I am worried that some of you are so deep in your
Trump-induced funk that when the con man loses re-election on November 3rd,
you will wake up the next morning convinced that his defeat was just a dream.
I know what you’ve been thinking. First, Trump
outplayed Mueller. Then, Trump beat impeachment. Now, Trump is reaping revenge
on everyone who dared to stand up against him and for the Constitution. Trump
is on a roll and his poll numbers are as strong as ever. You say to yourself: “My
god, this moron has won! He will get four more years to torture us.”
So, allow me to tell you what you are missing.
You continue to believe that this is a traditional contest
between Democrats and Republicans. It is not.
This is a contest between the Angry Gang of Trump
and the Coalition to Save the Nation, comprised of Democrats, Independents, and
(yes!) anti-Trump Republicans.
Politics in America has become a giant turf war, and − like it or not − all of us are part of it.
On November 3rd, Donald Trump will have a
massive turnout of his people - mostly white, mostly male, and mostly non-college
educated. You have gotten to know them. You’ve been watching them sneer at you
since 2016. If they wake up with the flu, they will roll out of bed, onto the
floor, and crawl to the polls. We are powerless to stop them.
Fortunately, we don’t have to.
Because, unlike the
confused, low turnout election of 2016, you and every other intelligent,
frightened to death, clear thinking Coalition voter − Democrat, Independent, or
anti-Trump Republican − will be equally unstoppable.
This time around, only
the oddest members of our species will be strutting to the polls to cast their
ballot for a third-party candidate or to make a statement by writing-in the
name of their dog.
Please get it through
your heads that the 2016 presidential election is now a museum piece. That
election dynamic no longer exists. On that fateful day of the American
Experiment, 139 million of us showed up to vote. That was less than 56% of eligible
voters.
Turnout predictions for
the upcoming presidential election are as high as 156 million. That would be
66% of eligible voters, making it the heaviest turnout percentage since
1908.
This freshman class of voters
will be younger, browner, better educated, and more frightened about their
future than any history. Trump’s sliver of new voters will most likely resemble
the cast of Duck Dynasty.
In the run-up to the 2018
midterm elections, Democrats campaigned on saving Obamacare. Republicans campaigned
on saving the nation from “caravans of immigrants bringing crime and disease.” The
landslide win for Democrats did nothing to persuade the once Grand Old Party to
listen to voters.
Today, Republicans are
still trying to take away health care, while continuing to deny that they’re
doing it. Do they think we’re all stupid? Do they think voters have miraculously
stopped getting sick and have stopped going bankrupt from catastrophic
illnesses?
Do Republican
candidates understand that Black urban voters will be turning out in Obama
numbers and college-educated women in the suburbs will be swinging Democrat, continuing
the voter trend of 2018 and not the ancient history of 2016?
Those clueless
Republicans will see clearly on November 3rd that allowing
themselves to be swallowed up by the Trump-reality machine bought them a well
deserved ticket to nowhere. The disgraced post-Trump Republican Party will have
plenty of time for soul searching and rebuilding. Maybe they can take contemplative
retreats to the woods of Maine and sit around the campfire with the unemployed Susan
Collins.
As for the rest of us, I
will not tell you that clearing away the Trump wreckage will be quick and easy.
It will require exceptional presidential leadership. But to those of you who worry
that the damage done to our democracy by Trump, Barr, McConnell, Graham and the
rest of his accomplices is permanent, I would say this:
We went to the moon
because a president told us we could. If walking on that moon didn’t tell us
who we are, nothing will.
Seriously folks, get a
grip!
Bruce Coltin
Surviving Trump Two Minutes at a Time
