Emotions are running high this week. But while things remain disheartening on the national stage, we’re still celebrating wins on the state and local level. In Virginia, for instance, Democrats just won their special elections for the State Assembly. Not only that, but they won by even bigger margins than expected. And in Ohio, Amanda’s husband Casey has been working hard on a law that helps kids access hearing aids. Last week, the bill was finally signed into law.

These are the kinds of stories that get missed in the 24/7 coverage of the Latest Terrible Thing That Trump Said. Progress is still happening. We just need to look closer to home.

This week, we’re joined by A’shanti Gholar, the president of Emerge, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office. She’s surprisingly upbeat and hopeful — or maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising. Despite our painful losses on the national level, Emerge had 570 candidates on the ballot last year with close to a 70% win rate. That’s so many amazing women who are now in office, working to improve their communities.

Whether you want to watch next week’s inauguration or not, just like whether you want to keep consuming national political news, is completely up to you. We need to take care of ourselves and our mental health if we want to keep showing up for our families and communities over the next four years. Just know that there are over 520,000 elected offices in this country and change is possible at all levels. The power of the “new girls network” is only growing.

Speaking of the inauguration and emotions running high, nobody keeps us calm like Heather Cox Richardson. She’ll be joining us for a live virtual event on Inauguration Eve to help put things into perspective and remind us that small groups of people can change history. You can click here to learn more and RSVP for that event, and if you can’t make it live, you can hear Heather in the next episode of The Suburban Women Problem.

For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected].

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