Democrats can save the country from an authoritarian takeover, but to do so they must focus on systemic reforms, the author argues in this adaptation from his new book.
Ben Wikler and his dog Pumpkin greet attendees during Wisconsin Democrats Pet Out the Vote Event at UW-Madison on April 4, 2023.(Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images for Democratic Party of Wisconsin)
Ben Wikler wants his fellow Democrats to win in 2026 as a check and balance to the catastrophic presidency of Donald Trump. But the serial organizer—who served as campaign director for the global activist group Avaaz, Washington director for MoveOn.org, and chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, where he innovated a tech-savvy, door-knocking, agenda-setting model for winning over swing-state voters—wants so much more than an election victory.
When the party is returned to power, he argues in his new book, This Is the Plan, Democrats need to wield the gavels of power with a new sense of purpose to renew and expand democracy. In addition to the immediate work of easing the pain of the many who have suffered during the Trump years, Wikler says Democrats must systematically address the deep dysfunctions of American electioneering and governing—money in politics, racial and partisan gerrymandering, the right-wing judicial activism of the US Supreme Court, the fundamentally unfair Electoral College—with an honest recognition that those dysfunctions gave us Trumpism and could do so again.
This Is the Plan offers a vision for a multiyear project of system reform and voter empowerment that focuses on removing the barriers to achieving economic, social, and racial justice, and to saving the planet. Ben’s steady determination to identify the real forces that drive inequality and injustice—which I’ve witnessed since my fellow Wisconsinite was a teenager penning letters to the editor and organizing against corporate influence on education—is an antidote to the legitimate impatience and anger felt by Democratic voters over the broken state of contemporary politics. This essay, adapted from his remarkable book, is a blueprint for how we return the power of our democracy to the people. We would do well to consider it.
—John Nichols
Our country is spiraling into authoritarianism—but, together, we’re going to fight our way out.
How do I know? We’ve been doing it in Wisconsin, my beloved home. I’ve seen firsthand how thousands of grassroots activists working their hearts out to win elections at every political level, alongside a vast array of allies and partners, can build a movement that unrigs a political system. It’s how the Wisconsin Democratic Party stopped the world’s richest man from buying an election for a state Supreme Court justice. It’s how Democrats nationally swept off-year elections in 2025, and dramatically boosted turnout in special elections since Donald Trump began his second presidential term.
Here’s how we are going to end America’s meltdown and save democracy. But, as you read this plan, it’s essential to keep three fundamental principles in mind.
First: Your superpower is not just your vote, but your power to organize, to persuade, and above all to join or bring together a group of like-minded people to make grassroots engagement a part of your lives, week after week, year after year, election after election. As long as freedom survives—and despite Trump and his allies’ cruelty and ruthlessness, we’ve still got enough of it to keep on organizing—you’re free to use your freedom to fight for freedom’s survival.
Second: Your modus operandi should be to organize and advocate where you are, affecting elections in which you’re a constituent and seeking to affect the decisions of your own elected officials— and, at the same time, lend a long-distance hand to those on the front lines of the fight, in the tipping-point states, districts, and battles across the country where a little change can make a huge difference.
And third: remember that the potential voters whose votes are most pivotal—those who rarely vote, or who switch parties—are often the people who are thinking about politics the least. If you want to persuade them, don’t lecture. Listen to them about what they care about, find out where it intersects with what you care about, and then find a basis for common action.
Make sense? Okay. This is the plan.
With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.
As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
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Onward,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
2026
For democracy to survive, the single most important priority is likely to be found in state governments. That’s because elections are run by states, not by the federal government—despite Trump’s illegal efforts to try and override the Constitution. Thus, your goal this year: to achieve governing trifectas in the states whose Electoral College votes are likeliest to tip the presidency one way or the other in 2028. Reach that goal and we can make it very hard for Trump and his allies to nullify the result of the next presidential election.
Help turn out and persuade voters in the closest state legislative districts in the most likely 2028 battleground states—in a way that can simultaneously help win House seats and statewide contests. Where there’s a high-stakes statewide fight, organize everywhere— not just to swing purple areas but also to lose by less in deep-red areas and to drive up margins and turnout in blue ones.
Even as we lock down state trifectas, we should be aiming to win the US House and US Senate majorities. The more House and Senate seats we win in 2026, the more we can stem the damage of the Trump presidency and begin an era of accountability.
The closest state in 2024 was Wisconsin, which—after a years-long struggle against authoritarianism and gerrymandering, is finally within striking distance of turning into a blue trifecta.
