Our advocacy moved the needle, but not far enough. Apparently nothing was going to get Senima and Manchin to reform the filibuster. Here’s what Indivisible USA says about this discouraging turn of events.

So what now? This fight for a real democracy has been part of America since its founding. Nor is using the filibuster to block pro-democracy, pro-civil rights legislation anything new. After the Civil War, southern segregations popularized and weaponized the filibuster to prevent the Senate from taking up democracy legislation. The 1964 Civil Rights bill overcame a weeks-long filibuster, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act faced its own filibuster threats as well. Those bills were decades in the making — the end successful result of decades of failed attempts.

So what can we do after losing a hard fight? Here are the options:

• We can give up.
• We can keep building power.

That’s it. End of list. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the fascists win in a forfeit.

On January 24th at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT, we’re pulling together pro-democracy supporters from across the country to strategize about next steps. If you would like to be part of that conversation, please sign up to join Monday’s Movement call here. And if you have any thoughts to share ahead of time, please reply to this email with them (yes, to “no-reply” we do read it!), or feel free to reach out to me directly on Twitter at @ezralevin (I really try to respond!).

I’m sorry that we lost tonight, but I am so damn proud that we fought. I’ve said time and time again: we’re not fighting for our democracy because we know we’ll win. We’re fighting for it because we know we have to win. And we will win.