I will not ask you to look for silver linings.

I will not ask you to feel anything but grief right now. The consequences of this election will be real and devastating.

But I’m reminding myself that on the road ahead, there will still be opportunities to fight back.

I can’t tell you we will win all of those fights. I can’t tell you we will win most or even any of them. But when we arrive at each of those moments, we will face a choice: to give up, or to press forward.

We can’t control everything that comes next. But we can control how we respond.

The far right wants us to feel powerless. Extremists are counting on apathy, cynicism, heartbreak, or all the above to be their rocketfuel. They are counting on us to point fingers at each other and lose trust in our ability to ever, ever make change.

I absolutely refuse to give them the satisfaction. Feeling powerless is the first step toward becoming powerless. By staying united, by refusing to surrender, we give ourselves a fighting chance.

We will continue to fight for each other.

Eight years ago, in the dark days when Republicans took full power in Washington, I thought the Affordable Care Act would be gone with a snap of a finger. But the American people rose up. Activists like the late, inimitable Ady Barkan and countless others put their bodies on the line. They made their voices heard. They saved health care for millions of families.

And a grassroots movement against far-right control took back the House in 2018, the White House in 2020, and the Senate in 2021. Don’t let anyone tell you that those victories didn’t make a real difference in people’s lives. More people could afford to go to the doctor and fill a prescription. More people could go to work. More parents could afford to put food on the table for their kids and buy new coats for them in the winter. Lives were saved. And as the far right works to roll back what we’ve achieved, they’ll hope we won’t have the stomach to push back. But we can choose to prove them wrong.

We need each other. We take care of each other. And please, take care of yourself. Take the time you need right now to be angry, hurt, and confused. Hold your loved ones close. Find opportunities to be in community with others this week. Take social media breaks. Foster your connections. Make new ones. Reach out to someone you’ve lost touch with. Tell them you’re with them no matter what lies ahead.

If the work you do makes a difference for just one person, that would be enough.

I will wake up every morning and choose to fight for our families, our freedoms, and our kids’ futures. I will do everything I can in my position to defend our values and fight back.

And I will always be honored to fight by your side.

In the immediate-term, my colleague Jacky Rosen’s Senate race in Nevada is still too close to call right now. We need to do everything we can to ensure Republicans can’t gain any more power in the Senate. Every vote will matter. If you can pitch in anything you can to her campaign, your full donation will help support their ballot curing operation.

- Elizabeth

P.S. To everyone who volunteered, who phone banked, who texted, who knocked doors, who brought cookies to the volunteers, who put up a lawn sign, who gave part of themselves to be part of something bigger — for our re-election campaign in Massachusetts and for campaigns across the country — thank you. You are the beating heart of our democracy.