Like many in Brookline, I woke up on November 6th shocked and afraid. I felt

helpless – the doors I knocked on, the phone calls I made, in the end weren’t enough. When Donald Trump won the popular vote, I struggled to see anything I could do to help win back the progressive promise of a better future. I’ve come to realize that for Americans to regain faith in democracy and trust in government, it’s going to take everyone. Not just Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Every single one of us, down even to tiny municipal governments like Brookline.

 

The 2024 electorate that revived Trump was angry. That anger erupted in part

from a perception of “blue cities” as unaffordable and out-of-touch. When rents in the Boston area easily exceed $3000, and elected officials have done little in remedy, it’s easy to see where they’re coming from. People are falling behind, and government hasn’t done enough.

 

Places like Brookline need to fix that. We must take the housing crisis seriously.

We must prove that we are capable of helping people. We must show that Americans need not retreat into apathy and anger. We can start here in Brookline.