#if trump takes office again things will be *horrifically* worse. vote or let us all crash and die

[gumshoegoat]

I said it in 2020 and I'll say it again, if you don't vote in this next election you're a pussy and a fucking idiot who's letting trump take control of office again for your own selfish performative activism needs and fine with the world suffering for it

[napoleoninrags]

MY PLAN FOR HOW TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE AN ELECTION, TRUMP IS REMOVED, AND THE REPUBLICANS ARE GONE FOR GOOD

by Michael Moore

TRUMP HAS DECLARED WAR ON US AND OUR DEMOCRACY.

IT’S TIME FOR US TO PUT OUR LIVES ON THE LINE, IF NECESSARY, AND TO MAKE HIM THE LAST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT OF OUR UNITED STATES.

Trump, right now, tonight, is up to some very nasty, scary stuff — stuff we can’t even imagine — and of course we can’t imagine it because we don’t think like Trump. Our brains are wired for love, empathy, solidarity, compassion, freedom, person, woman, man, camera, TV.

You know like I know that Trump has a devious, wicked plan to destroy this Election. We need to declare, immediately, that it is he and the Republican Party who have to go, for the sake of this country’s existence, they must be crushed and removed.

Trump actually has an arsenal of plans already in action to ensure he never leaves office. He has them all in high gear — some visible, some not. If you could see them all you’d be so stunned, you’d have to immediately convince yourself that there’s no way he can pull this off.

We are all caught in Trump’s Matrix, a mad web, the work of a psychopath-in-chief with tricks so devious that fascists of old, if alive today, would marvel at what Trump has accomplished.

For the next 11 weeks — and then for the 12 weeks between the Election and the Inauguration — Trump is planning nothing but anarchy, chaos, a call to arms of his angry white male followers and the complete destruction of our democracy. You think I’m kidding? You think I’m overstating the case? Do you want to take the risk that I might not be wrong? Most of you understandably chose not to listen to me four years ago when I warned you Trump was going to win the Presidency by taking Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. May I please ask that you now give me your serious attention for what I am about to say — because if I’m right again this time, there won’t be a next time. There will be nothing left for me to warn you about. There probably won’t be much left of me.

Here’s how Trump plans to end our right to choose the next President and Congress. It will happen fast. I am also laying out here a battle plan for us to defeat this takeover of our democracy. We must act now.

HERE ARE TRUMP’S 5 PLANS ALREADY IN MOTION:



PLAN #1: Create Chaos. Instill Fear. Fire Up the Base with Racist Vigor. Pandemonium Ensues.

CHECK. DONE.

PLAN #2: Suppress the Vote

•Dismantle the Post Office.

•Create 4-Hour-Long Lines by Drastically Reducing Number of Polling Locations.

•Throw Black and Brown Voters Off the Rolls.

•Stop Those Who’ve Served Time from Voting.

•Place 50,000 “Poll Watchers” at Voting Sites Around the Country to Intimidate Voters.

VOTER SUPPRESSION IN ACTION AS WE SPEAK.

PLAN #3: Postpone the Election. Place the blame on a “legitimate” national tragedy or emergency — massive deaths from the pandemic, a terrorist attack, an assassination, a deadly hurricane, a civil war in the streets, one or both Presidential candidates falling ill to Covid-19 — anything that reasonable people, even people who are opposed to Trump, will agree that “we just can’t hold an election right now! We just need to postpone it for a couple days, a couple weeks (a couple months... a couple years...)” Or perhaps he’ll just cancel the Election outright and see if he can get away with it.

TRUMP READY TO PULL THE TRIGGER.

PLAN #4: His September Surprise.

His October Surprise.

His November Surprise.

His January Surprise.

You think you can guess what it will be, but trust me, it’ll be far worse. We need to be ready. Stay on high alert, my friends. Millions of us will need to act on a moment’s notice. It’s the grim reaper of Democracy at our doorstep. We made the mistake of letting Trump get this far — why wouldn’t he now think he can get away with everything??

THE SURPRISE IS UNKNOWN. THAT’S WHY IT’S A SURPRISE.

PLAN #5: He Will Not Leave.

When Trump loses, he will declare the Election invalid, rigged, stolen — and he will refuse to step down.

So, what will we do then?

