Stop saying Trump will win

Stop Saying Trump Will Win

An admirable quality of Trump supporters and enablers is their unflagging faith, whether due to fear, ignorance, or bullying, there is a resoluteness that Democrats lack. The sky can be blue, and yet if Trump says it’s green, so say they. What I am hearing as of December 2019, before even the primaries kick-off is a “woe-is-me” cry that Trump will win. “I don’t want him to but…”

But what? It is entirely within your control. The outcome may not be but let’s not forget three very important factors:

1. It’s not over until it’s over. Just ask Al Gore. Politics is an endurance game and you have to be like Serena Williams fighting down to the last point of the last game in the last set.

Image result for venus williams tennis playing to the last point

Part of me wants to scream and curse because WHY? There’s no hard data that he’ll win. It seems so obvious that if you are so against something then why believe something that will make it come true? Up until a month, even two weeks before the election, Hillary Clinton seemed a “shoo-in” even by the Trump campaign internally.

There will always be doubt as to an outcome, so fight to the tooth for the candidate you believe in — or do your values mean so little? Does a candidate have to razzle and dazzle with oratory flair in order for there to be groundswell of support? Doubts weaken your candidate. In either case:

Stop Saying He’ll Win.

2. In February 2017, Ezra Klein wrote the “real reason” Hillary Clinton lost which applies today. She lost due to us. Put aside the numbers and Wikileaks and emails and Russia. Swing states, electoral votes, and scandals aside, Trump was Trump. The candidate who said that the Mexicans are rapists, made fun of the disabled, was heard saying “grab’em by the pussy,” rife with sexual assault allegations and corruption lawsuits, links to white supremacists on his team, riddled Russia and mafia ties, and with zero qualifications (almost as an aside). None of that was fake news. He said it. There’s footage. We all heard all of the above. And half of us didn’t. And he won.

Republicans aside, it’s not that Clinton lost due to a narrow margin that should give us pause. It’s that Trump won due to a narrow margin.

Much of that was due to half the country not voting. Nonchalance. The kind of thinking then fueled by “she’ll win but I don’t like her for some vague reason,” that pervades to this day.

Whether sexism is involved or not (it is as polls and data show but that aside), that senseless purity for candidates had once been fueled by “I don’t like her” to now “I don’t want Trump to win, but I don’t like any of the others. No one can win.”

Well, progressives and any champion of sanity, due to that thinking in 2016 we not only threw the baby out with the bathwater but we burned the house down. If we still insist on having “tests,” here’s a list of qualities candidates to judge candidates by since 2016 , ex. have any of the other candidates been found guilty of less than 3 corruption cases? DING! Better than Trump! Less than 25 sexual assault cases? DING! Whiffs of treason? DING! White supremacist ties? DING!

If anyone you like has any of those qualities, then Stop Saying Trump Will Win.

3. Even if Trump is in the lead: what will you do to stop it?

Here’s a guide as to what you can do to be proactive in getting a Democrat elected. Think what you will of Dems, but as our current 2020 party system stands, it will either be a Republican or Democrat as a winner so given all you know of Trump and the GOP, if they don’t sit well, then do what you can. This guide shows you how and what with links, everything from how to submit a vote to actively campaigning, there’s a wealth of options to choose from based on your resources, time, and level of involvement. Choose ONE.

And Stop Saying He’ll Win.

4. Politics is a number game: voters, electoral votes, gerrymandering, districting. I’ve outlined this in another post but this ties into “it’s not over until it’s over.”

Rail against the electoral college all you want but it’s here for 2020. Nothing at the systemic level, like the electoral college, will change unless we have the right judgeships which can only happen if they are appointed, which takes a steady stream of progressives in the Executive and Congressional branches. Why do you think Mitch McConnell is so focused on judgeships? Voter suppression, gerrymandering, the electoral college have all worked in the GOP favor so they won’t make any changes.

To make any of that happen, we need the votes. For the votes, we need voter turnout. For voter turnout, we have to fight for every vote — at the mass media, social media, mailbox, door knock, phone call levels.

And we have to Stop Saying He’ll Win.

5. The data does not support that Trump is a shoo-in winner. Not only do I firsthand speak to thousands of voters and know it not to be true from my slice of life but national and state polls do not bear this up. By the way, merely three weeks prior to the 2016 election, Trump’s own team told him that he had a 15% chance of winning based on polls. It’s not over until it’s over.

More importantly, we need to go forward with steadfast resolution. What has happened — whether it’s climate change, the environmental policy deregulation, the corruption, the inhumane immigration policies — pick one that most resonates and fight for it.

I don’t believe much of this country is Trumpland. I don’t believe most of this country is seething with racism and predators. I believe any country can bring out its ugly with the right cocktail at the top and we now have that cocktail of hate and vitriol, shaken not stirred. Don’t drink it.

Go into this election year holding your values close and speaking out loud for those values with the confidence of a rich, white man or Lizzo.

And stop saying he’ll win.