We are in a cold civil war.

That is where the conventions leave us. This is how we get out. https://the.ink/p/we-are-in-a-cold-civil-war

On this morning after the end of the party conventions, I woke up with this feeling: This is how it gets right before the end — or before a new beginning.

My sense after watching these two conventions is that we live in two countries impermeable to each other.

https://the.ink/p/we-are-in-a-cold-civil-war

. @BeschlossDC had it right last night:

We may be a year away from losing our democracy.

And after watching these conventions, really for the first time this year, I dread that Trump is indeed going to win — until you hear otherwise. https://the.ink/p/we-are-in-a-cold-civil-war

But we're not going to let that happen.

So let's talk frankly, with love for each other and for the country, without rancor for those who want the same result, about what needs to occur.

If this cult is going to be defeated, it is going to take the most heroic effort and focus between now and November.

FOCUS. FOCUS. FOCUS. https://the.ink/p/we-are-in-a-cold-civil-war

And that’s hard, because a lot of the progressives with real passion don’t feel it for Joe Biden. And a lot of the energy around #BlackLivesMatter doesn't land in Biden's corner.

And, frankly, it’s more his fault than theirs. https://the.ink/p/we-are-in-a-cold-civil-war

Plenty of people are lecturing those folks to come into the tent and focus.

But far more important, I think, is Biden coming to them.

Between now and November, Joe Biden needs to do everything in his power to ignite a righteous political fervor like we’ve never seen before.

And, yes, in this many-way marriage -- this Falwellian marriage, you might say -- we’re all going to have to give something.

The progressives are going to have to shift from negging Biden to pushing and pressuring and summoning him.

These beautiful protests, when they’re at their best, have drastically moved public opinion in their favor. We need public opinion to keep moving that way.

But, more than anything, Biden has to act. Has to reach not just right but also left.

I live in Brooklyn. Half the people on the street in the primaries had a T-shirt of some candidate or other. In the general, I have seen exactly one Joe Biden T-shirt among thousands of people.

We need a passionate consolidation and enlivening on the left, and some sense that people close to Biden even want this, are vigorously pursuing it.

And then, in terms of outreach to the right, the approach shouldn’t be the incessant courting of never-Trumpers at the cost of your own party’s soul.

It should instead be a careful study of the right’s methods. https://the.ink/p/we-are-in-a-cold-civil-war

The GOP has forced itself into the challenge of selling policies that would serve ever fewer people to a majority.

So it's good at reframing bizarre, dangerous, destructive, nihilistic policies in the gauzy, stirring language of faith, family, heroism, bravery, and liberty.

I kept thinking as I watched the RNC that, if you didn't know a lot, if you weren't bringing to the table a whole lot of your own facts, not because you're stupid but because this isn't your day job, what is presented within the bubble sounds stirring, righteous, patriotic.

The committee to rescue America needs to match that language toe to toe. I know I'm nobody to say this, so forgive my boldness. I speak only as a citizen who observes and cares.

The challenge, as I see it, is to speak to people in a commanding language that is not wonky, that is not hyper-woke, that is not college-sounding, that is not exclusionary and hard to ramp onto, that strums the courts of widely shared values, not ideological stands.

It is existential work right now to find the language that will stoke the fire of those who believe most ardently in the cause, and will call in those who believe least in it but patriotically fear the loss of the republic.

This language is hungering to be found.

This is how it gets right before the end — or before a new beginning.

We have to seize this moment. We cannot assume a single thing.

Read and share this below with those you love and those you disagree with.

Let's do this. https://the.ink/p/we-are-in-a-cold-civil-war