HERE IS OUR BATTLE PLAN TO REMOVE TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS:

1. Do Not Wait — Biden/Harris Should Start Running the Country Now.

We simply don’t have time to wait until January 20, 2021. Nearly 200,000 of us have already died from Trump’s reckless incompetence with the coronavirus. By Election Day it’s possible another 100,000 to 200,000 of us will have needlessly died. A total of 400,000 dead? That’s the equivalent of one hundred and thirty-three 9/11s! Or 532 planes being flown into 532 buildings. If something that horrific ever happened, and the President not only didn’t do anything about it, but tried to pretend it wasn’t all that bad - “it is what it is” - he would be run out of the White House by an angry mob of millions of Americans, lucky not to have his head put on a spike on the Key Bridge over the Potomac.

It doesn’t have to come to that. Biden and Harris should present to America a simple nationwide plan to end the pandemic — and then act on it immediately.

They should call a meeting of all the Governors and ask them what help do they need — and then find a way to get them that help, going around Trump and just making it happen. They should ask industry, in lieu of campaign contributions, to produce hundreds of millions of instant-result tests. They should call their Heads of State friends overseas and ask them to send all the PPE they can spare. They should get 250 million Americans to take the “Face Mask Pledge.” And they should promise the scientists in our top universities all the money and help they need once they’re in office. Ignore Trump. Treat him as if he’s irrelevant and get the job done.

2. The Republican Party Must Be Crushed and Destroyed. Trump Must Become the Last Republican President.

In the Michigan county where I live, the August primary this month set a record turnout for a presidential-year primary. In fact, more people this year voted by mail-in ballot than ALL those who voted in 2016 — by mail-in AND in-person combined. This is a highly encouraging sign for what we now need to do:

• We must create an historic massive turnout between now and November 3rd — a tsunami of voters the likes of which have never been seen, and may never be seen again. In 2016, 66 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. This time, though, we have to WALLOP Trump with an electoral concussion, a blow so profound he won’t know what hit him. This must be a defeat so crushing, so humiliating, a whooping of such epic proportions that he will be forced to leave 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with his tail between his legs on January 20th. This mammoth landslide must not only ensure that no president ever behaves this way again, we need to see to it that Trump is the last Republican president. The Election Day Uprising must put an end to this party of Trump enablers and traitors. They had a choice. They chose Trump over Democracy. They chose Putin and Netanyahu over fair elections and freedom for all. They chose the 1% over the 160 million working Americans. They chose the NRA over the massacred children of Sandy Hook. They chose to rig our elections, our textbooks, our economy. Democrats helped them along the way, and we’ll take the stick to them and fix that. The Republicans, though, chose to let hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens perish from Covid-19 because loyalty to Party and to Trump was greater than their duty to the American people. For that alone, the Republican Party must be put out of business for good. Vote out every last one of them. Conservatives will have to form a new party, much like when the Whigs were sent packing in the 1800s. The Republicans must pay for their crimes.

• We must flip the Senate —- and not just by the three seats we need for control. We should shock the pundit class and, as the Republican Party is reduced to ashes, grab a solid 55+ seat majority. Colorado, Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Montana and even Kansas, South Carolina and, yes, Texas (a state that is now 57% non-white) — are all possible Democratic Senate wins. Think about spending a weekend or a week helping out in one of these states. The Republicans will wish they had managed this pandemic better and had everyone busy back at work by now. All this “free time” should make for their undoing.

• Finally, we have to vote the local Republicans out of office, too. State Houses and Senates will be drawing the electoral map for the next ten years. We can’t let the cheating Republicans do this again. Do what you can to elect Dems in your state and local elections. The punishment of the Republican Party — a certified terrorist organization for having helped kill at least 200,000 Americans — is an imperative.

3. Who Would Be Willing To, If Need Be, Put Their Life on the Line To Ensure This Election Is Held and EVERYONE Gets to Vote? I Would. Would You?

These steps must be taken immediately:

• The Secret Service, the FBI, the Capitol Police and the Joint Chiefs of Staff must be called before Congress and swear under oath that they will guarantee that the election will be held, they will enforce the Constitution they swore to uphold, and if he’s defeated but refuses to leave, they will escort the former President of the United States out of the White House.