The next closest Trump-won states from 2024 are Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona. Four of those states could become blue trifectas in 2026. In Georgia, ensuring that Keisha Lance Bottoms wins the governorship would prevent MAGA gerrymandering or election sabotage before 2028. In North Carolina, the key state-level targets are Anita Earls’s reelection to the state Supreme Court and the prevention of GOP supermajorities in the state legislature. In many of these states, offices key to election administration and jurisprudence—such as attorneys general, secretaries of state, state supreme court justices, and key local offices—will be on the ballot as well.
Those were the battleground states from the last three presidential elections—2024, 2020, and 2016. So, if it’s close, they’re the likeliest battlegrounds in 2028 as well. The GOP’s path to holding the presidency, in the short term, runs through those states. If you, if we, ensure that people who believe in democracy triumph in those states in the fall, then we’ll know that—if we win the presidential election in 2028—it won’t be overturned.
Not only that, but those states contain two key US Senate races and more than enough close US House races to move the speaker’s gavel to Hakeem Jeffries.
But let’s shoot bigger than that.
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Let’s open up every possible path to passing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. That’s a state law, already passed in states representing 222 Electoral College (EC) votes, that comes into effect once it’s been passed in states representing 270 EC votes—enough to determine the winner of a presidential election. Once it comes into effect, all the participating states assign their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Just like that, the idea of “battleground states” and “safe states” in presidential elections will be tossed into the dustbin of history, where it belongs.
That means aiming to win a trifecta in New Hampshire too—the state that Trump lost but came closest to winning in 2024 (Harris won by 2.8 percent). And let’s help the multi-partisan pro-democracy alliance in Alaska, which could yield a US House seat, a US Senate seat for Mary Peltola, and—if we win the governorship—a potentially NPVIC-friendly state trifecta in a state where Trump won by 13 percent.
To shoot for a US Senate majority, we’ll have to expand the map still further.
If we’ve defended Michigan and Georgia and flipped North Carolina and Alaska, we just need two more.
Let’s ease Susan Collins into a long-overdue retirement in Maine.
And let’s go for broke in Iowa, where we could win three US House seats (IA-01, IA-02, IA-03), the governorship, and the US Senate race.
In Ohio, let’s lend a hand to Sherrod Brown. And let’s put James Talarico into the US Senate seat in Texas. Don’t sleep on Dan Osborn in Nebraska. As Trump careens further into abyssal approval ratings, yet more opportunities continue to arise.
Want to adopt a House district? Want to travel to it to knock on some doors—but all of the states above sound inconveniently far away? Good news: There are also swing House districts that could benefit from your support—to defend Dems or defeat MAGA Republicans—all over the nation, very much including giant blue states like California and New York.
And there are winnable state legislative districts in every state. Winning more of them is critical to Callais-proof red states, especially in the South, that might try to re-gerrymander after 2026 to eliminate districts currently protected by the Voting Rights Act.
OK. Huge push for the 2026 midterm elections. Check.
And then: Do you stop? No. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. We’re building a permanent campaign.
2027
In 2027, we’ll advocate for our various state elected officials to pass policies that will upgrade the democratic processes in our states and make them dictator-proof. We’ll also push them to pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. And we’ll build grassroots support as they pass legislation that makes a direct, positive difference in the lives of regular people.
In some states, start collecting signatures for some ballot initiatives to raise wages, protect the environment and defend democracy. In states like Wisconsin, where the state legislature, not the people, launches the process of amending the state constitution, keep that on your advocacy to-do list as well.
At the same time, you can advocate for the new Democratic majorities in the US House and the US Senate to conduct aggressive oversight and prepare bills and coalitions around historic legislation for the next Democratic trifecta. The phone number for the Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Use it.
If Democrats and independents do win a majority in the US Senate in 2026, they should, immediately in 2027, amend the Senate’s rules to restore the vision of our country’s founders and make their legislative body a majority-rule institution. Bust the filibuster. Get it over with. Bring closure to 60-vote cloture.
Meanwhile, throughout 2027, you’re helping with state and local races in places like Wisconsin, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia. Don’t get rusty. Keep organizing.
2028
Big year.
We don’t know who the Democractic presidential nominee will be or what crises and issues will be dominating the news. Instead of fretting about the primaries and messaging, roll up your sleeves and build the general-election presidential operation in advance. Build state and local Democratic Party organizations. Elect democracy defenders to key offices in local and special elections and engage more and more voters and volunteers over time.
