are proud of them. And we are proud to be Democrats tonight.

In Virginia, the Republican candidate disgraced herself and got blown out by running a largely anti-trans campaign. It didn’t work. What’s more, Spanberger didn’t take the bait, proving that defending marginalized communities isn’t the Achilles Heel we’re led to believe it is.

Zohran Mamdani had every racist play in the racism playbook thrown at him. He responded by cutting an ad in Arabic.

There’s a lesson here for Washington Democrats who might be on the fence about the government shutdown. Americans are crying out for accountability, and they are rewarding the courageous people who take on Trump at a time when far too many are bending the knee. As painful as the shutdown is, capitulating to a tyrant would be worse.

There’s also a lesson here for us rank-and-file non-crazy non-asshole voters — America ain’t over yet.

We have endured a year of hell that began last November with a devastating heartbreak. We could have packed it in, thrown up our hands and given up. But we didn’t. We marched, we protested, we cussed, we fought, we resisted, we threw sandwiches and we won. Trump isn’t inevitable, and we shouldn’t act like he is.

But that’s only true if we build a really big damn tent to stop him. It’s gonna take Zohrans and Abigails to turn back the tide of fascism in America. That’s an opportunity. That’s a reason to be hopeful. It’s only a problem if you’re a pundit who has never actually won any elections.

Congratulations on a wonderful night. Thank you to the candidates, their families and their campaign teams. And thank you! Your contributions and hard work made tonight’s middle finger to Trump possible, and we are really damn grateful.

Now on to 2026.