Will this cost me my ENTIRE AUDIENCE?

Telling the truth isn’t always popular—but it’s still the job

The Big Beautiful Bill passed. Of course it did.

I wish I could say I was surprised. But I said it weeks ago—this was always going to pass. Not because it’s good policy. Not because the public wanted it. But because it was what the Trump-aligned GOP demanded. And when that’s the marching order, the rest falls into place. The votes, the spin, the headlines—already decided before the cameras start rolling.

That’s how this system works. Gerrymandered districts, a structurally imbalanced Senate, a hard-right judiciary, and a media environment that treats bad-faith actors as legitimate voices—it all adds up to a machine that churns out outcomes most people didn’t ask for and can’t stop.

Still, in the lead-up, there was a familiar rhythm. Activists said they had a shot. Lawmakers whispered about cracks in support. Group chats lit up with strategies and hope. And I get it—everyone wants to believe we can stop these things. That caring hard enough will change the vote count.

Even I started phrasing things like, if it passes. But I’ve done this long enough to recognize when something’s a real fight—and when it’s a scripted finale.

And this is where it gets hard, especially doing what I do. When I say plainly, “This bill is going to pass,” people accuse me of being defeatist. In the fall, when I called out that Trump was beating Harris in every swing state poll, people said I was spreading despair. After the June 27 debate, when I said Biden would end up pressured to step aside successfully, a very loud portion of the audience was furious.

But what’s the alternative? Sugarcoating reality? Pretending things are going well when they’re not?

That’s not what I do. My job isn’t to tell a feel-good story—it’s to tell the truth. And the truth is, this bill passed not because we didn’t protest enough, or call enough offices. It passed because the system is rigged to produce these results.

Now, that doesn’t mean pressure is meaningless. I do believe in making these votes painful. I believe in organizing, in calling donors, in showing up. We have to make it as hard as possible for them to govern with impunity.

But we also have to be honest: making them uncomfortable isn’t the same as holding power. And we don’t hold it right now—they do.

So the question isn’t why this happened. The question is what next.

We don’t spiral. We don’t disengage. We track what this bill does, we expose it, and we use it to build power that can’t be ignored next time. Because not every battle is about winning in the moment. Sometimes the point of the fight is to make sure they pay a price for winning.

And that starts with being honest about where we are.

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