We need the old timers running the party to step aside. Give up the reigns, retire when they’re able and let younger blood fill their seats, or give their blessings to 3rd parties and choose not to run against them (and preferably without outright endorsing them either so the Republicans have a harder time making the claim that they’re just the same Democrats wearing a different hat, just step aside, choose not to run a candidate, and let the new parties do their thing)

We need younger people to step up. Run for office, call and write to your elected officials, show up to vote, demonstrate in the streets, etc. pay attention to politics (no one like politics except fucking sociopaths, but they’re part of how the world works, trying to ignore them because it’s boring or it makes you mad or whatever has the same kind of energy as pretending gravity doesn’t exist because you don’t like it when you fall and scrape your knees- you’re just going to get hurt even worse if you don’t take those basic forces of the world into account.)

We need to take a step back and agree on a list of priorities. Ask 100 liberals/leftists/democrats what the most important issues are to them and you’re probably going to get 100 different lists. Climate change, LGBTQ rights, wealth inequality, healthcare, police reform, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, homelessness, drug abuse, legalizing marijuana, raising the minimum wage, foreign policy, domestic surveillance, free speech, corruption, term limits, etc. just to name a few off the very top of my head

And frankly, we need to pare that down to a handful of solid issues that appeal to as broad of an audience as possible and that we can agree that these issues are the most pressing and we must make real progress on right now because there won’t be a later, and we need to agree to suck it up on some of the other issues that need to go on the back-burner for now, especially since those issues don’t have as broad support yet and so trying to bundle them in with our overall policy is just torpedoing our efforts to make any sort of progress at all.

LGBTQ rights for instance, they’re human rights, and they should be a goal that we’re striving for. We also don’t really have the popular support needed to get much done there, often even within our own “liberal” parties the numbers aren’t looking great. We should be proud of what we’ve accomplished and fight tooth and nail to hold onto whatever gains we’ve made, but we may need to walk this back from being a top-of-the-ballot issue and accept that maybe we need to deal with, for example, the climate catastrophe that is happening right fucking now and do whatever we can to prevent world war fucking 3 from breaking out in Europe first.

And we can also claim some pretty significant victories for LGBTQ people if we just avoid framing them as an LGBTQ issue. If you slap an LGBTQ sticker on a law, CHUDs will come out of the woodwork to make up excuses about why it’s bad. But if you play your cards right and avoid their trigger words you might just be able to slip some healthcare, wealth inequality, education, and police reforms through that will both help LGBTQ people now (because a rising tide raises all ships) and pave the way for further advancements down the line (because a better educated populace with less issues of their own won’t feel as much need to make LGBTQ people their scapegoat for every minor inconvenience)

Or if you don’t have the patience or will to do that, the other two options are

1. Accept defeat. You live in maga world now, live by their rules or risk the consequences.

2. Full-on revolution, no half measures, organize fast, hit them hard before they have a chance to do anything about it and rebuild the world better.

I have no desire to live in maga world. I also don’t have any desire to live through what would surely be bloody revolution with no guarantees that the right people will come out on top, so I am really hoping people get the hell on board with plan A.