Obama speechwriter (2009-17) | Bestselling author of SAY IT WELL: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience | Keynote Speaker | Adjunct Professor, American University | Global Voices Communications
To our friends around the world asking, “What’s going on?” Well… 77 million Americans voted for Trump. 78 million voted for other candidates… So, no, it was not a “landslide.” It was another close election in a very divided country. How are we doing, you ask? Yes, we’re disheartened. Like you, we are deeply, deeply concerned about what we’re witnessing every day. Good, innocent people are being hurt -- across the United States and around the world. There's a lot of anxiety and fear, especially about what comes next. But we want you to know -- we’re still here. The majority of Americans did not vote for this. A majority of Americans, according to the latest polls, do not approve of this. We know we are not alone. We are not powerless. And we’re not going anywhere. Yes, Trump won the most votes. He won the election. He has a right to pursue his policies. But we are still a nation of laws, and he does not have a right to violate them. So we’ll keep standing up for the country we believe in. For rights enshrined in our Constitution. For the rule of law. For justice. For treating one another with empathy and compassion. For a country where power comes from the people, not a king. It may not always make the headlines, but know that we’re standing up. We're standing up in town halls in our communities. We're standing up in the streets. We’re standing up in Congress. We’re standing up in the courts. We’re standing up in our neighborhoods, schools, companies, libraries, and our organizations. We’re standing up here online—connecting with, empowering, and inspiring each other and lifting up the stories and voices of Americans who are courageously speaking out. We’re under no illusions. This is not a time for blind faith or wishful thinking. It's not to say that everything will be OK. It won't, especially for vulnerable people. We're only a few weeks in. This will get worse before it gets better. As we stand up, sometimes we’ll win. Sometimes we’ll lose. We may not be able to stop the worst abuses. But we promise you — we're not giving up. We’ll do everything we can everywhere we can every day we can to preserve this country that we love. As a nation, as a people, we’ve been through challenging times before -- horrors and hardships that have tested whether this great American experiment could survive. Slavery. A civil war. Segregation. A Great Depression. Social unrest. Mass movements for justice and equality. And now, as then, we draw strength from each other and what we know in our hearts: We shall overcome. We will endure. Because when it comes to standing up for the country and values we believe in, we’re still guided by those words of long ago: “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never.” Though hard to see right now, the America you know is still here, and — after the storm — we’ll still be standing. 🇺🇸 2024 election results: https://lnkd.in/eNVkcXdB
In Poland, a party elected by 1/3 of voters ruled for 8 years. This group supported and still supports your current president. Due to the rule of this group, Poland has lost the image of a democratic country, which is closer to authoritarian Hungary and Russia. In 2024, thanks to enormous mobilization of citizens, we returned to the civilized world. Unfortunately, we have lost a lot during this time. But we rose. I keep my fingers crossed that America will also regain its democratic glory in 4 years.
Sorry to be so blunt, but this post reads like a collection of platitudes and borders on the farcical given the current context. America is undergoing a Fascist coup. The current world order (whatever little value it offered) is being destabilized if not destroyed, and desperate, defenseless populations are being abused if not killed (more than before). The post gestures vaguely towards the challenging times of the past, as if this is about America alone, as if everyone will magically endure, as if they're all privileged enough to sit it out, as if things will smoothly return to the status quo, as if things were fine to begin with, and as if there is no individual agency, responsibility or guilt involved. The unvarnished truth is that everything meant to defend the common person is being weaponized against them, defense and security forces are being lined up against citizens, workers' incomes are being funneled into the pockets of billionaire grifters, bigots and zealots are being empowered, the planet's being destroyed, it's all happening at breakneck pace, the system isn't designed to handle it, and almost nothing is being done to reverse the process. When will Americans finally grow out of navel-gazing and confront reality?
Still thinking that this platform should be utilized for business content.
We see these posts all the time—self-righteous calls to “stand up,” as if only one side cares about the country. It’s the same echo chamber, pretending half the nation doesn’t exist. Yes, the 2024 election was close. Trump won decisively in the Electoral College and secured the popular vote, yet many still act as if his victory was illegitimate. This country remains deeply divided, no matter how often one side claims moral superiority. And January 6? About 2,000 people unlawfully entered the Capitol—0.0027% of Trump’s 2020 voters. Yet for years, that tiny fraction has been used to smear millions, while violent 2020 riots were excused as “mostly peaceful.” The hypocrisy is staggering. We didn’t vote for Harris because we saw what was coming—border chaos, weak leadership abroad, and policies that put ideology over Americans’ well-being. And sure enough, it happened. Yet posts like this act as if resistance is a one-way street—like only their side has the right to push back. We believe in the Constitution, the rule of law, and a government that serves the people. We don’t need lectures on standing up—we’ve been doing it all along. In our communities. In Congress. In the courts. At the ballot box. And we’re not going anywhere.
It is too late. We Europeans can not have our security depend on an alliance there is on or off every 4 years depending on us election outcomes. The alliance between Europe and US is dead for at least the next 80 years. The only safe way forward for Europe is to increase support to Ukraine to kick out Putin and simultaneously rearm the European continent and invest in European defence industrial and technological capabilities and fiscal ok infrastructure instead of relying on us systems. The dollars days as international transaction currency is probably very limited.
Let’s be realistic about this. This is not about us hanging in there and is not just about Trump. Putin has been playing the long game and Trump has not been his only asset. This war was not fought on a battlefield. We still don’t realize we decisively lost the first battle in 2016 when Putin realized he could simply buy the help of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Now they have all branches of government, all the greedy oligarchs, and are reshaping democracy into the reGilded age of technofeudalism so they can control it. Us. I fear Americans have already given in and most certainly don’t understand what is going on. Trump has been clearly describing what is happening but in a way that blames others. The enemy now clearly comes from within. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Winning the popular vote, the House and the Senate is a landslide. If you want to put your fingers in your ears and make funny noises to avoid facing reality, that's a choice. But this is exactly what the people voted for and most of us are ecstatic that someone is finally doing something about government waste fraud and abuse that's been going on and getting progressively worse for generations.
The states are not "united" and the logical thing would be to move on and create two countries. It wouldn't be easy, but better than this, and we owe it to the world.
Obama speechwriter (2009-17) | Bestselling author of SAY IT WELL: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience | Keynote Speaker | Adjunct Professor, American University | Global Voices Communications
6dSo many messages of solidarity and support here, including from around the world. I can see it means a lot to so many Americans. Thank you! But also some messages that seem to boil down to: It’s too late. Game over. All is lost. There is no hope. Giving up never gets us anywhere. I’ll continue to use this space to celebrate and connect those who still have hope and who are courageously taking action for the America we were—and can be again. If you share that spirit, I hope you’ll follow along and, together, find the strength we need.