> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.joshuajohnson.me/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Are you a prisoner of the midterms? - URL: https://www.joshuajohnson.me/dont-let-the-midterms-imprison-you/ - Published: 2026-09-02T23:57:46.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-15T18:21:03.000Z - Description: Escape election madness with defiant actions - Author: Joshua Johnson - Tags: Newsletter, Articles, #Migrated-1791927903932, #Import 2026-10-13 16:50 The 2026 midterm elections will influence America’s future, but they probably won’t solve many problems on their own. We should rethink our thinking around the midterms… and around big elections in general. (2028, I’m looking at you. Sit down and hush. Today ain’t your birthday.) Few things are as exhilarating as watching a news organization cover elections with everything they’ve got. My first workday at NBC was during the 2020 New Hampshire Presidential Primary, on the Sunday morning panel of *Meet the Press.* The next day, I was back at 30 Rock for new employee orientation. The next night, I was on MSNBC doing late election coverage. Clearly, this was going to be an adventure! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/7d/107d565c-65a1-4733-bbac-6025a86babed/content/images/2026/10/a731e662-ae9a-40ea-973c-117df54d14e8_768x1024-jpeg.jpg) I snuck a shot of the prompter in our massive, makeshift studio in Concord, NH just before **Meet the Press* moderator Chuck Todd introduced me for the first time as a full-time NBC employee. Feb. 9, 2020. Other than trying to get the data correct, election coverage didn’t scare me. Reason being: I can only tell you what I know. If I slow down and keep it simple, I’m fine. But even then, so much of the election coverage around me, across networks, felt breathless and overwrought. I mean, really: “the most important election in our lifetime”? Wasn’t that the last election? And didn’t we tell you that about the election before? *Which is it?* > Messaging can be a form of exploitation. Hearing that phrase used so casually remains a huge pet peeve. First, elections are important by definition. Second, that superlative, “most important”, is impossible to prove. Which was more important: the 2008 election of Barack Obama, or the 2016 election of Donald Trump? Feel free to make your case in the comments. I’ll hold your beer. It’s great marketing that seems to work. Bad for your mental health, though. Please, don’t make it an Election Night drinking game - your liver will vaporize. The midterms are about two months away: 35 US Senate races, 36 governor’s races (including many in “battleground states”), the entire US House… plenty at stake. With everything going on right now, it’s easy to wrap your heart around it as if, should the results not go your way, you’ll have a stroke on the spot. How do we acknowledge its importance, but not too much? It’s quite the paradox. Fortunately, that paradox has a name. And a cure. > Make a strong, focused change right where you are. For that, we can thank US Navy Admiral James Stockdale. He earned the Medal of Honor for his conduct as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Stockdale was the highest ranking naval POW, imprisoned at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” from 1965 to 1973\. He spent much of it in solitary confinement, often malnourished and chained, and was tortured repeatedly. Stockdale resisted his captors in a dangerous but brilliant way, pushing back against a key form of exploitation: messaging. In the spring of 1969, Stockdale was told he would be shown off to foreign journalists: an attempt to gloss over the North Vietnamese abuse of their captives, as if everything was copacetic. In response, he ruined their plans in a way that might seem demented: he mutilated himself. Stockdale cut his scalp with a razor and beat himself in the face with a wooden stool, making himself look entirely unpresentable (and probably a bit feral). So much for that plan: the propaganda move was called off. Later, Stockdale discovered that some of his fellow prisoners had been tortured to death. That escalated his rebellion, and he slashed his wrists: not to take his own life per se, but to prove that he considered submission a fate worse than death. That was it: the torture and manipulation stopped. So what does this have to do with you and the midterms? It’s about how we respond to extreme (or extremely stressful) situations, and where we place our emotions around those situations improving. James Stockdale told his story to Jim Collins, a colleague at Stanford and the author of the landmark book *Good to Great.* Stockdale said he had ironclad faith that one day he would get out, prevail, and redeem that awful experience. But the real revelation came when Collins asked who didn’t survive imprisonment in Vietnam. “Oh, that’s easy,” Adm. Stockdale said. “The optimists.” By optimists, Stockdale meant the people who pinned their release/escape/rescue on an arbitrary date as their means of holding out hope. They’d say to themselves, “I’ll be out by Christmas!” And then Christmas came and went. And then they said, “I’ll be out by Easter!” And then Easter came and went. And then Thanksgiving... and then another Christmas. And then, Stockdale said, “they died of a broken heart.” This became known as [***The Stockdale Paradox:***](https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/Stockdale-Concept.html?ref=joshuajohnson.me) an odd correlation between really wanting something and setting unreasonable expectations for when it might materialize. It’s that tendency to anesthetize the sting of reality so much that it replaces meaningful action. > ***“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”*** > ***—Adm. James Stockdale*** America feels shaky right now: prices keep rising, wealth inequality is sowing the seeds of a new aristocracy, the war in Iran continues to upend the global economy, etc. We The People seemed almost embarrassed this July to have marked our 250th anniversary in this condition. I get why people want signs of hope, including in the midterms. