Conversations That Got Me Through 2025

What got you through 2025? For me, without a doubt, it was other people. As I reflect on this year, one of the things I’m most grateful for is that I got to learn from so many incredible people while putting together Democracy News.

It’s not just me. When interviewing organizers, advocates, and experts of all kinds, many of whom have been in the fight much longer or in harder circumstances than me, I wanted to hear how they found the strength to keep going. I asked, “How are you coping?” Just about everyone said they draw their strength from other people.

So, thank you for being here with me this year.

Here are some (but not all) of my favorite conversations from the year that are worth a read or re-read:

Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva on how not taking corporate PAC money was an easy decision: “It’s always about how I can best represent myself, my family, the people that have supported me, all of our volunteers, the people that vote for me. It’s been ingrained in me that we have to do a good job because we’re supporting all of these other people, our voices are representing them. People deserve us to be loud for them.”

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, on how money is undermining our rights, including voting rights: “The way I’m personally able to stay charged up is being in community and in relationship with other people who are also fighting. I’m getting hugged by poll workers, Black women, who are there every year, and it is not their day job, and they’re not going away. And they are outraged, and they do everything they can in their communities. It is people who remind us who we are, why we matter, and that actually there are more of us than there are of those who are coming for us.”

Ludovic Blain, CEO of the California Donor Table, on how the folks that we’re fighting for are ourselves: “I remember listening to some Civil Rights folks talking about their fights in the fascist authoritarian times. When it’s the end of their lives, when you’re in the inspirational part of the book or the documentary, these people are larger than life. Someone like Cesar Chavez seems so much larger than life. But actually, these were regular people who had to pause in the meetings to go to the bathroom, who had to figure out how to take care of their kids, who were laughing at each other’s haircuts, doing regular people stuff. I’ve tried to remember that, because if world changers were regular people, we can all be world changers.”

Connor Gibson, independent opposition researcher and dark money expert, on the dark money network that’s propping up climate denial and tax cuts for billionaires: “A lot of us have common cause. There are people who I wouldn’t be friends with, but at the same time, at the end of the day, Elon Musk is as ambivalent about their existence as he is about mine. In the grand scheme of things, there’s the super-rich, and then there’s everyone else. I think it’s very important to recognize what we can’t control. But control and influence are different, and we might be able to influence some things that we don’t have control over…We can’t control everything, but we can try to influence some things, especially collectively, and I don’t think there’s any other choice.”

Rajan Narang, senior director of states at the Pro-Democracy Campaign and senior advisor at Stand Up America, on why Democrats and voters should consider corruption an economic issue: “People rallying together in joint public action is incredibly important; we all gain strength from being in community... Having good people around you, having things that you enjoy doing that are not political, feeling like you’re helping your community in ways that are not explicitly political…Creating room in your life to be civically involved is incredibly important. There are so many groups you can find in your own community who care about what’s going on.”

Christy McGillivray, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, on Michigan’s 2026 ballot initiative that aims to stop pay-to play politics: “We are fighting for a better democratic system. We need this reform to pass. Regardless of what happens, this, what we’re doing right now, this is democracy. They’re trying to stop people from talking to each other. They are trying to stop people from organizing. They are unveiling a surveillance state and a weaponized Department of Homeland Security to intimidate people into silence and to push us all back into our siloed, screen-mediated world. The fact that we are not doing that, the fact that we are doing democracy, regardless of whether anyone is giving us permission, to me, that’s a daily exercise in hope.”