It’s Time for Blue Reagan

A New Old Platform for Blue Dog Democrats

Democrats have no plan to win the Senate. Other bloggers, like Matt Yglesias, have written about this; I recommend you read his piece for a full assessment of the problem. The gist is that the Democratic Party’s brand is completely underwater in large swaths of the country.

Dems have a good chance of winning in D+7 Maine next cycle, and a less-good chance of winning in R+3 North Carolina. But after that, the friendliest State for Democrats is R+11 Ohio. Republicans currently control 53 out of 100 seats in the Senate; in order to take the chamber back next year, Democrats would need to keep all of their current seats, win all three of those races, and then also win R+13 Iowa, R+14 Alaska, or R+14 Texas.

And that’s only what it would require to win a simple majority. If Democrats wanted to win enough votes to overcome a filibuster, it would require sweeping victories in even redder locales. The sad truth is that the Democratic Party has written off over half the country as unwinnable. This is not a recipe for achieving progressive change.

At the end of Yglesias’ piece, he asks people to share what they would do to win the Senate. It’s clear to me that there’s only one true option; we need to run Candidates that are 15 - 20 points further to the Right than the average Democrat. In practice, we need to win every voter to the Left of Ronald Reagan. That is the principal political challenge of our time.

And I believe it’s doable. I have a pitch for a new (old) policy platform that Blue Dog Democrats could run on in Red States. It’s simple, replicable, and easy to understand.

Democrats should run on Ronald Reagan.

The Opportunity

The Republican Party has changed significantly under Donald Trump. It is currently out of step with its own history, having moved solidly to the Right on a number of key issues. Trump has also alienated many of the GOP’s constituencies, ceding ample ground for Democrats ambitious enough to take it.

Under Ronald Reagan, the GOP was said to be a “three-legged stool.” The Party was composed of Social Conservatives (including Christian Fundamentalists and Paleocons), War Hawks (like Neocons and Interventionists), and Fiscal Conservatives (Right-Libertarians and Free-Market Capitalists). Trumpism has thrown these constituencies out of balance. Paleocons are now ascendent, and their Right-Populism represents a significant departure from Republicans’ traditional brand.

Gone are the patriotic values that Neocons and Interventionists held dear. The days of American Leadership, American Idealism, and American Exceptionalism are over. Trump has substituted these things for American Carnage. Under Trump, America is looking inward. We are forgoing alliances and ceding large swaths of the world to regional bullies like Putin and Xi Jinping. Trump’s understanding of America’s place in the world is incompatible with his War Hawk allies. There’s a reason John Bolton keeps denouncing him.

Meanwhile, Fiscal Conservatives in Congress are floundering, realizing that they can’t cut taxes and the deficit at the same time. Trump is not equipped to provide the leadership or prioritization that their faction needs; as a result, Republican appropriations bills are exploding the Federal budget deficit and imperiling America’s future. At the same time, Trump’s tariffs are strangling our markets and crashing the economy. The President is openly feuding with the House Freedom Caucus and has threatened to primary prominent Libertarians.

Similarly, Republicans have abandoned most of the core tenets of Christianity. I’m far from the first person to point out Evangelical hypocrisy in supporting Trump, but this issue is personal for me. The Republicans’ current appropriations bill deliberately hurts the sick, poor, and imprisoned (all those that Christ commanded us to care for). Evangelicals got what they wanted on Roe vs Wade but the President has declared that he will not sign a national abortion bill. What reason do Evangelicals have to keep backing the most sinful man in America?

The President may have won the Popular Vote, the Presidency, the House Majority, and the Senate. But his alliance is in turmoil. Every piece of Reagan’s three-legged stool has some motivation to defect. Red State Democrats must exploit these divisions.

We need to sever connections across the Right, leaving the Paleocons isolated and powerless. Who better to help us dissect the Reagan Coalition than the man who assembled it in the first place? My pitch for Blue Dog Democrats is a slightly-modified version of Reaganism. From my experience growing up in Rural America, I’m confident that Ronald Reagan would beat Donald Trump in most Red State elections. Democrats should give him that chance.

It’s time to bring morning back to America. We should shroud ourselves in Ronald Reagan’s legacy, much as Arizona Democrats have done with John McCain. We should play up our agreements. We should praise his accomplishments. We should rewrite his obituary for our own purposes.