• Biden and Harris must put Trump on notice that if he does one more thing to interfere with the Election or issues one more threat to suppress the vote, they will turn him and his crime family over to the new Justice Department for prosecution.

• Every single one of us must be strong in our publicly-stated resolve that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON ON EARTH TO POSTPONE OR CANCEL THE ELECTION. That’s our unmovable and intractable position. No national tragedy, disease, threat or the melting of all of Greenland will cause us not to vote on or before November 3rd. Even if, God forbid, either candidate passes in their sleep between now and Election Day, the Election will continue — and the winner’s VP - or Nancy Pelosi - will become President on Inauguration Day.

• Let’s all pledge that, if Trump tries to cancel the election or if he refuses to accept its results, millions of us will go to DC and encircle the White House, a thousand deep, until he backs down, resigns or is removed.

• And, if you can, quietly make this commitment to yourself: “There are only a very few things I’d be willing to give my life for. This is one of them.” I know. That’s dark. And heavy. And awfully sad because it shouldn’t have come to this. But if we can’t even say that, then what good are we? If we aren’t willing to make that sacrifice, then America is already over and we might as well just fold our tent and see if Canada will take the non-racist, non-homophobic, non war-mongering ones of us who have manners and get satire.

4. Become an Election Defender.

Each of you should form an urgent action group - a rapid response team - in your neighborhood or town and do the following:

• Hold a daily protest at your local post office

• Picket the home of your local Postmaster (he/she may be on your side, so bring them some baked goods)

• Chain yourself to a local blue USPS dropbox if you can find one. Or chain it to something that won’t move.

• Sign up with the city clerk to be a poll worker on Election Day - especially if you’re young. Because of the pandemic, polls will be very short of poll workers. If you’re told they have enough help, then call the local Democratic Party and offer to be a “poll watcher”, the group of people from each party who get to oversee the voting to make sure there are no irregularities.

• Demand your city create more voting locations. Convince owners of arenas, theaters, ball parks, malls - places with large open spaces - to offer their facilities as polling places so that everyone gets a chance to vote.

• Canvas your neighborhoods over the next month to get people to fill out the form you’ll have them sign to get a mail-in ballot — and if they want to vote in person, let them know when the first day is so they can do that. Make a list of who needs a Covid-safe ride. The earlier the better!

5. The Uprising We’re In Is Only Getting Bigger. The People Will Now Call the Shots.

Why wait for the politicians to fix the mess of a country we’re in when they helped orchestrate the mess in the first place? Why don’t we just declare how we want to live — a new way to govern and function as a country — and we will finally fulfill the promise of the American Dream that has never been realized. Life, liberty, true equality, a sharing of the wealth, being good citizens of this world and kind stewards of a fragile Earth.

What have we learned from this pandemic? What we already knew: That employer-based health insurance can evaporate in an instant. Health care is a human right.

That being told “we can’t afford that!” (free college, free child care, free medical care - the things most advanced nations have) is total BS — the government CAN afford anything we decide we need!

We’ve learned that teachers, nurses, the mailwoman, farm workers, mass transit drivers and the minimum wage workers stocking the grocery shelves at 3 in the morning are our most important citizens and they need the respect and income they deserve immediately. 74% of the country now believes a guaranteed annual income is a great idea — fifty percentage points higher than when Andrew Yang proposed it 7 months ago!

We’ve learned to slow down, consume less — and that is what may be the path to saving the planet (when the 4% of its inhabitants [US] is no longer sucking up 25% of its resources and hoarding more than half its wealth).

We’re about to go elect more women than ever before — a time to turn the reins over to the gender that stands a better chance of getting us through the deadly viruses of Covid, Capitalism and Republicans(R.I.P.).

None of this will be launched by politicians. It will only come about through you and me taking action as part of the largest protest movement in our history — still growing, still going strong! — to end the racism, the abuse of the police state, the disgusting income inequality and the hateful misogyny that is going to come to an end in our lifetime.

America, post-pandemic, must become a very different place. Let’s make this happen. Doing the above will be the best cure for the trauma of these past four years.

Commit to being the change.

Organize your friends and family today.

Make your plan to campaign in a swing state Sept. or Oct.

VOTE AS EARLY AS YOU CAN—and take 5 people along with you!

We can do this. Trump - we’re coming for you. I’ll be in the first U-Haul truck that pulls up to your door.