By the time the two parties nominate their candidates in 2028, you will have helped build the organizing and communicating juggernaut that will become your nominee’s campaign apparatus.
In 2028, your goal isn’t just to win the presidential election. It’s also to win as many seats as possible in the US House, US Senate, and state legislatures; to win the state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin (in April) and flip the state Supreme Court in North Carolina (in the fall); and to win all possible state executive offices, as well as local ones.
If it’s a 2016/2020/2024-style nail-biter, you’ll be glad you worked so damn hard. If it’s a 2008-style blowout, you’ll have a chance to win in places that seem impossible from the viewpoint of 2026.
You’re doing all this for two reasons. First, you want to generate as much positive change as possible. And second, you know that the next election, in 2030, is likely to be tough, because of the pattern of midterm backlash against incumbent presidents’ parties.
On election night in 2028, you’ll see the fruits of so many labors turn into electoral triumphs. You’ll cheer as your presidential candidate starts rolling up swing states. You’ll pump a fist in the air as Ron Johnson’s US Senate seat goes blue while Wisconsin Democrats hold on to their state legislative majorities. You’ll experience the rush of having helped change the world.
And you’ll recommit, even as you dance in the streets that night, to keep going. Because you know the fight isn’t over.
2029
Suppose we win in 2028. The first giant question of 2029 comes in January: Do we have a peaceful transfer of power, or not?
This will be the acid test.
The answer to that question depends on everything you, and the giant movement that you’re now part of, has achieved up to this point.
If the Electoral College is tied or subverted such that no candidate gets 270 Electoral College votes, then the job of determining who won the election will go to the House. Under the Constitution, each House delegation will get one vote. So our goal is not just to have a pro-democracy House majority—it’s to have, after the 121st Congress is sworn in at noon on Wednesday, January 3, 2029, pro-democracy majorities in a majority of House delegations. Right now, the GOP controls 30 out of 50 delegations. We’ve got two election cycles to change that. If this scenario happens, you’ll be very glad that you’ve leaned into House races in states like Iowa and Alaska.
Knock on wood: On Saturday, January 20, 2029, the next president and vice president of the United States will take their oaths of office. Not President Vance and Vice President Trump. Two entirely different people with entirely different names who belong to an entirely different party.
The nation, and the world, will finally exhale.
And then, after a killer party and a greasy breakfast, it’s time for the real work. Because 2029 has to be a year of action.
States with pro-democracy trifectas will have a great deal of work to continue from the 2027–28 legislative sessions. But now they’ll be joined by a federal government that can actually pass good-for-America bills into law, signed by a good-for-America, good-for-the-world president, and can then implement them in good faith. Along with whatever emergency bills are necessary in order to address whatever acute disaster Trump has left America as a parting gift, the federal trifecta of 2029 has to pass democracy reform. Right away.
The time will have come to pass the 2029 versions of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act—with voting rights protections, a national gerrymandering ban, donor disclosure requirements, and other anti-corruption measures.
But that’s just the start.
US Supreme Court reform: either 18-year term limits (after which justices, who have lifetime appointments, take “senior status” in which they don’t vote on cases), or a court expansion, or both.
Statehood for DC and, if Puerto Ricans so wish, Puerto Rico.
House reform: doubling its size, and adopting multi-member districts with proportional representation, so that everyone, across race and ethnicity and geography and ideology, can have a voice in the People’s House.
And then so much more. Economic policies that level the playing field and reward work instead of entrenching wealth. Laws that build prosperity and ensure that all of us, not just the few, benefit from it. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, and the Protect America’s Workforce Act. Comprehensive immigration reform. Maybe it’s time for a reorganization of the executive branch, to make it more effective and less susceptible to corruption and authoritarianism. Laws to ensure that artificial intelligence enriches us all, not just the few, and doesn’t undermine our livelihoods, our self-determination, or our existence. Laws to protect the rights and freedoms of every American, especially the most vulnerable. Measures to make life affordable, build opportunity, keep us safe, catch us when we fall, help us build the lives and families we choose, protect the earth, and lift up the dignity of all.
It’s not just that the executive and legislative branch will be in new hands. It’s that the laws they pass won’t be struck down by a rogue US Supreme Court.
In 2029, with new 18-year term limits on active service, the next president will be able to appoint a Supreme Court justice as the longest-serving justice, likely Clarence Thomas, moves to senior status, allowing him to spend even more time island hopping on Harlan Crow’s superyacht. We can hope that the court, knowing that its composition will mechanically shift over time, will stop ruling as though it will have a permanent MAGA-supporting majority.