Red State Democrats ought to repeatedly claim, ruthlessly argue, and earnestly believe that Ronald Reagan would be a Democrat today.

You’re probably skeptical about that idea. I’ll admit, the current Democratic Party is further away from Ronald Reagan’s brand than the modern GOP. But not that much further away. Seizing Reagan’s mantle and wielding his legacy for good won’t actually take much work.

The first thing we need to do is play up the areas where Democrats are closer to Reagan than Republicans. Let’s start with Defense.

Reagan on Defense

In Early March, Patti Davis, one of Reagan’s three surviving children, penned a powerful op-ed in the New York Times arguing that her father would be appalled with Trump’s conduct towards Ukraine.

“He wanted America to be a strong partner in the world, bonding with other countries to defeat tyranny and aggression.” Davis wrote.

Trump clearly wants the opposite. He regularly cozies up to dictators. He has no love for our system of international alliances. His primary goal on the world stage is to extract value from our partners, rather than working with them to achieve common aims.

Ronald Reagan would be disgusted by Donald Trump’s approach to international security. Trump is wrestling against the Tides of Freedom. And he is chiseling away at America’s hegemony.

Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin was exactly right when she criticized Trump’s conduct earlier this year. In her response to Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address, Slotkin commented on Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

“After the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling over in his grave. We all want an end to the war in Ukraine, but Reagan understood that true strength required America to combine our military and economic might with moral clarity. . . . As a Cold War kid, I’m thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s. Trump would have lost us the Cold War.”

Claiming Reagan’s legacy could be as simple as mimicking Slotkin’s messaging. But I think we could go further.

Blue Dog Senate Candidates should insist on American Leadership in the world. They should embrace a robust patriotism and should project strength. Democrats should argue relentlessly that the United States is the greatest civilization to ever exist in human history, precisely because of our Liberal values. For too long, Donald Trump has framed himself as a dynamic strongman; Democrats should accuse him of being a shrinking violet, too weak to promote freedom abroad.

And we can go further still.

Many people don’t realize this but military spending as a share of GDP has declined to nearly all-time lows. This isn’t because we’ve cut back on defense spending; in fact, we’ve mostly increased it over time. But America’s GDP is increasing much faster than the Pentagon’s budget. We’re getting richer and richer, and we could probably afford to spend more on Defense. Reagan is, of course, famous for investing in the military industrial complex. For more on this, Noah Smith makes a pretty thorough case for increasing defense spending.

I worked in Joe Biden’s Office of Management and Budget, and I can tell you with certainty that there is room to increase defense spending while responsibly bringing budget deficits down. My colleagues actually accomplished this a couple of times during the Biden Administration, and we could do it again.

But Republicans can’t do it because they have adopted a radical position on taxes; they refuse to raise revenue, and they’re selling out America’s defense to China-beholden billionaires like Elon Musk. The secret sauce that makes higher defense spending possible is a willingness to raise taxes on wealthy Americans.

Speaking of which:

Reagan on Taxes

Ronald Reagan is known for cutting taxes. Everyone knows this! For decades, Republicans have followed in his footsteps, attempting to get tax rates lower and lower. How could Democrats possibly outflank them on this issue?

The answer is that we can’t follow Republicans into becoming an anti-tax Party. But we can run on Ronald Reagan’s tax bill. You see, Republicans have cut taxes several more times since the 1980s. We’re now at a point where a reversion to Reagan’s 1981 tax law would mark an increase in revenue for the Federal Government.

Early in his presidency, Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which cut income taxes for all Americans. The tax rate for top earners dropped from 70% to 50%. This is what Income Tax Brackets looked like at the time. (I’ve included a column adjusting the 1981 dollar amounts to 2025 dollars for your convenience).

In contrast, this is what America’s tax rates look like now:

As you can see, the 1980s had many more tax brackets than we have today. And everyone paid higher taxes under Reagan. Since his presidency both George W Bush and Donald Trump cut tax rates further. Meaning, for the past few decades, Republicans have governed to the Right of Reagan’s 1981 tax bill.

