It’s perpetually election season in the United States, but this one has been especially bizarre and intense. Donald Trump was shot in the ear. Joe Biden mumbled his way through a debate that was his downfall. Kamala Harris fell from a coconut tree and became the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. But Harris’s campaign quickly squandered the initial burst of enthusiasm and momentum as it pivoted to courting centrists and trying to outflank the opposition on the military and border security. The first Black and South Asian woman to have a chance at the Oval Office, Harris has tried to position herself as a transformative candidate in the mold of Barack Obama while actually running more like Hillary Clinton, pandering to Wall Street and vowing to include Republicans in her cabinet. This rearranging of the deck chairs on the sinking Democratic ship has unfolded against the backdrop of racist anti-immigrant fearmongering, conspiracy theories and threats of post-election violence, catastrophic heat waves and hurricanes, and the unceasing, enraging, heart-rending genocide in Gaza and devastating strikes across the region.

We don’t know what will happen on Nov. 5, but we do know we can’t afford to ignore elections. Political power matters, and it’s important to understand how it operates — and how we might influence it. That’s why the writers in this issue have taken the time to examine the electoral dilemma from multiple angles. They investigate why this presidential race is so close, dissect Harris’s reactionary appeals to Black men, and examine the strategy that drove the Uncommitted movement. We speak to two former Biden officials who resigned in protest over the administration’s policy toward Israel and Palestine and also look at more participatory alternatives to elections that allow people to vote for policies instead of voting for personalities.

In the end, we know our collective liberation won’t come from the ballot box. There are many other forms of power we need to build and wield if we want to transform society: power in unions, power in the streets, power in deeply rooted community organizing and coalition building. This is the power displayed by the immigrant workers aiding their western North Carolina neighbors in Hurricane Helene’s aftermath and by the patient organizers who have built a multiracial, multifaith network that has helped make Minnesota a progressive stronghold. It’s the power students and faculty are forging on campuses as they begin to repair movement infrastructure destroyed by the far right and band together to fight administrators hellbent on squeezing workers.

There is also power in alternatives, in beginning to build the world we want out of the rubble, planting seeds for future harvests by constructing cooperative enterprises, reconnecting with the land, and trying to create a future free of incarceration. We see this kind of visionary power in the West Bank and in Latin America, where people are creating new systems of agriculture and exchange in order to resist colonization and exploitation. This is the power sought by abolitionist activists who are working to dismantle the prison industrial complex, one of the pillars of the fascist threat now threatening to engulf us.

As essays in this issue reveal, building small-d democratic power — power rooted in solidarity — is never easy. Our organizing efforts have to contend with racism, sexism, mistrust, external attacks, internal conflict, and the common but misguided view that outcomes are always zero-sum. But as an account of the deep connections between Palestinian and Black liberation argues, this kind of solidarity isn’t just a moral imperative; it’s a strategic one. We can save ourselves only if we do the work to save one another.

As academic and activist Donna Murch writes, “Winning is hard, but it is absolutely necessary.” Even if the worst outcome of an all-out takeover by the far right is avoided in the weeks and months ahead, the left can hardly begin to claim victory. To have any hope of actually creating change on a scale that meets the crises that define our time, we need to organize everywhere, building power person by person, day after day in our workplaces, schools, faith centers, neighborhoods, rural communities, local governments, and more. We need a plan that extends far beyond one election cycle, and we need to be realistic and relentless about the monumental effort, insight, compassion, and courage this task requires. Let’s get to work.