We ARE moving the needle.

Right now, my favorite historian is Rebecca Solnit. She’s the author of “Hope in the Dark, ” written in 2004 in response to George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, and other books on the history of movements. Her newest book, “The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change,” is in the same vein.

This quote from her Foreword to the 3^rd Edition (2015) of “Hope in the Dark” resonates with me. “Your opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win.”

Solnit’s premise is that while the opponents of progress want us to believe there’s no hope, we’re powerless, and we have no agency, those of us in the resistance refuse to believe that. Instead, we rely on what Stacey Abrams, my favorite organizer, says “I don’t talk about hope, I believe in being determined. Hope feels good, but I’m not optimistic or pessimistic. I am determined.”

We’re determined, too. We’re determined to resist the regressive forces of the past and own our ongoing successes brought about by the concerted work of progressive forces large and small.

I’m doing my part in the resistance by maintaining a focus on our forward movement and fighting against going backward.

For example, on January 20^th, 2025 at noon I held a zoom gathering in protest against the “fauxnauguration” (my word) happening simultaneously in Washington, DC. Why? Because I know and believe with every cell in my body that one of the best ways to push back against authoritarianism is gathering together to share and build on the energy of hope and resistance.

It’s too easy to lose hope when we focus on what we’re told are the macro trends – most politics right now – when they’re really the micro trends. Actually, they’re not even micro trends because they’re too of-the-moment.

We miss celebrating the true macro trends because we’re conditioned to think those micro trends matter the most.

This post actually came to me early last week. I had just watched the UCLA women’s basketball team beat my favorite team, the University of South Carolina for the NCAA Division 1 Women’s Basketball Championship. And the thought that echoes through my mind every single day, “We’re not going back,” kept playing on repeat in my head.

Two women’s college basketball teams playing a game that was again watched by more people than the men’s championship – that’s a macro trend. It’s better than sustainable; it’s expanding.

When we see women’s sports teams front and center – diverse teams on every metric – on national television with millions watching, it keeps women’s rights in tight focus.

Simultaneously, the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) was negotiating a massive, new, record-setting collective bargaining agreement under the Player’s Association banner of “Pay us what you owe us.” And the players didn’t budge.

I was watching the women’s national championship game when it hit me – four days earlier, we had launched a diverse crew of men and women 252,756 miles into space. We were treated to nine days of continuous coverage on YouTube with no commercial interruptions.

We reveled in nine days of a space program reminding us that there is an International Space Station where the United States, Italy, Russia (yes, Russia), Canada, Japan, and 24 (24!) other countries have collaborated to jointly explore space and share the knowledge gained there with the world. We even named it “moonjoy.” Indeed.

These are not accidents. These are not small achievements. These are macro trends. And there’s no going backwards from this progress. None.

According to Solnit, and I concur, the movements that carry us forward don’t always announce their progress loudly. Instead, they build mass, becoming stronger with every protest, demonstration, phone call, meeting, and vote.

As Solnit observed in a recent interview with The Guardian, “When it comes to the environment, often our victories look like nothing: the river that wasn’t dammed or is no longer polluted, the forest that wasn’t cut down, the species that didn’t go extinct. You cannot see them, but they were the result of heroic struggle, and to know that is to know we have tremendous power. These things were contingent on us actually showing up, on doing the work. We have to keep showing up and keep doing the work.”

The first wave of the Civil Rights movement, the expansion of women’s financial rights, the end of Vietnam, environmental protections, indigenous people’s rights, queer rights, immigrants’ rights, the second wave of the Civil Rights movement sparked by George Floyd and Say Her Name, the long push toward an equitable workplace – all of these movements represent evolution still in progress. They are messy, they fomented change, they are incomplete, and they are still in progress.

When I hear people rail against the stranglehold the Republican party has on our government, I point out that we are where we are today because the Republicans put together a plan in the late 1970’s and have executed it almost flawlessly.

Except for one HUGE thing.

The architects of Project 2025, and now Project 2029, all suffer from a fatal flaw: they regard people outside their elite circle with nothing but contempt – including their own supporters. Especially, their own supporters.

That type of hubris will always fail.

Hubris and ignorance. They’ll get you every time. And we’re watching it fail (and celebrating that failure) in real time.

We must remember we have already moved the needle towards democracy. Every phone call, demonstration, community meeting, Zoom call, conversation in a coffee shop moves the needle even, no, especially, when we either forget or can’t see that it’s been moved.

This week we watched the needle move – not just a little, but a full 180° flip - in real time. We witnessed the end of 16 years of authoritarianism in a formerly robust, democratic country. Hungarian voters kept showing up at elections until they voted Orbán out, proving to all of us that right-wing fascist dictators can and will be defeated.

Now Hungary will rebuild their democracy. And I’m sure they are determined to rebuild an even better government and country than they had 16 years ago.

We know the same vindication is coming to the United States. We’ve already seen it in early elections where Democrats were elected in former Republican strongholds. At least two fairly large cities have voted out their MAGA city councils and mayors and flipped to Democrats. Even the president’s own formerly staunchly Republican Florida State House district flipped Democrat.

We must remember when people band together, determined to exercise their agency for the good of all, they cannot fail.