[xtruss]

Interview with Mary Trump

"Donald Is a Fascist and the Republicans Are Trying To Destroy Our Democracy"

In an interview, Mary Trump, the only niece of the former American president, talks about an uncle she describes as dangerous, his enduring power and the growing hate in America.

— Interview Conducted By Marc Pitzke | 08.25.2021

— SPIEGEL International

Mary Trump: "He's literally the weakest person I've ever known." Foto: Sara Naomi Lewkowicz / DER SPIEGEL; Michael Reynolds / Zuma Press / action press

Mary Trump, Donald Trump's only niece, has just finished a talk show appearance by video chat from her kitchen. She's sitting in the library of her apartment building, trying to relax. The ceiling-high shelves behind her are filled with carefully curated coffee table books. Through the wall of windows, one can see Manhattan's thick traffic below.

Trump, however, seems irritated. "This was the first time I've been treated badly in an interview," she says.

She had just appeared on "The View," a popular morning chat show, where they discussed politics, the pandemic and racism. Yet one co-host checked out of the conversation without even greeting her: Meghan McCain, daughter of the late senator John McCain, who had been reviled and insulted by Donald Trump even as he went to his grave.

The younger McCain is famous – infamous – for her own conservative tirades. After the show with Mary Trump, she tweeted: "There is no 'good' Trump family member to me."

And there it is, Mary Trump's burden: her last name.

She will be forever linked to her uncle, his lies, is hubris, his incompetence, his autocratic tendencies – and the damaging fallout from his one term as president.

Last year, the psychologist published her memoirs: "Too Much and Never Enough." The book revealed the horrific family history of the Trumps – and made her a target of Trump fanatics, who still worship the former president. For months, she hardly left the house – because of COVID-19, but also out of fear of being recognized and vilified.

Now Trump, 56, has written a second book, "The Reckoning: America's Trauma and Finding a Way To Heal." It addresses the darkest period of U.S. history, with the nation's enduring racism, and, of course, her uncle.

DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Trump, last summer you called your uncle the world's most dangerous man. Now that he's out of office, do you still feel that way?

Trump: After the election, I was happy for about a minute. I was very relieved, of course, but the number of people who voted for him was just heartbreaking. Seventy-four million! Yes, Joe Biden won. But the Democrats in general didn't win enough. We needed a total repudiation of Donald and his party, and we didn't get one.

DER SPIEGEL: So, you think he still presents a danger?

Trump: We're not out of the woods. It became clear right after the election that he was going to do everything in his power to undermine the legitimacy of the results and that the Republicans were just going to let him do it. For him, losing is not acceptable and winning doesn't mean legitimately winning, it just means getting the win. He knows he didn't win, but I don't believe he knows he lost, either.

DER SPIEGEL: How so?

Trump: He's been trying for two years to steal this election. I don't believe he can wrap his head around the fact that everything he did, all the stops he pulled out, all the stops the Republican Party pulled out for him, haven't worked. So, he's still trying to steal this election.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you see Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol Building, as such an attempt?

Trump: He is very good at finding people weaker than he is, which is shocking because he's literally the weakest person I've ever known. But they're out there obviously, in large numbers. Then, there are people who are much smarter and powerful than he is, who know how to use him. So, it's a very dangerous combination. Were there people around him who knew that it could very possibly lead to that moment? Absolutely. Was he completely willing and comfortable to take advantage of the situation and make it worse for his benefit? Absolutely.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you think he welcomed what he saw on Jan. 6?

Trump: Oh, my gosh, yeah. It was probably one of the best days of his life. The worse it got, the happier he was. It wasn't an accident when he told the mob that if he wasn't granted the victory, it was Mike Pence's fault. So, should we be surprised that people were running around with nooses wanting to string Mike Pence up? It would have been perfectly fine with him. Absolutely. The only thing he probably regrets about that is that there wasn't more violence.

DER SPIEGEL: What went through your mind that day?

Trump: I hadn't listened to his speech beforehand, because I've tried whenever possible not to listen to him or look at him, because I don't care what he has to say. At first, like everybody else, I found it really hard to know what precisely was going on. It just looked like a mess. The first word that came to mind was tawdry. But then it became obvious to me that it was much worse than that. This is our Capitol! This is the center of – well, I don't like to say American democracy, because I don't think America has ever completely been a democracy like we aspire to be.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you think he will run again in 2024?

