As Martin Luther King said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
Sadly, with Tuesday's result, we look to be entering those times.
There's no way to sugarcoat it. Tuesday was a terrible day for our country, and for our state.
We have a lot of work to do.
Of course we have to dust off and rebuild to win elections in 2017, 2018 and 2020. One piece of good news is that thousands of people were passionately involved in this past election, so there remains a strong, durable infrastructure from 2016 which we can now build upon, and that we can only make stronger for future years.
But there is something even more important than future elections that we have to focus on.
Our most critical role at this moment is to stand up. And to do it now. Get involved.
There are millions of people in our country who woke up on Wednesday fearful and heartsick about their very place in our country. These communities are hurting deeply today, as are the hundreds of millions of Americans -- whether targeted or not -- who believe to their core that all Americans deserve equal treatment and respect. That we cannot go back to past eras where they were not.
Our most important task therefore is to stand together and speak out to protect the rights of all Americans.
We must organize now. We must speak out now.
We must not be silent. We must stand strong together.
If the new leadership in Washington pushes for common-sense issues such as infrastructure investment, great! We're for that, and have been trying to do that for years against Republican obstruction.
But if they act upon some of Donald Trump's darkest rhetoric and proposals -- religious tests, walls, attacks on women's health -- we will need to call upon Democrats and Republicans who know right from wrong to stand up. And we will need to do it as loudly as possible.
And if the Republicans in Washington try to reenact failed policies from the past -- trickle-down economics, attacks on workers, tax cuts for the wealthy that explode deficits -- we must be there to remind Americans that these policies have been tried repeatedly, and have never worked.
Bottom line: we can be the difference in whether the worst of Donald Trump's instincts and ideas become reality.
We will need YOU involved to be successful.
So in the coming days and weeks we are going to reach out to get people involved in this effort. Look for emails, meetings in your part of Ohio, social media...and please be sure to sign up to get involved.