For a New Day

Andrew O'Hehir looks past next week.

In terms of conventional political outcomes, the recent explosion of activism among younger adults and teenagers, from the post-Parkland student movement to Greta Thunberg and the climate strikers to the massive Black Lives Matter protests all across America (and the world) this past summer, has not actually accomplished anything. But those are unmistakable expressions of political power that announce the rising consciousness of a new generation.

These younger activists have noticeably shifted the national temperature and the national discourse on guns and the climate crisis and police violence. They have helped create an environment where the widespread popular rejection of [Fuckface von Clownstick] and the Republican agenda seems not just possible but nearly inevitable. There is no way to know what long-term political impact they will have, but they offer far more lasting hope for the renewal of democracy than whatever President Joe Biden and a hypothetical Democratic Congress may accomplish.

This year's election will come and go — and that can't happen soon enough. But Americans are beginning to understand what political power is, and how it works. Maybe they'll learn to use it before it's too late.

Heather Digby Parton adds that "electoral grassroots organizing is still vital". State power is essential for political movements to have real accomplishments.

[T]he new progressives in Congress ... will need the passion and numbers of outside movements to help them leverage their power on the inside. If they can do that effectively they may end up showing the Republicans, and the world, what a government that's actually responsive to the people looks like.