Trump: I don't know. But because he's being enabled, he sees an opening. He feels the power. He also knows that the only way he stays out of legal trouble is to get back into power.

DER SPIEGEL: Does it weigh on you to be so personally connected to his world? In your new book you reveal that in 2017, a few months after your uncle's inauguration, you went into inpatient treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. What happened?

Trump: I just remember feeling so out of control. I remember spinning out and didn't know how to stop. I lived in a very Republican town then, so I was really isolated. For the first time in my life, I lost friends because of an election, and I knew I needed to do something. But despite the fact that I'm a psychologist, I didn't know there were treatment programs for that. I knew there were for addictions, but I didn't know there was such a thing for post-traumatic stress.

DER SPIEGEL: Your uncle traumatized half the nation.

Trump: Every once in a while, I think about how this country will be forever stained by what he did. That's really hard. We never recover from that. Maybe in 200 years, but not while I'm alive.

DER SPIEGEL: Don't you think his spell is broken? Joe Biden's policies are pretty popular, and Trump's "Big Lie" hasn't amounted to anything.

Trump: The Democrats don't understand the seriousness of the threat. They are playing by rules in a rulebook that the Republicans lit on fire. There are no rules anymore. They need to start fighting like their lives depend on it. But they're just not willing to do that. There is an unwillingness – also in the U.S. media – to use the kind of language that is accurate and necessary to get people to understand the seriousness of the threat.

DER SPIEGEL: How serious is it?

Trump: Donald is a fascist, and the Republicans are an autocratic, anti-democratic, counter-majoritarian party that would be perfectly happy to establish some kind of apartheid in this country. They are actively trying to destroy our democracy. If they win back the House in 2022, it would be fatal to the American experiment. I wouldn't be surprised if they make Donald, two years before the presidential election, speaker of the house. And then there will never be another Democrat allowed to win an election.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you really believe that?

"The Democrats don't understand the seriousness of the threat. They are playing by rules in a rulebook that the Republicans lit on fire. There are no rules anymore."

Trump: We see it happening already. Last year, there were 155 million presidential votes cast in this country. There have been maybe 36 cases of voter fraud, which is a vanishingly small number. And yet, we've got hundreds of voter suppression laws in place or being pushed by the Republicans. If the Democrats lose the House and/or the Senate in the 2022 midterms, it's over. It is over.

DER SPIEGEL: You don't think the U.S. democracy is resilient?

Trump: The way this country is structured is inherently anti-democratic.

DER SPIEGEL: What do you mean?

Trump: The U.S. Constitution is not a democratic document. For example, we currently have a 50-50 split in the Senate, but the 50 Republican senators represent 40 million less people than the 50 Democratic senators – because the constitution gives every state two senate seats, no matter how populous.

Trump supporters in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6: "It was probably one of the best days of his life. The worse it got, the happier he was." Foto: Shay Horse / NurPhoto / Getty Images

DER SPIEGEL: In your new book, you write: "The ugly history of our country is filled with sordid, barbaric and inhuman acts committed by average citizens which were encouraged or at least condoned by the highest levels of government. To deny this history means to deny our national trauma." That's a devastating judgement – how did you come to that conclusion?

Trump: If there's one thing Americans are very good at, it's perpetuating myths about ourselves.

DER SPIEGEL: For instance?

Trump: One of the most astonishing things this country got away with was portraying itself as a beacon of democracy during World War II, while at the same time an entire population of people was being held in what was essentially a closed, fascist state in the South. Black Americans who served their country came home only to be lynched because they had the audacity to wear the uniform. Part of that is also that people think that the North were the good guys. But a large percentage of Northerners were really racist, too, and perfectly happy to have Blacks freed, but did not want them to have any political power, so they decided that it was more expedient to make common cause with the former Confederates than with the freed men and women.

DER SPIEGEL: Isn't the way of looking at U.S. history changing rapidly?

Trump: The right is doing everything to make sure that Americans continue to stay ignorant about their own history. Imagine if post-World War II Germany hadn't taken the steps that it has taken.

DER SPIEGEL: Not all Germans back then were too excited about that, either.