If a Democrat wanted to raise taxes, they could credibly argue that they plan to bring rates back to where Ronald Reagan had them in 1981. Tax policy experts will tell you that this isn’t an amazing idea; it would raise taxes on people living below the poverty line, for example. And a 50% top rate is probably higher than necessary. But this proposal serves as a not-totally-insane starting point for further tax negotiations. And “put the numbers back where Reagan had them” is pretty simple to explain to voters.

To be intellectually honest, I should note that Ronald Reagan cut taxes again in 1986, bringing the top rate down to 33% (lower than it is today). The legislation would have further reduced the top rate to 28% by 1988 but this proved to be untenably low; Reagan’s own Vice President, George HW Bush, increased the top rate back up to 31% and rates bounced up and down over the years before landing on the 37% we have today. Even now, many Republicans are still trying to get back to Reagan’s 1986 bill, but the numbers are simply unworkable.

Republican politicians will obviously complain about this line of messaging. Invoking Reagan to raise taxes is tantamount to blasphemy. And they’ll definitely point to Reagan’s 1986 bill to argue that he didn’t think the 1981 bill was sufficient. But that’s a level of detail that is plainly difficult to explain to voters. Democrats should say they want to bring back Reagan’s tax rates, and if Republicans take issue with it, they can spend their limited time, money, and bandwidth explaining their nuanced objections. When you’re explaining, you’re losing!

Reagan on Gun Control and Public Safety

In 1967, as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, which banned the open carry of firearms in the state. The purpose of the bill was primarily to disarm the Black Panther Party, which was conducting armed patrols on the streets of Oakland. The Panthers were pretty clearly attempting to prevent police brutality through the organized intimidation of police officers. Reagan, and most of California’s legislature, wanted to shut that down. Democrats and Republicans came together to ban open carry in a lopsided vote.

In 1994, Ronald Reagan and Gerald R Ford teamed up with Jimmy Carter to urge the House of Representatives to pass Bill Clinton’s Assault Weapons Ban. At the time, every major law enforcement organization in America backed the ban. Cops didn’t like being outgunned by random members of the public and they saw the proliferation of assault weapons as a direct danger to police officers.

This is the missing piece that gun control advocates have been lacking in recent years. Ronald Reagan supported gun control as a pro-police measure. And he accused gun control opponents of being weak on public safety!

Blue Dog Democrats should do the same; run on disarming gangs like MS-13 by promising to bring back the Assault Weapons Ban. But this time Dems should explicitly refer to it as “Ronald Reagan’s Gun Bill.” When Republicans complain, we should accuse them of being soft on crime.

You might be skeptical about the idea of outflanking the GOP on Public Safety. But Donald Trump’s most recent budget proposal explicitly asks Congress to defund the police. This is political gaslighting in the most extreme degree; Trump spent the entire campaign accusing Democrats of wanting to do the exact thing he’d go on to propose. Blue Dogs need to twist the knife on this hypocrisy.

Donald Trump lied. He cannot keep us safe. The Republican Party is trying to fire cops and give their salaries to Elon Musk. We are all at great risk with them in power. Here’s a little script that I threw together in 15 seconds:

“Because of (Insert X Republican Candidate), the Mexican Drug Gangs are buying fancy new guns and our cops are selling their equipment to make payroll. We need to keep (Insert State) safe. It’s time to fund our nation’s police officers and bring back Ronald Reagan’s Gun Bill.”

Reagan’s Immigration Policy

Ronald Reagan’s stance on immigration was embodied in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This Law made it a crime for businesses to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, though it included some loopholes that made enforcement difficult. It also created several new classes of temporary work visas, including the H-2A and the H-2B.

Most importantly, the Immigration Reform and Control Act offered amnesty to anyone that had entered the country before 1982, so long as those people had no criminal record, admitted guilt, paid a fine, and paid all back-taxes.

To this day, immigration restrictionists have decried Reagan’s Amnesty Bill as a mistake. Donald Trump ran on extreme immigration hawkishness, and he reaped legitimate electoral benefits. But he is now implementing cruel and illegal deportation processes that do not poll well - 52% of Americans feel that Trump has gone too far with his deportation efforts. Similarly, 53% of Americans are opposed to Trump’s efforts to abolish Birthright Citizenship.