Oh, and we shouldn’t forget a total recasting of America’s role in the world so that our foreign policy reflects both our values and our interests, in place of Trump’s approach, in which it reflects only his.
This will be the time for boldness. The year 2029 is shaping up to be one of those rare moments, like the period after the Civil War, the Great Depression, or World War II, when we have to rethink everything. When, in the wake of Trump, so much is broken, our goal must not be to simply repair what used to exist. Let’s build what we actually want. We’ll need visionary leaders. And we’ll need an engaged public pushing for a future that works for everyone.
Also, there will be elections. Free and fair ones. Wisconsin will have a supreme court race, and local elections, in April. That fall, Virginia and New Jersey will vote to reelect Governors Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill. They, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, and other local officials from coast to coast will face the first contests that tell us whether (or how much) the tub of political momentum is sloshing in the opposite direction under the next Democratic president. Let’s keep organizing to win them all.
2030
In 2010, after Obama’s 2008 landslide, thermostatic public opinion— turbocharged by Citizens United—led to a Tea Party/GOP wave. Which led to a raft of GOP state trifectas, from Wisconsin on out. Which, in turn, led to a plague of gerrymandering and other horrors before the 2012 elections that have sickened our politics ever since.
In 2030, our collective job is to prevent that from happening again.
Let’s just agree now to keep on organizing right through the 2030 elections—while also passing laws in 2029 that will reduce the risk to democratic self-governance if things do go badly. In particular: If we’ve banned gerrymandering in 2029, then a 2030 red wave won’t lead to the GOP’s rigging maps in state after state in 2031.
2031
The Census, which will have been responsibly overseen by the government of the 48th president of the United States, will deliver its results. The likeliest finding: that the population—and, hence, House seats and Electoral College votes—will have shifted south and, to a lesser extent, west.
Analysts predict that the head counts in California and New York, where the most populated areas have become increasingly unaffordable, will have plateaued or shrunk as people with dreams of, say, buying a home have moved to states like Texas (which might gain four House seats and Electoral College votes) and Florida (also poised to add four). Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota each lose one; Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and North Carolina each gain one.
If the Electoral College is still functioning as it does now, Democrats will not only have to keep winning the states where they’ve been doing well—they’ll also have to turn purple states blue and start winning states that are currently long shots if they want to have a chance of holding on to the presidency in 2032.
For that reason, you’ll be very glad by this point that you and so many others have spent the previous five years organizing locally in states that were, as recently as 2026, very red.
Or better yet, you’ll be thrilled that you helped pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in enough states for it to come into effect before the 2032 presidential elections.
2032 and Beyond
In a NPVIC world, the 2032 US presidential election would be the first one ever that is genuinely small-d democratic. Whoever gets the most votes wins. The years of patient long-term local organizing everywhere—not just in swing states, but in every state (all 51 or 52 of them!)—now matter a great deal. Every voter counts the same in choosing the most powerful person in the world, no matter their zip code. And every superpowered organizer can multiply their own impact by turning out their neighbors to vote.
In every state, the congressional and state legislative races will be conducted on post-Census map lines that are drawn fairly, or in multimember districts that choose representatives on a proportional basis.
We can’t now know who has the best shot at winning. But we’ll have secured democracy for posterity. We’ll have rebuilt our republic. We’ll have gone from American meltdown to glorious glow-up.
For most of our history, the United States regularly adjusted its rules. We expanded and contracted the US Supreme Court; we expanded the House, and changed federal election laws; we added states and the methods of electing US senators; we shifted the mechanics of the Electoral College; and we amended the Constitution. For the last half-century, we’ve been stuck. It hasn’t worked very well. The weakness and brittleness of our institutions has led to federal paralysis on the greatest issues of our day.
But enough democracy still survives that, if we join together, we can, in effect, wish for more wishes: We can use the tattered remnants of self-government to stitch together a new fabric for our country, one strong enough to protect us all.
This will take years of work. That work begins now.
Ben WiklerBen Wikler is the author of This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy, which draws on his experience leading Wisconsin’s political comeback to outline a step-by-step strategy for readers to undo Trumpian authoritarianism and make the country work for everyone. Wikler has spent over two decades at the forefront of progressive advocacy and political action. Before leading the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Wikler worked for MoveOn, where he helped spearhead campaigns to protect the Affordable Care Act and resist the Trump agenda. Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, he was active in campaigns, advocacy, and writing headlines for The Onion. He now lives in Wisconsin with his wife Beth, three kids, and enormous dog, Pumpkin.