Trump: That's a good point. It requires the political will. We let people off the hook for flying the Confederate flag because they claim it's just about their Southern history. But they know what it means. It means that they are completely on board with white people owning black people.

DER SPIEGEL: Is the U.S. still a racist country?

Trump: If you're a white adult American, it's almost impossible not to be racist because of the media environment we grow up in, our families or our friends' families, the influences of our education. But when you become an adult, you need to take responsibility for that stuff. If we don't acknowledge it, then it's never going to change. But it's very hard to acknowledge that.

DER SPIEGEL: How much do you blame your uncle for that?

Trump: I blame him for the fact that it's becoming more and more acceptable to be openly racist. What Donald did was prove that racism is a successful platform when you run for office in this country. People like him are out there very openly being racist and white supremacist, and they're getting tens of millions of people to vote for them because either they agree with them or they don't have a problem with it because lower taxes are more important. We're in a really dangerous place.

"The Republicans are an autocratic, anti-democratic, counter-majoritarian party that would be perfectly happy to establish some kind of apartheid in this country."

DER SPIEGEL: Do you also blame him for the disastrous COVID-19 situation here last year?

Trump: That's been one of the worst things for me to deal with. Knowing that your uncle is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is not a good feeling. That many died in exactly the same circumstances my father did, alone, because my uncle, who could have gone to the hospital to be with my dad, rather went to the movies. So, that's been really, really hard. Because of his incompetence and his cruelty we're still struggling with this. Because of his encouragement of the unvaccinated and his failure to model decent behavior, which he is incapable of doing. It's just a kick in the teeth.

DER SPIEGEL: Wasn't he one of the first to get vaccinated?

Trump: Secretly! Everybody in the family got vaccinated. They're all vaccinated. Imagine how people are going to react when they find out that they've all been betrayed and the people they put their faith in lied to them for political expediency.

DER SPIEGEL: Psychologically, how do you get people to admit they've lived a lie for so long?

Trump: It's hard. I don't hold out hope for most of these people. I really don't.

DER SPIEGEL: That sounds rather pessimistic.

Trump: I am bizarrely a quite optimistic person. Maybe that took a hit over the last couple of years. But I am pretty much an optimist. I haven't given up hope.

DER SPIEGEL: Yet the next Trump generation seems ready. Do you expect your cousin, Donald Jr., or your cousin Ivanka, to run for political office?

Trump: No.

DER SPIEGEL: Why not?

Trump: My uncle is such a buffoon, but he does have charisma. If you met him, for the first 10 seconds you would see it. After that, you would realize that he's a total psychopath, but a lot of people are very susceptible to his kind of charisma. Donald Jr. and Ivanka don't have any of that. They don't survive politically without him. They don't survive in business without him. No, I don't see that. Hopefully, they'll all end up in jail.

DER SPIEGEL: What's next for you?

Trump: My next book will not be about my uncle. I'm taking a break. Never write a book about trauma while you're still being actively traumatized.

DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Trump, we thank you for this interview.

— Mary Trump's latest book, "The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way To Heal," was published in August by St. Martin's Press. The book has also been published in German translation by Heyne Verlag.

— Mary Trump, 56, holds a doctorate in psychology and has known the former president since childhood. Her father Fred Trump, Jr., Donald Trump's older brother, died in 1981. Her first book, "Too Much and Never Enough," about her uncle became a bestseller in the United States in 2020.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Heatwave for President

Fic: Heatwave for President (ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart

Summary: Mick Rory will go down in history for being the first person to start his campaign for President of the United States by saying, "I really don't want to do this, but seriously, look at my opponent."

A/N: Birthday present for @oneiriad! Happy birthday!

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"Do you have any regrets about the process?" the reporter asks as they all stare at the giant television showing the projected results as the exit polls start trickling in from the states. "Anything you would change?"

"What kind of question is that?" Iris mutters under her breath.

Mick - to whom the question had been directed - hums for a moment. "I think - the time travel," he says. "That bit. Wouldn't do it."

The reporter frowns. "But wasn't it your association with the, quote, 'Legends of Tomorrow' that originally propelled you on your current path towards politics and, eventually, your present run for President?"

"Yeah," Mick says glumly. "Exactly."

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Technically, it's a bit more complicated than that.