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that the midterms are meaningless or inconsequential. Far from it. And I’m not asking anyone to ignore these major elections and just wing it. That’s irresponsible considering that your ballot affects the people you care about as well as those who care about you. [***Voting is an act of care.***](https://www.vote.org/?ref=joshuajohnson.me) But hoping that November 3rd will be the beginning of the end of our woes? Um… Yeah, no. It won’t. > Defiance doesn’t have to be big to be brave. See, our Stockdale Paradox right now is crossing our fingers that the midterms will shake up Washington, or the momentum of the White House, or the balance of power in state legislatures. We’ll see. I’m certain, however, that other factors will come into play. There are always variables including, nowadays, the rise of AI. I’m definitely concerned about the midterms, but I refuse to get *invested* in them. Big elections have unpredictable aftermaths. The re-election of Abraham Lincoln and the defeat of the Confederacy ended slavery, but they also gave birth to Jim Crow and the sore-loser myth of the “lost cause”. The election of Barack Obama hastened the rise of what became MAGA politics. Ronald Reagan’s hands-off attitude toward AIDS galvanized LGBTQ activism and visibility. All we can expect from any election is the unexpected. Remember, we’re still making up America as we go along. So what can you do? Be like James Stockdale. Take action right where you are. …no, I mean *exactly* where you are. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/7d/107d565c-65a1-4733-bbac-6025a86babed/content/images/2026/10/7c48889f-71e4-423b-8c40-46e0b7eefb85_1386x1976-jpeg.jpg) Admiral James Stockdale. Adm. Stockdale made history not by affecting the war overall, or even the prison where he suffered. He just took a stand against the people who were directly in his field of vision: his captors. It was a strong, focused signal that resonated to everyone in his vicinity, and that gave it enormous power. Taking a targeted action right where you are can build your confidence, giving you the strength to persevere. That’s why I focus on helping people turn conflict into connection, because that is one of the easiest ways to reorganize the world around you. It’s something you have total control over: your interactions with other people. Living in big cities has made me an audience to lots of arguments in subway cars. 0% of them ended with whoever started the confrontation getting what they wanted. Imagine the difference if, at the end of the day, that person couldn’t keep track of all the minds they opened, all the perspectives they shifted. They’d be formidable… maybe even scary. So you don’t control gas prices. Can you imagine the satisfaction of convincing your spouse to shift their driving habits? Yeah, we can’t pull the plug on generative AI (yet). Wouldn’t it feel great to see your favorite bar or restaurant hire local photographers for their ads instead of AI slop images? If only you could get the city to rein in heavy-handed policing. Don’t you think there’s a way to inform a district supervisor that you’ve made a FOIA request for all their arrests in a certain area, and give them the exact date that you’ll present your findings to the City Council during the open comment period of the Public Safety Committee? Oh, and invite your local crime reporter, who’d love a good story handed to them? > If you can’t influence billionaires or politicians, influence your personal relationships. Win where you are, and build from there. Defiance doesn’t have to be big to be brave. Sometimes, its smallness is an asset. Large acts take time and energy to marshal, gathering resources and building buy-in. If James Stockdale had started a jailbreak everyone probably would’ve gotten slaughtered. Instead, he took a personal act that made a ruckus, and he didn’t need anyone else to believe in it. He believed, and he was willing. That was enough. There’s one more insight of Stockdale’s that I, as a part-time actor for The Onion, found delicious. Someone asked him what formative experiences made the difference in his survival. Among the moments that shaped him: his mother’s local *theatre productions*. From them, he said, he learned to be spontaneous, to use humor, and to have good timing. I think that’s fabulous! It wasn’t just playing football and reading the Stoic philosophies of Epictetus that saved him (though he did both of those things). The arts taught him to improvise, and that helped him devise something his captors could not counter. > Action can be an art form. > Small can be great. I always tried to make my election coverage informative and empowering, never ominous or hyperbolic. (Maybe that’s why I’m not an real anchor anymore… oh, well.) Make no mistake: anxiety is a thriving industry. If you’re suffering over the midterms, you might be caught in the Stockdale Paradox. *Get out of there!* Don’t pin your hopes on the uncontrollable actions of others and the invisible factors around you. Instead, I’d recommend a kind of ***Stockdale Pushback:*** creative defiance against local challenges. Take action on something near you that directly affects you. Even if it’s something small, go for it. **DO NOT cause any incidents, accidents or injuries.** But find something that pushes back against the darkness. You, and maybe others, will end up feeling lighter. If you’re already doing this, tell me in the comments. I’d love to know your story. It’s bad enough being a prisoner of war. Too many of us are prisoners of politics. You have the key to your own cell. Let yourself out, and go do some good. I’ll hold your beer. ![clear drinking glass with brown liquid](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1601912414323-0debc2271e40?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw0Nnx8YmVlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3ODgzMDkyODh8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080) Photo by [Domagoj Horak](https://unsplash.com/@domicreator?ref=joshuajohnson.me) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=joshuajohnson.me)