Aren't you exhausted yet, my dear Democrats? Aren't you tired of waking up to your phone’s alarm clock, only to be sucked into the infinite scroll of political doom — the same grim story every day. But there IS a solution! And it all starts with 90 minutes of messaging deep work.
How long will you linger in Democratic misery before you realize that NOW is exactly the right moment to tell a new political story?
By Mike Reid | June 2025
Look, I'll be honest: I didn't even vote in the 2024 election.
I was too busy getting the hell out of the United States to vote.
Because after 15 years of working in politics, I was fed up.
After 15 years as a professional Democrat, I was exhausted.
So last fall, a month before the election, I sold all my furniture on Facebook Marketplace, I put my art in storage, I handed the keys of my apartment to my landlord, and I got on a plane to a country on the other side of the world.
I divested of the last remnants of my life as a Democratic elite, and I left the geographic confines of the United States of America.
And it was glorious! I rested and relaxed in a way that's impossible to do inside the United States right now.
Digital Hierarchy of Needs:
But being abroad while American democracy was falling apart was a drag, and so although every single American expat I met thought I was crazy to do so, I returned to the USA at the end of March.
I'd been gone almost six months.
And look. I knew it was going to be bad. I'd prepared myself for a dramatic increase in the cost of living and a simultaneous decrease in my quality of life — and that's exactly what I've experienced.
But being back in the USA is actually unimaginably worse than just that — and I haven't figured out how to explain it to y'all trapped in the blue portions of the United States for the last several miserable months (like fish swimming in an tank full of your own feces).
But the best way I can explain it is this:
I feel like I'm Bruce Springsteen watching Sting sing The Rising.
And maybe you're thinking, "I thought that was pretty good!"
And yes, sure. Technically, you're right.
Sting is pretty talented, and so even when he's singing a song that's not his own, he does a pretty decent job, right?
And Barack and Michelle were there and they looked like they were enjoying it — so it must have been good, right?
But THAT's exactly the problem.
Because you've forgot what GREAT is supposed to sound like.
You've forgotten how to dream bigger, my blue state comrades.
You've accepted good enough for so long — while the other side promised to make America GREAT again — that you thought the voters would be ok with just continuing to muddle through another four years of mediocre American leadership.
And then every day since Trump won, the Democrats have failed to do even a minimally acceptable job of balancing power, and yet blue Americans just shrug and say, "but what can I do about it anyway?"
Well, I say enough is enough!
Because don't you remember that bastard, orphan son of a whore, and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean who grew up to become Alexander Fucking Hamilton?
Jesus Christ, my fellow Americans, enough is enough!
So what can YOU do? Well, the first thing you can do is remember what The Rising — and what America — is SUPPOSED to feel like:
And then what else can you do???
Well, you can step away from whatever you're doing, and you can spend three days with me, Mike Reid — and together we'll build a website that communicates your bold new political ideas!
Step #1 is a website, designed for the political realities of 2025 and the coming AI realities of the 2026 election cycle.
Step #1 is to throw the usual or typical or comfortable approaches out the window — because that's exactly what got us into this mess in the first place — and to do something completely different.
But how do you even start creating something so different, right?
Well, I think the place to start is by developing a new storyline — a coherent political message that inspires with hope not fear — that makes sense for the political realities of 2025.
Storyline Development:
Villain: A broadly disliked thing (not a person)
Goal: To defeat the villain
Why: Because we ALL hate the villain
How: An exciting and energizing plan
Heroes: Numerous roles available
But inventing something new is going to take some serious creative energy, right? You can't dive into something deeply while you're also responding to emails or scrolling through online news, can you?
So here's what I suggest: What if we put our digital distractions aside and we spend 90 minutes of deep work together on storyline development? Over the phone, or in person. (Anything but Zoom.)
(Yeah, you'll need to block off a full two hours, so that we have a little bit of extra buffer time before we get started and afterward.)
And then if that goes well, why not put everything else aside for three glorious days of deep work — and become a pioneer of a new approach to communicating about politics on the internet?
And yes, doing politics so differently will be uncomfortable at first.
But if you're tired of feeling hopeless, if you're tired of watching the United States fall apart and feeling powerless to do anything about it, then this very NOW is the moment to do something about it!
So why not take a "gamble" on something fundamentally different?
Why not be a part of inventing a new way to scream about politics on the internet with an over-the-top level of positivity — instead of continuing to feel depressed and powerless?
Why not create something better than has ever existed before?