In 2025, Having Hope is a Choice
Hi Friends,
2024 is coming to a close, so I wanted to briefly reflect a bit on this past year, and share some of my thoughts about the paths we should be charting and the fights we’ll need to take on in 2025.
Before we dig in, I need to ask something of you. We have our work cut out for us — not just these next few months, but these next few years. And I believe, with all of my heart, that the independent political power of the Working Families Party is a vital mechanism for the fights ahead. So if you’re already on board, please help build our organizational power by making a donation today. And if you’re still feeling burned by November’s elections, I hope you’ll let me explain why what we’re building is not the same old, same old.
First, the elephant in the room: the last month and a half has left so many of us reeling, and rightfully so. Donald Trump — an ambassador for billionaires and far-right zealots — won the presidency. And Republicans won both the Senate and the House.
The easy response to this is to point fingers and blame voters. Or simply retreat, shut down, and tune out.
And yes, while it’s true that the Democratic Party needs a serious wake-up call — about their treatment of the working class, and their repeated desire to cater to moderate-conservatives and the ultra-wealthy — it is also a fatal mistake to give into despair and resentment.
What Trump and the whole billionaire class want most is for us to give up our power and surrender to their attacks.
They want moderate Democrats punching down at staunch progressives. They want those staunch progressives turning their backs on the party, too. And most of all, they want us to think that this fight is simply an issue of red vs. blue.
In reality, this fight is about the billionaires vs. all of us.
People all across the political spectrum share the belief that the two-party system is failing them, and will continue to fail them.
Now more than ever, we must build community — to protect each other from harmful attacks, to fill the gaps where our government falls short, and to build lasting power for the future.
We can’t wait around for the system to change on its own. Both major parties have failed working people, and it’s time to build independent political power — one that centers solidarity, and focuses on winning victories that families can see and feel.
Not just at the federal level either, which all too-often attracts all the attention. But in towns, cities, and municipalities across the country.
So our next steps are twofold:
1. Muster all of our political and organizational might to fight back against Trump and his Project 2025 agenda. The threats to working families are not to be taken lightly. But neither is our resolve.
2. Toss out the old playbooks and start laying a new groundwork to win back power in 2026 and 2028. We need to be inviting MORE people into our tent, not closing the doors on them. And that starts with winning over the same working class voters who may have gone a different way this year.
The bottom line is this: having hope is a choice.
Yes, there is a real, unquestionable reason to feel scared about the future right now. But building a country that works for the people — where families aren’t struggling on the streets from exploitation by corporations and utter apathy by our government — is on all of us.
If you’ve stored your info with ActBlue Express, we’ll process your contribution to WFP instantly:
With love and solidarity,
Maurice Mitchell
National Director
Working Families Party
