So,

you know, I became known across the country for this speech that I gave that was a result of anti-DEI, anti-LGBTQ attacks on me. But I really reframed my response to talk about my own upbringing. I said multiple times throughout the speech, I'm a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom who knows that hate only wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. And throughout the book, I talk about community. I talk about my mom raising me in a small town in a townwide yard sale that she hosted every year and how we all got to know each other. And I firmly believe that rebuilding this country from our community on up, where you get to know your neighbors, where you share values, because at the end of the day, we all want safe communities and good schools and all of these sorts of things, that we will be able to withstand and defeat attacks that try to pit us against each other. Attacks that try to say you are not doing as well as you imagined you would growing up. And it's somebody else's fault, whoever the person to be attacked is today, whether it's immigrants or the LGBTQ community or women or, you know, name the attack. But that requires all of us to put in the work to get to know our neighbors, to get out of our bubbles and to participate as a relationship with our country, not just as a vote. I am sick and tired of politicians saying this is the most important election of our lifetimes because it implies that if we all just vote for this one person, then everything's going to be fixed. So what I try to do in the book is make the case for, you know, this is about becoming an active participant in creating the future that we want to see, but it doesn't happen if you don't participate. Everything collapses.

Yes. Say more about that, though, because one of the things that we talk a lot about is democratic messaging. What is the right message? And people use it to support their priors. So people on the far left, progressives, you know, want more progressive values. Conservatives want more conservative values. But I'm kind of obsessed with the chief of staff of the governor from Illinois, Pritzker, who talks about that it's you fight or you don't fight. So one of the reasons why that speech went viral because you fought, right? You didn't hide. So talk to me about you fight or you don't fight. It's

absolutely right. And people want to see you fighting for them and fighting for their future. And I think where Democrats missed the mark in 2024 as the campaign cycle went on was there was kind of the summer. Those guys are weird line of attack, which I think was very effective. And then it pivoted towards the end of the campaign back to a very doom and gloom, dark, Donald Trump is a fascist and this is the end of democracy. And I actually, Plouffe is one of, he followed me on Twitter, I guess I'm one of a thousand people that he followed. And sometime around October, I recognized on the doors in Michigan, this wasn't working. And I shot my shot and I DM'd him. I don't know if he ever read it. But I tried to make the case it cannot just be about all of the bad things that Donald Trump has done or who he is or what he's likely to do, because everybody already knows that and people are exhausted. But if we don't give them a positive, if there's not an alternative vision for the future, and I, you know, I agree with Pritzker's chief of staff. I don't think it's between progressives or moderates or a type of policy. I think it's, are you fighting for a future or not? And if we don't even talk about that future, people don't believe we're fighting for it. So, you know, I think about this in terms of I'm a member of the millennial generation, an elder millennial. And I think for Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, we are largely generations that are expected to do worse than our parents, that you can do everything right. You can play by the rules. You can work hard in school. You can go to college or go into a trade. And you still can't possibly fathom the American dream. You know, you can't afford to buy a house. We've seen house prices double from just 2019 to now. And when people do not believe that systems work for them, that the institution is working for them, and you have the Democrats are saying this is the end of democracy. People are not thinking about democracy as a system of government. They're thinking about it as the institution that's not working for them. And we have to lay out a clear vision and we have to fight for that vision, not just against Donald Trump.

And I think that's right. Certainly very true. So what are your next steps?