The 2026 Midterms – Ripples Of Hope In the Form Of Votes

I’m still absorbing the impact of the 2026 midterm elections.  Democrats have already won and won big, and it’s highly likely our margins in both the House and Senate will increase. Just as important was an impressive number of wins/flipping elected offices from red to blue at the state level.  Democratic candidates won in an astonishing collection of places that less than a year, even as recently as this summer would have been unthinkable.  Every time you ‘stand’ at a voting station (or cast your ballot in another manner) you send out a tiny ripple of hope.

How?  People voted and in record numbers for a midterm election. Each vote in and of itself was simply one vote. Combined those individual votes created an enormous Blue Wave. It made me think of Robert F. Kennedy’s ‘Ripple of Hope’ speech at the University of Capetown in South Africa in 1966. I can’t help but think of all those votes cast for Democrats yesterday as the very kind of ‘tiny ripples of hope’ he dreamed of.

If you ever visit Arlington National Cemetery and specifically the area where JFK, RFK and Ted Kennedy are buried there is an area where the ‘Ripple of Hope quote above is engraved in a set of granite stones.  What many people don’t know is the context in which that line from a speech was made.  In 1966 when Apartheid ruled in South Africa RFK visited South Africa to take part in the Day of Affirmation at Capetown University.

Unlike his brother RFK was not a gifted orator. All the same his words about dignity and freedom for everyone struck home, both in the moment and ever since.  You can read the full text of the speech here.  If there was ever a time in the last ten years or so to read it and think about it that time is now.  If you’re reading this please trust me and go to the link. Even if like me your eyes get misty you’ll be glad you did.  It’s a memorable blend of relevant history and people combined with the struggles so many countries (and he noted our own history of slavery that we were then – and now – struggling to overcome)  Given it was at an annual event put on by students at South Africa’s flagship university the address was as much a university lecture as it was a speech.

Kennedy listed four key areas that those who would work for freedom and human dignity must face. Each was followed by an explanation that’s as relevant today as it was then. Again, I urge you to read the entire speech but I’ll list those four things but first you should see how he sets up that portion of his speech:

“Our answer is the world’s hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease – a man like the Chancellor of this University. It is a revolutionary world that we all live in; and thus, as I have said in Latin America and Asia and in Europe and in my own country, the United States, it is the young people who must take the lead. Thus you, and your young compatriots everywhere have had thrust upon you a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.

“There is,” said an Italian philosopher, “nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” Yet this is the measure of the task of your generation and the road is strewn with many dangers.”

Here are the four points he then discussed:

• First is the danger of futility; the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills – against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. 
• The second danger is that of expediency; of those who say that hopes and beliefs must bend before immediate necessities.
• A third danger is timidity. Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society.
• For the fortunate amongst us, the fourth danger is comfort; the temptation to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of an education.

I don’t know about you, but thinking about the Koch brother’s secret formation of the ‘grassroots’ Tea Party and how Trump morphed into the monstrous creature known as MAGA every one of those strikes a chord.  Kennedy followed each of those with words that are worth knowing and understanding.  There is so much in that speech that makes it as necessary now as it was then.  As I said earlier Robert Kennedy did not have the gift of being a rousing orator like his brother was.  How marvelous it would be to have someone now (Obama leaps to mind) give the same speech as a tribute to the real Robert F. Kennedy who dreamed of and worked for a world where simply dignity and respect was something that should automatically be extended to all, even the least among us.

The words preceding the ripple of hope quote at the top are in the title picture, a meme (I didn’t even know the word or concept when I sat at my computer in 2009 and made it, printed it and hung it on my wall, and later at work) but here’s why all day long I’ve been thinking about that speech and that quote.  I’ll repeat the sentence that came before the iconic quote here: It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped.

If you’re old enough to remember what happened in the leadup to the passage of the Voting Rights Act think back on police and state troopers assaulting blacks who simply wanted to exercise a right every citizen in theory had – being able to vote.  Efforts at suppression would continue, and include all manner of obstacles from limiting polling locations, switching them at the last minute, purging voter rolls (in strongly Democratic areas which also affected white people), outright intimidation and sometimes actual violence.  In this election it was an actual act of courage for a non-white person to show up at a polling place. Despite that hundreds of thousands, hell, millions refused to be bullied. They showed up and voted!

Sometimes “stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice” is casting a vote for candidates who believe in equal rights and opportunity for all. That regular and poor people are as deserving of basic human rights, and compassion, and human dignity.  Obama said long ago Trump wasn’t the problem, he was the symptom.  He was right.  His election and re-election to the Presidency laid bare the fact that we’ve still got a long way to go.

An entire Party who was already largely indifferent to the needs of the many was swallowed whole by Trump and remade in his image. Ugly, Downright mean. Racist. Sexist. Determine to protect the needs of the privileged few at the expense of the other 99%.  But you know what?  Even in red places something wonderful happened.  People who’d had enough came to the realization the votes of the privileged few counted as only one single vote – the same as theirs. And, more importantly there are WAY more of us than them.

To paraphrase Kennedy those tens of millions of votes created a Blue Wave that swept over mighty walls of cruelty and injustice.  And, to take the point of Kennedy’s address a step further, it put in power a ton of young, or youngish new elected leaders who if we continue to get out and vote like we did yesterday will lead us into a better future. One election won’t do the job. We’ll have to do it again, and again and never let up. But when you look at the breadth of Democrat’s wins up and down the ballot, how it happened in so many red states and districts few thought possible even a couple of months ago we now know what we can do.

If we work together our votes can overwhelm every bit of intimidation and suppression the uber rich pet candidates can throw at us.  More than once since Labor Day there was discussion on TV about the looming threat of Trump deploying the entire resources of the federal government to keep Democrats from regaining power.  More than once I heard various leaders on our side say we had to turn out so many voters we could overwhelm what we knew was coming.  We did.

It can seem like such a small thing to put in the effort, even when people are trying to stop you to cast a vote.  Individually, for many of us it isn’t that difficult which is why it’s so important to actually vote!  It adds up as we are seeing. With each passing hour we learn of yet another GOP held seat flipping to a Democrat.  Our individual effort can, and DOES make a difference if we actually take some time to actually cast our vote.  If you can help others register to vote, even if it’s just one or two people it adds up.  And knocks down the wall Trumpty-Dumpty sits on and his ilk hide behind.  Trumpty-Dumpty just got knocked off his ugly wall and all of his MAGAs can put him and their movement back together again!

Every time you stand in a voting booth and cast your ballot you send out a ripple of hope.  My heart is full tonight. I want it to stay full so I implore you to think about what I’ve written here and resolve to in every future election do all you can to repeat what we did yesterday.  Like the Klan, the MAGAs are a virus that can never be killed but we can drive MAGA back under their slimy rocks to hide. Voting in numbers like we did yesterday and even increasing our numbers is the only way to make them too afraid to re-emerge.

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