Navigating the Crisis: Why the Left Must Unite for the 2026 Midterms
I struggled to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024.
There, I said it.
As someone that is somewhere in the Social Democrat bucket, she was far from my first choice but it was clear that "anyone but Donald Trump" was the only way forward. I had a lot of conversations in person and online with a slew of people across the political spectrum that disagreed with me, claiming that the moral choices were to vote for a third party or abstaining entirely from the voting process.
Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 after the last eighteen months of Trump's second term. I won't go into the grave details of all the ways he has dismantled this broken democracy we once knew while profiting wildly from his position.
People were hopeful that a third party would have been the ticket to beating Trump and if that didn't work, they hoped he wouldn't be successful in implementing Project 2025. There were a lot of voters on all sides that believed Trump's denial of the Heritage Foundation's magnum opus to be truthful. Project 2025 is sitting at fifty-five percent completion with the remaining 832 days of his term looming like a dark cloud.
The infighting between the branches of the left was fully on display during the 2024 election season and it doesn't seem to have lessened since then. Harris wasn't "left" enough and shied away from being critical of Israel's genocide in Gaza. The former was dubious and could be argued and the latter is what most leftists cited as their reasoning why they couldn't support her. Unfortunately, the pitfalls of single issue voting were glaringly obvious while the genocide in Gaza became the nail in the coffin of Harris's controversially rushed campaign.
The Stakes of the Midterms
All of that being said, the 2026 midterms are looming upon us now that the primary season has concluded. All 435 House seats are up for grabs along with 35 Senate seats; it is entirely within grasp for the Democrats to successfully claim a majority in both. While thinking back on the last eighteen months it's hard to deny that, once again, the US is hurtling toward yet another consequential election that will have cascading impacts for years to come. The corruption from the Trump administration is front and center for all to watch while the cost of living continues to increase due to a multitude of avoidable factors, including the Iran war.
Now is not the time to try and fix the two-party system or take a moral stand. I understand fully and agree entirely that Israel's war crimes need to end. I understand that some parts of the left want centrism while others want progressivism. I understand that there are parts of all flavors of the left that the other cannot stand. Now is not the time, we are in an existential crisis.
Reclaiming Congress
The left needs to take back control of Congress to have any chance to put the brakes on the Iran War, to reign in the corruption of Trump and his cronies, and to try to make meaningful change to improve the lives of Americans. The electoral choices in the 2026 midterms on the left will not be perfect for everyone, that is the absolute bottom line, but we cannot continue down this road without some guardrails. Regaining control of Congress is a major first step toward correcting course and is the only one that matters in the short term.
After the midterms, if successful, the collective left can try to regroup and figure out a way forward with regard to the 2028 Presidential Election, or not. But the infighting absolutely cannot continue if we stand any chance to try and win the midterms. This country is fundamentally broken and continuing to break with every passing day that Trump is allowed to continue with unchecked power. We don't have the luxury of two sides of the left being on the ballot in November, we have Democrats of all flavors under one banner and we have MAGA.
Those are the only choices.
Uniting as one blue can and will change our trajectory away from the existential crisis we are currently trapped in. MAGA doesn't care if we are fighting about Gaza, Medicare For All, or the myriad of other issues the left can't agree upon. MAGA is going to vote MAGA regardless if they agree with each other or not.
The left cannot afford to be silenced and divided.