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OK, so let’s get political. What does a Project and Program Manager think about Election 2026 and structural issues. I know you’re waiting to get to that. OK, maybe not, but trust me, I’ve been thinking about this awhile, and Election 2026 has actually fit my theories and then some.
So we saw a Blue Tsunami. Being upfront about my political preferences for democracy and freedom, I’m thrilled. But I also want to analyze what happened and what it means organizationally. I’ve been watching political changes for sometime, and 2026 is when “a lot of things came together,” where trends became realized – and it’s a change in American politics.
Let’s talk what we saw organizationally. Am I going to be fair? Not really, because I want to be blunt.
The Republican Party is essentially a party of media, and has been evolving that way since Regan (if not earlier). From the Influencer types ranging from seasoned political operators, to conspiracy theorists, to assorted “chuds” it’s grown up around media, showmanship, memes, and marketing. It’s no surprise Trump fit right in, and putting on a show is easier than governing.
Of course the party had to reconcile its conflicting elements – the monied class, religious masses, some outright bigots, and so on. But when you’re good at putting on a show you can do that for awhile. Also they had money and Citizens United and the like helped.
Meanwhile the Democrats have been a coalition party for a long time, to the point there’s jokes about it. They weren’t about unity, which is why I think people like Clinton and Obama, who could speak and build consensus (or at least triangulate) paid off. Democrats don’t have anyone banding them together unless they’re quite remarkable, but that conflict and difference can create a deep bench (note the many current and upcoming stars).
The thing Democrats had (that I think got missed) was networking and real grassroots effort, oft from independent and semi-independent groups. That had been around awhile but got turbocharged during the first Trump administration with groups like Indivisible, etc. But you have decades of organizing and networking and that kept coming together. Trump Administration 2 was even more of a driver to do something, so people rallied to protest and to resist – and that leads to political involvement. There was a lot of local work, and you’ll notice many candidates went very local in the party.
Also after losing to Trump TWICE, I think the Democrats wanted direction, and these networks helped provide direction and energy. Whether party leadership wanted it or not.
So you have widespread, interconnected networks against a top-down system around one guy and his donors/manipulators/sycophants. The people in a top-down system aren’t going to notice the networks as they think in terms of hierarchy. Worse the Republican party’s increasing media focus means they were thinking in memes, reality shows, and pithy statements which doesn’t deliver for people.
Trump knew how to run against a person and turn things into WWE. So did the GOP. But how do you run against a movement with no identifiable faces but a legion of them? I mean they wanted me to care about Hasan Piker and I keep forgetting who he is. I just know he’s got great abs and I have to work out more.
So they got stomped because they literally couldn’t see the opposition. In fact, I think they still can’t, because people seem stunned. What you had was a predictable network effect that you can see in modern times (Hungary, Serbia, etc.) as well as past activities (Civil Rights, etc.). People were pissed, they did something, and they leveraged existing networks and built new ones and that creates widespread organizational power with no one vulnerability that’s hard to assess.
Organizationally, it’s all kind of understandable – it’s similar to Agile methods in many ways. It’s basic organization and response, and it’s not like America hasn’t been surprised by distributed organizations before.. I’d say I’m disappointed in the mainstream media being surprised, but I’m just disappointed with them in general.
But now you’ve got other organizational issues coming up. The Republican Party is losing it’s strongman/figurehead/star one way or another, but their system is built for a Head Daddy Figure (I mean look at how Regan was treated). That means a battle for the position and the bench of candidates out there is not exactly inspiring.
But there’s also a large network of people out there who form a fractious but broad kind of Center-Left coalition that’s pro-democracy. It elected Democrats, but it is MUCH bigger than the idea of a Democratic Party. It also has a lot of people who got active or got more active as they felt actively threatened by the GOP. These people are networked and also will never vote GOP again and assume the party is a potential threat on their own, not because some talking head told them to.
Based on what I saw I expect 2028 to be 2026ish in that Democrats will outperform Republicans. I expect them to have all 3 branches of government and hold or expand their positions in States. How much depends on how elected Democrats respond and listen to the network out there – honestly if you’re lazy at this rate you could just sign off on whatever is popular and probably coast to victory.
As for the Republican Party? I think there’s about to be time in the Wilderness. I’m not sure what happens next because we have parties not just with different philosophies but completely different organizational structures. For the Republican Party to survive it could broaden, split, consolidate, etc. I have no idea at this time.
But I’m going to watch.
Steven Savage