Conte is co-chair of No Labels for the state of California.
My friends have it wrong. I recently reached out to many of them about an effort to combat the intentional efforts by “Big Lie” candidates to take over nonpartisan election positions in key states where, had they been in place, the 2020 election may have gone to Donald Trump. Many of them were “too busy” or responded that they only invest in specific issues like “climate crisis” or “reproductive rights” these days.
I responded: “I doubt it will go very well for climate action if Trump wins in 2024.” Their answer: crickets. And that, in a nutshell, is why we’re in trouble.
The problem isn’t whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. It isn’t whether you disagree with your neighbors, or share the same beliefs. The real problem at hand is that we are all doubling down with aggressive tribalism on our policy silos, or even our political party, and funneling money and time and our deepest passions to them like a hoard of fiddlers on a hill while the pillars of democracy burn. Without unity and collective compromise, we risk being outwitted by those who seek to divide us. Make no mistake: This exact strategy of fanning the flames of minor differences between protesting forces has been used by dictators and authoritarians for centuries. We cannot and must not fall to it now.
We all need to step outside of our echo chamber long enough to notice that democratic norms are under threat. And lest you think it’s just Donald Trump and his Trumpians attacking the notion of the rule of law and legitimacy of democracy, we San Franciscans, engaging deeply in the redistricting process these last couple of months, saw an equally heinous political power-grab by the entrenched ultra-progressives. They behaved like Trump and his “Stop the Steal” cronies when they didn't like the outcome of representative democracy in the agreed-upon process (such as the new maps created by the redistricting task force).
We are at the point when working with the other party on comprise solutions to our nation’s most enduring challenges has regularly become cause for a slew of death threats. Whether it’s a secretary of state in Ohio, a U.S. senator in Maine, a House member in New Jersey or a redistricting task force member in San Francisco, good people are now afraid to work in government or become civic volunteers. This has to stop! We need to listen more, and threaten less. Each side in this battle of the extremes has taken a tiny nugget of truth and turned it into a full-blown conspiracy theory with life-or-death consequences. The real life-and-death threat is the partisan battle itself.
A new brand of politics, one that supports the rule of law and institutions that resurrect the fundamental principle of any successful democracy, is the only way to move forward. And bipartisanship is the only way to do that — even if that may be the ultra-blue compromising with the slightly less blue in a city like San Francisco. Compromise and slow change are the tenets of our government and it is through compromise that the big ideas of tomorrow are born. However, these ideas ought to be socialized and reformed into the center over time, ushered gently into broad acceptance as people see the inescapable validity of their goals and processes — like ending child labor or the right to clean water — the very shared goals we all adhere to, whether red, blue or independent.
Stop the single-issues advocacy, lobbying or direct-to-candidate funding. Funneling any money through either party is the problem, not the solution. Over the last two decades we’ve become lulled into believing that our party can single-handedly deliver on our wish list of policies, and inured to the fact that both parties continuously fail to deliver — not one comprehensive solution to gun safety, our immigration crisis, our strained health care system, our failure to educate our next generation effectively and efficiently, and so much more.
Give money to candidates who are actively working across the aisle to formulate legislation that has a snowball-in-hell’s chance of passing. You can find and support organizations that are actively working to restore bipartisanship and sustain democracy, like No Labels, Unite America, An America United, Mainstream Democrat PAC and others.
Democracy is not a given and needs to be actively nurtured to survive and thrive. Only once our political system has returned to civility and unfettered bipartisan debate about the goals we most often commonly share, with our only real differences on how best to solve them, can we go back to our relative complacency for a short time and focus again on our pet issues. We now know that we can’t afford to take our eye off of it for long without risking that autocrats, whether from the right or left, will try to sneak by and steal it from us. Engage in the change you hope to see, avoid starting sentences with “Republicans ..." or “Democrats ...” Ordinary people from either party are not monoliths and the moment they hear these accusations and demonizations, they shut down.
There are Republicans, like me, who support choice, climate and LGBTQ+ rights. And same goes for Democrats who may support gun rights or energy independence. We are out there — engage us and let’s move forward together.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.