I am always in search of an anchor. That could be because I so often find myself in multi-layered-moving-part-human-driven scenarios. It could also be what draws me to multi-layered-moving-part-human-driven scenarios. 🤷🏽♀️
The weekend that followed the 2024 election happened to also be the weekend we’d planned a visit to the home of the person I’ve known longer than my sibling (and vice versa) who also happens to make a living navigating multi-layered-moving-part-human-driven scenarios. That November 2024 weekend was spent in question, research, info-sharing, discussion, spreadsheets, debate, analysis, and synthesis. This time around we planned. As soon as the electoral outcomes of the 11/3 election started coming into view, I became increasingly glad we did.
As the weekend closes out, I turn to the practice of writing as a way to synthesize my own thoughts, integrate some learnings, and to continue and to widen the conversation.
In a “where to start” and “how to frame” moment I went to the landing page of my own website. My own bolded words were helpful:
Communication
the story being told
a shared understanding of The Plan
see, name, and facilitate enabling conditions
finding a way
the peripheral, the atmospheric, and the in-between
unlock what is already there
situational alchemy
I am a hammer, these are my nails. My primary lens on the 11/3/26 election has so far been: are we collectively clear about what happened in a way that best positions not going backward —at the expense of sanity and lives— over lessons we could have learned. I know. A high bar. In that frame, the things loudest in my brain are:
Exit poll numbers are not votes.
Headlines, hot takes, take downs, memes, and actual strategies are being built off of exit poll percentages. This is incomplete math. A close-to-home example: If the narrative is that black women understood the assignment in the last three elections, it hides the fact that based on the very exit polls that drive that narrative fewer black women voted in this midterm than did in the 2022 midterm. Over 2 million fewer black women voted in the 2024 presidential election than did in the 2020 election. All this while numbers for women overall — again, according to exit poll data— rose. What is behind the absence of these votes over time?
This is not me saying that voting does not matter and that there are not seismic outcomes from this election. This is me asking whether we are clear about what happened and how. Whether the stories we’re telling are complete, or outright misleading. Whether there are gems for the taking that we are missing because we are lured by shiny objects. Whether by not being clear we are codifying the very ruts, myths and stories that got us into this particular spot in the first place. Are there shenanigans we are covering for if we’re shouting from the wrong rooftops?
What can happen if we believe our own eyes?
We elected a slate of people who collectively look like the America I would argue that the majority of people have dreamed, worked, and sacrificed to create. The ability to do so was despite the daily terror, chaos, and real pain many are actively living in and/or adjacent to. The ability to do so was despite misleading and incomplete headlines designed for clicks and views and visits and shares and engagements that drive revenues and mine our attention. How many ancestors had their wildest dreams come true with this election? How is our posture different if this is part of a long story of becoming and not a boomerang or a snap back?
A plan forward
As a self-imposed exercise and a frame through which to anchor in forward motion, we used November of 2028 as a way to articulate what we saw in the 2026 outcomes. This also served as a way of short-loop composting observations into useful bits. We talked about specifics (policies, slogans, and candidates) but in keeping with my tendency, I’ll stick to organizing principles and ways-of-doing, and I’ll choose just two that flow from my points above.
UNO reverse cards for narratives
When the exit polls are extrapolated into numbers of votes it is clear that a lot of red voters opted out. The same was true for blue votes in 2024. When we started to name the topics and messages that dominated the field and were the likely cause for a voter to stay at home, the messages were consistently over-simplified, out of context, and ultimately refutable. This is not new, nor rocket science. We talked about a few candidates who became adept at the flip and reverse. Knowing that that level of media training and/or facility with debate is both not likely to be present in most candidates and not interesting for most constituents to watch, the idea emerged for the UNO reverse card. Identify the likely topic categories, send experts on an epic dot-connecting deep dive, keep comms geniuses on call to mine those deep dives into one-degree flip and reverse narratives. Stay nimble throughout election season. Perhaps it is a literal deck of cards.
Like “yes/and” but UNO reverse. Offering a signature pivot phrase: “What a wild talking point…[insertreverse narrative].”
Conch Moves
Full on Lord of the Flies reference here. We are in a moment of new order and it will not last. While you have the conch and things have not yet reorganized, USE IT.
Honorable public mention for Win/Win Lose/Win: what legislation is a win if it passes now and helps win in 2028 if it’s blocked publicly?
When you catch me offline, ask me about municipal funding, civic hiring sprees, telling on oneself, alliterative messaging, onboarding, normies, and very high thresholds that pay for things.
I am very thankful to Lisa, Ryan, and Hugh for the weekend of anchoring.
