The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World
by Brian Tyler Cohen
View on GoodreadsProgressive media creator Brian Tyler Cohen's strategic playbook for the Democratic Party — arguing that Republicans have abused power while Democrats have refused to use it, and laying out how progressives should wield power aggressively (court reform, ending the filibuster, restoring the rule of law) if they win in a post-Trump world. Foreword by Marc Elias.
Core ideas
- Cohen's central argument is asymmetry of will: Republicans have spent decades aggressively wielding power while Democrats, even when holding it, have refused to use it — retreating into procedural timidity and good-governance norms — and this restraint, not just Republican aggression, is what produced Trump's America.
- The book is explicitly a playbook rather than a lament: it calls for progressives to go on offense if they win a free and fair election — reforming the courts, ending the filibuster, restoring the rule of law — and to do 'far more than restore the status quo,' using the ruthlessness and precision the right has used for decades.
- Its framing question is forward-looking: 'What are we doing the day after Trump?' — treating the end of the Trump era not as a return to normal but as a narrow, possibly one-time window to remake how power is exercised before democratic backsliding becomes permanent.
Published2026
Pages208
ISBN9780063495104
ReadJul 2026