I believe Red State Democrats could run on Ronald Reagan’s immigration policy. Instead of doing reckless deportations, let’s give illegal immigrants a chance to turn themselves in. So long as they’re making good on their taxes and paying a fine for illegally crossing the border, why shouldn’t they be given a pathway to citizenship? They’re literally already here.

Democrats could couple this policy with stricter immigration enforcement, greater investment in deportation courts (which is what we should call them), and an investment in border security. Hell, they could even promise to support Trump’s wall!

The Wall is a stupid wasteful boondoggle that is certain to accomplish nothing, but that’s precisely why it doesn’t matter if we support it. Run on “Ronald Reagan’s Immigration Bill backed by The Wall” and know that other Senators will block the explicitly stupid parts of your platform.

Ronald Reagon on Trade

Reagan hated tariffs. He would be absolutely sickened by Donald Trump’s current trade policy and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Reagan would have denounced the President at this point, if he was still alive.

Red State Democrats have ample room to run an explicitly pro-trade campaign. Ordinarily, Democrats hesitate when talking about trade because we are reliant on union allies that still cling to outdated protectionist dogma. But the silver lining in running in deep-Red polities is that the GOP has already busted any union opposition that might restrain us.

Blue Dog Candidates can run on an anti-Tariff platform. We can credibly argue that we have the one quick fix to immediately bring prices down for American consumers. And we can force Republican candidates to either defend Trump’s tax increases or publicly break with the President. Either way, Trade puts the GOP on the backfoot, and we should give them a further shove.

Morning in America

In Donald Trump’s first inaugural address, he declared that America was in a state of “carnage.” He regularly argues that our country is being “invaded” by immigrants. And he claims that the rest of the world is “ripping us off.” Donald Trump has an extremely pessimistic outlook; he evidently does not believe in America.

Have you watched Ronald Reagan’s Morning in America ad recently? The entire premise of the spot is that things sucked four years ago but now President Reagan has fixed it. If you believe the ad, the Reagan administration ushered in an idyllic utopia in four short years. This sounds like the kind of thing Joe Biden or Kamala Harris could have put on air in 2024.

As someone that worked on the Biden Administration’s COVID Response, I’m kind of disappointed that we didn’t run a bunch of ads like this. I assume there was a fear that people grappling with inflation would find this kind of messaging tone deaf. But the last Trump Administration ended with my family not being allowed to leave our house! The world was collapsing in 2020, and Joe Biden fixed it!

That tangent, unfortunately, does nothing to move the ball forward. What’s more important is acknowledging that the Republican Party has completely abandoned its utopian vision for America. Democrats now have the opportunity to become the Party that feels good about our country.

America is the country that bore freedom unto this world. We are the country that brought empires to their knees. The country that defeated Fascism and then decolonized the globe. The country that broke Communist Tyranny and put an end to centuries of old European wars.

We are the country that created USAID, fed the global poor, and halted the spread of AIDs worldwide. We are the country that has led every attempted peace negotiation between Israel and Palestine, including the ones that are currently occurring. There are some that blame China for the global COVID Pandemic; regardless of whether that’s true, we are the country that invented and manufactured the vaccines that stopped it.

Americans built the internet, Americans made Rock and Roll, Americans birthed the civil rights movement. We are the wealthiest, most powerful society to ever exist in the known history of the known universe. Some wish to defeat us; most aspire to be us! It is our ideals that have shaped every international system of governance: We wrote the UN Charter, we built the World Bank, we run the IMF. Our constitution serves as the model that every other Democracy emulates.

The world belongs to America and America belongs to the world.

There are those on the Left that seem committed to bashing the United States. But I think we should leave that style of politics to the Republicans. Where Donald Trump offers disdain for public servants, including America’s troops, we should feel unafraid to praise them. And we should take pride in our place in the world!

A City on a Hill

Similarly, Democrats should feel free to play up our candidates’ Christianity, when relevant. Donald Trump is a transparently fake Christian, repeatedly reveling in vice and sin. He doesn’t go to church. He’s never humbled himself before anyone, let alone God. He’s transparently more interested in selling the Bible than he is in reading it.

