Americans collaborate

Collaboration is the most important action that can happen now by any of the Democrat politicians that won in the 2026 US midterm elections.

Before being sworn in, before walking at the Capitol building or a governor’s house, finding a way to walk and listen and collaborate in both Republican and Democrat communities. No cameras or press. Taking notes on the most important problems that constituents are facing, and then following up in days or weeks or months, regardless of whether there is a complete solution or a partial solution or no solution yet found.

We need more representatives who know what it means to collaborate and communicate, and who will use both of those actions to find and implement solutions to the most important problems in their communities instead of scoring cheap and empty political points by only attacking others. That includes illegal immigrants, who should either be deported or given a clear path to citizenship (and a fair path, that doesn’t undermine the clear path that legal immigrants follow).

The failures of recent prior Democrat administrations created many of the problems that US citizens and non-citizens are facing today. Donald Trump and this new wave of Democrats can at least agree on that, while they collaborate to find solutions to major problems over the next two years.
If this new wave of Democrats does not find a way to collaborate and also to clearly identify that it is the failures of prior Democrat and prior Republican administrations to stand up to corrupt money in politics that created the problems we are dealing with today, then they will quickly find themselves losing elections in 2028.

I will again offer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as someone who is showing great leadership, with many new Democrats learning from her example. She does not mince words about Donald Trump’s bad decisions and political corruption broadly, but she also correctly identifies that it is the money in politics and some of the billionaires behind the scenes that are the bigger problem than Trump.

In many ways we are only in this moment because Donald Trump stood up to a clearly documented corrupt political class, funded by billionaires who supported both Democrats and Republicans. Trump also spent hours and hours meeting with citizens across the US during his rallies, talking both on and off the teleprompter and identifying real (and in many cases) politically-sensitive problems.

I hope Democrats and Republicans will both learn from those two examples, even if they disagree with many other policies and personal points from Trump.

There are still many issues I disagree with Trump and his administration about, but I see a path for the next two years to be more collaborative than combative.

If this new wave of Democrats want to have staying power and do not want to be grist in the mill of the political machine for Donald Trump and other Democrats and Republicans to punch at (which is the role many career politicians and corrupt billionaires are planning for them), then they will find a way to listen to their constituents and solve real problems, while reaching back to gain inspiration from the political leaders of the distant past who found ways to collaborate and serve with even more challenging circumstances than the ones we all face now.