June 19
2025
Juneteenth. A day off. The Stephen Colbert for President 2028 Facebook group was already live and growing — started in May as a half-serious, half-deadly-serious theory that the moment required exactly that kind of candidate. The group had hit a rhythm. That afternoon, the question became: what's the slogan?
Hour 1
Workshopping in the group. Trying phrases. Trying frames. Something that captured the exhaustion and the refusal at the same time — not a protest chant, not a bumper sticker slogan, something that could actually carry the weight of the moment. Lots of work ahead. That one landed differently.
Hour 2
The acronym. L-O-W-A. Four letters. Said out loud: LOWA. Not a word anyone had ever attached to anything. Clean. Ownable. And then the tagline arrived on its own: When they go low, we go LOWA. Michelle Obama's line, twisted just enough to mean something new. The blue hat with the amber chevrons was already writing itself.
72 Hours
Domains. Site. Six planks. LotsOfWorkAhead.org was live. A full platform — healthcare, housing, wages, tax fairness, campaign finance, war powers — built from scratch and deployed. Not a proposal, not a draft. A live site with a real argument behind it.
47 Days
10,000 members. No ad spend. No party backing. No institutional support. Just the idea, the slogan, and a community that recognized what it was before anyone had a name for it. The Founding Run is open because the people who were here first deserve a permanent place in what gets built next.
"When they go low, we go LOWA."
The tagline that started it — a twist on a phrase everyone already knew, pointed somewhere new.
"Not a party, not a pick. A banner for the work — for anyone willing to carry it."
Movement first. Candidates second. Always.
"Lots of work ahead — and it belongs to all of us."
The only thing LOWA asks of anyone who picks it up.