By my count, there are 24 women in the Old Testament that have both speaking lines and actual names; in contrast, there are 25 women that have accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment or rape. By that metric, Donald Trump has allegedly assaulted more women than show up in the Old Testament. The Right used to complain about “virtue signalling.” Now they proudly signal vice. I don’t know if it’s possible to pull America’s Evangelicals out of their sinful hypocrisy. But Blue Dogs ought to try to outflank Republicans on Religion.

Ronald Reagan often quoted John Milton’s 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.” He believed that “America is a City on a Hill.” Just as Christ wanted his ministry to be open to all, Milton and Reagan wanted America to welcome all those who wish to come here. They wanted our nation to serve as a beacon of Liberty. A shining pillar of Freedom. An inspiration for huddled masses across the globe. Trump wants to hide our light under a bushel. Democrats should remind people of that disparity.

The Vision

I envision a slate of Blue Dog Senate Candidates repeating roughly this script:

“My name is [Candidate X]; I support Ronald Reagan’s Tax Bill, Ronald Reagan’s Gun Bill, Ronald Reagan’s Immigration Bill, Ronald Reagan’s Trade Bill, and Ronald Reagan’s Vision for American Leadership. Unfortunately, out of touch swamp Republicans like [Candidate Y] won’t stand for old school American values anymore. They’ve sold us out to coastal elites like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. But I’m fighting for you [State Z]. Vote for me, [Candidate X] on November 3rd.”

This script focuses primarily on issues where Democrats can already credibly claim to be closer to Reagan than Republicans.

But I envision candidates can then add any other localist or moderating policy planks, as needed. The candidate from Kansas can throw in sunflower subsidies, if they think that will help. If they’re willing to stand up to the rest of the Party, the candidates from Idaho or South Dakota could run on Pro-Life policies. After all, two Pro-Life Democratic Senators are going to be better than the Pro-Life Republican Senators that would otherwise occupy those seats.

This is meant to be a modular platform. It exists as a first rough draft for Blue Dog Candidates, which can be tweaked as needed. Campaigns can add new planks to supplement this list and, if some of these lines (like the tax bill portion) poll egregiously, candidates can drop them.

The overall goal, though, is to drive a stake into the heart of the Republican coalition. Find the people that prefer Reagan to Trump and steal away as many of them as we can.

What if I think this is dumb?

I suspect that there will be some in the Democratic Party that hate this idea. In fact, I’m counting on it. I think Blue Dog Candidates getting denounced by the Far-Left actually gives them more credibility in some States.

That said, I’d like to say a few words to head off some of the Left-wing skepticism I suspect this piece will generate. I also encourage you to read my “Theory of Change,” which explains some of my motivations in writing this piece. To quickly summarize, I put a lot of stake in winning elections and I think Democrats should prioritize winning over most other political goals.

Ronald Reagan is dead. Super dead! He’s been dead for 20 years and he is not around to steer the direction of his legacy. Our memory of Reagan is shaped, primarily, by those that claim his mantle. It is also shaped, to a lesser extent, by those that continue to hold a grudge against him.

The Democratic Party was largely unable to defeat Ronald Reagan in life. He won two massive electoral victories and remained popular enough to help his VP take office after he was term-limited out. He was immensely popular nationwide and he inspired an entire generation of Americans to trust Republicans on the economy.

There are some within the Democratic Coalition that cling to the notion of defeating Ronald Reagan in death. They’ll point to his mishandling of the AIDs Crisis, explaining that Reagan’s ineptitude (and possibly malice) led directly to the deaths of an entire generation of Gay People. They’ll point to Reagan’s crimes in the Iran-Contra Scandal. They’ll argue that Reagan’s policies kick-started the long decline of American manufacturing jobs and the ultimate withering of union power. The Left has repeated these lines for decades, aiming to gradually dismantle Ronald Reagan’s legacy.

And I don’t disagree with them; Reagan was bad in a lot of ways. I would have voted for Jimmy Carter! But I don’t see Reagan-bashing as productive in 2025. We’re not running against Ronald Reagan anymore. He’s a corpse, rotting in the ground! The MAGA Right, on the contrary, is frighteningly alive!

Donald Trump, JD Vance, Kristi Noem, Ron DeSantis, etc. - these figures are leading an ascendent political movement, and they’re hurting people. We need to stop them! And we shouldn’t leave tools unused.

