February 10th 2020

By Steven Day

In the immediate post-impeachment world, the internet can be a scary place for a Democrat to visit. Wherever one clicks it’s the same story: Trump unhinged, all the boundaries gone, free to wreak havoc and seek revenge. And if that’s not depressing enough, we’re also told Trump may be on a glide path to reelection. Meanwhile, the media tortures us with pathetically understated headlines such as this one from The Times online, describing Trump’s unhinged celebratory rant as “Trump Offers Formal Response to Acquittal in the Senate Impeachment Trial.” One has to wonder how The Times would have described The Sack of Rome, had the newspaper been published back in the year 410. Perhaps, “Visigoths express displeasure with Roman Empire.” 

Faced with this smorgasbord of despair, it’s easy to become dispirited, hopeless even. God knows that’s how I felt, at first, while scanning the web the day after Trump’s acquittal. It was like being repeatedly smacked in the face. Every click brought a fresh dose of doom. But, happily for my emotional well-being, this hopelessness didn’t last. Because the truth is, when you look at the situation objectively, putting aside fear, those of us opposing Trump still have the better hand.

It’s easy to forget just how many times in the last three years a majority of Americans surprised many of us, and stunned much of the media, by plowing right through whatever “Trump is rising” conventional wisdom was popular on a given day. After the election, we were told to expect people to rally around this new president. Instead, millions of women took to the streets in the first Women’s March. I can remember how much that meant to me in those bleak days. An Undeniable declaration of resistance. A message to the world — and to ourselves — that Donald Trump isn’t who we are, or who we’ll ever be.

How many times has the conventional wisdom insisted that a small handful of poll results proved Trump’s popularity, supercharged by a rosy (by some metrics) economy, was on the rise? I’ve lost track. But every time he quickly hit his ceiling, stalled out and then gradually drifted back down to where he started. 

People know Donald Trump. They know who he is — and more importantly, what he is. It’s true that a depressingly large minority of the population seems to like what they see. But it’s still a minority. And the only way they can carry the day in November, is if we let them. And, I’ll admit, there is some cause for concern there. Old wounds within the Democratic Party are reopening. The old anger. The old divisiveness. The old curse of some progressives losing sight of what’s on the line. 

Yes, these things do frighten me, especially in the face of inevitable right-wing cheating. Already polls indicate that that a surprising number of Democrats are uncertain whether they will vote for any Democrat other than their preferred candidate. The Iowa debacle has magnified these emotions, while stoking suspicions, giving birth to a whole new generation of conspiracy theories. In a close election, where every vote matters, this lack of focus on what’s most important could make the difference. And not just the difference in whether a Democrat is elected, but in deciding whether we’ll continue down the road to authoritarianism, or return to democracy. And I do mean return to democracy, because make no mistake, we’re not fighting to protect a healthy democracy. We’re fighting to reclaim one.

So, yes, I’m scared. But I’m also surprisingly optimistic — an optimism born from confidence that Democrats and other progressives do know what’s on the line. They’ve known it from the beginning. And they’ll know it in November. And with the exception of the inevitable handful of malcontents, more concerned with their own egos than the future of the country, Democrats and other progressives will do the right thing, and do what it takes to toss Trump out of our house. So, I’m done with gloom and doom and ready to do what I can to help kick Trump’s ass and, as an added bonus, reclaim the soul of America.