If you’re reading this, you can fortunately count yourself among the living. That means you get to contribute to society’s collective memory. Ronald Reagan’s legacy is whatever we, the living, decide it is. If we decide that Reagan belongs to the Republicans, they will use him to box Democrats out of the Senate forever. But we can choose something else! I’ve decided that Reagan’s legacy is a tool to defeat MAGAism. I think you should decide that too.

Is this all a little intellectually dishonest? Maybe! - I think I’ve outlined numerous ways for us to play up our agreement with Reagan without compromising on the Democratic Party’s fundamental values. I could confidently run on this platform and still sleep well at night.

Critically, I think the Republican Party is currently engaged in a massive amount of intellectual dishonesty re: their commitment to Reaganism. Donald Trump is not a Reaganist candidate. He has no better claim to the man than Bill Clinton does. If I’m dealing dirty, the Trump folks are hiding cards up their sleeves!

And I should point out, MAGA is engaging in the exact same strategy:

During the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary, Ted Cruz made a campaign stop in Milford, New Hampshire. There, he went on a small rant about former President John F. Kennedy:

“JFK campaigned on tax cuts, limiting government and standing up and defeating Soviet communists . . . JFK would be a Republican today. He stood for religious liberty, and he would be tarred and feathered by the modern Democratic Party.”

This notion that John F. Kennedy would be a Republican today has been repeated a number of times by Right-Wing media figures. There are a few forum threads engaging with the idea online. And there was an entire spin-off of the Q-Anon conspiracy theory in 2020 centered on the idea that JFK (and his son JFK Jr.) were still alive and would imminently endorse Donald Trump for reelection.

That conspiracy theory is insane. But we shouldn’t let the craziness overshadow the obvious and concerted effort on the Right to win over people that feel positively about John F. Kennedy. It’s clear that numerous Republicans have calculated that there is explicit political upside in pandering to Kennedy-nostalgia. This culminated in Donald Trump appointing RFK Jr. (JFK’s nephew) to run his Department of Health and Human Services. The most prominent Kennedy in the public eye is now a Republican.

Do you think Donald Trump actually wanted to bring JFK back when he recruited RFK Jr. as a campaign surrogate? No! He has no interest in JFK’s political project. Donald Trump doesn’t care about anything except winning. But he saw a useful tool in Kennedy and he knew how to capitalize on it.

Engaging in a little Kennedy nostalgia bait gives the Republicans the opportunity to signal moderation while appealing to people that might otherwise fall outside their typical political coalition. American elections in my lifetime have mostly been really close, so winning over just a small percentage of your opponent’s supporters can have tremendous political upside.

I am not above using the Republicans’ tools against them. In fact, I am begging you to do so!

Let’s not get bogged down in yesterday’s wars; let’s fight for the living. Donald Trump and JD Vance represent a huge departure from the old Reagan-wing of the Republican Party. Reagan’s mantle is a crown in the gutter, there for the taking. The question is whether we’re willing to pick it up.

One Last Thing

I couldn’t find a place to fit this into the piece but I think it’s interesting.

Ronald Reagan has three surviving children. Patti Davis, who wrote that anti-Trump op-ed in the New York Times, has always been a massive Lib. Her brother, Ron Reagan, is also a longstanding Democrat and he is a frequent contributor on MSNBC. I only knew of his existence because he declared he was “unafraid of burning in hell” in this bizarre commercial that ran about a dozen times during Super Bowl LVI. There is one other sibling, Reagan’s adopted son Michael, and he’s super Conservative with a show on Newsmax.

My point being, Reagan’s not around to tell people that he’s not a Democrat. All of his surviving biological children are known Libs. Is it really that much of a stretch to claim Ronald Reagan would have come around to the very truths his own children have long embraced?

I don’t know if Reagan’s children would feel all that comfortable with everything I’m pitching here. Nor do I think they’re the best messengers on their father’s legacy. But I do think they could be convinced to endorse a slate of Democratic Senate Candidates. And that can’t hurt the project! This idea is eminently doable if a Super PAC or the DSCC chose to embrace it.

If you happen to have $100 million to burn on this experiment, please reach out! I’m in need of a job and I can start tomorrow!