First, of course, there was the Flash. Everything always starts there - oh, shut up with your stupid 'Green Arrow was first' bullcrap, no one cares that he was first because he was just some weird serial killing vigilante to start off with, and anyway barely anyone outside of Starling (Star City, whatever) knew about it - because it was by watching the Flash's epic battles with what have come, retrospectively, to be known as his "Rogues" that Mick first became famous. He even had his own action figure, which most people running for president could only imagine happening in relation to political satire.

Of course, back then they called him Heatwave.

Then Snart - that's Captain Cold to you, reporter - had the bright idea of hooking up with some time travelers for a lark. Mick hadn't thought much of the idea at the time, even tried to quit a few times - quit with prejudice, one might say, and there'd been that whole Kronos business that you're not finding out any more about, the news media already knows more than Mick would like on the subject - and it hadn't taken.

And then Snart died.

Yes, Mick is perfectly aware that Snart's back now, but for a while there he'd been absolutely and totally convinced that he was gone for good (he was dead - how was Mick supposed to know that it hadn't fully taken?!) and it'd been pretty shattering.

That was the period with the Legends. Saving history, fucking up history, all of that.

Yes, that's when he met Georgie Washington. Stop asking about it. Mick's already told you all he knows.

No, he refuses to go get him for the Inauguration, should it happen! The guy didn't even like politics towards the end of it! Leave Georgie alone!

Okay, maybe a dinosaur. Mick makes no promises.

Well, yeah. He guesses it would be pretty cool to ride to the White House on a dinosaur. You might have a point there.

Anyway, where was he? Oh, right, the Legends. Anyway, when the first alien attack came - the Dominators - Mick was there with the Legends. It was a state secret and all that at the time; that's when he got a pardon for everything he'd previously been involved with. Very hush-hush, though how the pres was planning on keeping the details of how a nation- or world-wide invasion was defeated a secret is anyone's guess. Sure, keep it a secret from the American media, that's one thing, but those British tabloids are vicious weasels that will stop at nothing.

Okay, yeah, Mick taking a selfie with a downed Dominator and posting it to Instagram - instantly making it one of the only good pictures anyone had of the damn things, which were resistant to being recorded on any type of media unless you did some special adjustments to the settings, like, say, the sort Gideon did automatically when upgrading their camera phones, and by sheer scarcity thereby became famous worldwide as the definitive Dominator photo - probably didn't help with the whole secrecy thing.

Hell yeah Mick's going to put a copy of that in the White House if he wins, you kidding? That picture won photo of the year, and that was the year of the solar eclipse, so it had some pretty stiff competition.

Anyway, yeah, that's how Mick's rep started shifting from supervillain to - you know what, let's just avoid any use of the terms 'superhero' (Mick is not) or 'hero' (also not).

Good guy?

Ugh. Fine. Out of lack of better options.

Anyhoo, that's when the buzz started, y'know? A couple of pranksters - whose names shall remain nameless but who know exactly who they are, Barry Allen and Cisco Ramon - uh, that last part's off the record - anyway, these fucking assholes decided to start up a fake Super PAC called 'Heatwave for President'.

Yeah, Mick knows it was just meant as a contrast to the current incumbent. Sort of a "if this idiot can become president, why not Heatwave the famous supervillain" sort of deal. Mick's cool with that. It was a funny joke and, yeah, the incumbent was worse than useless. You'd think getting the job when your predecessor was shot by aliens would give them the sympathy vote, at least for a bit, but wow did they blow it. Who the fuck tries to kill health care for kids as their first official push in action? Seriously, who?

Yeah, you can definitely write that down. “Mick Rory still ticked off about asshole move”. Honestly, just keep that handy for copy-paste purposes, it’s probably going to be relevant a lot in the future.

What? No, Mick hadn’t thought about running for office as far back as the whole joke Super PAC thing. Mick was traveling through space and time at that time. Keep your chronology straight. If Mick can do it – and, again, not to over-emphasize this, but do you know how hard it is to keep track of time on a time-traveling spaceship? – then you can do it when you've got your feet firmly set down on planet earth in a consistent timeline.

So yeah, things were going along that way, Mick with the Legends, going around, doing shit, messing shit up, fighting with people. The whole thing wasn't exactly all sunshine and roses, but they did well enough. Well, they managed to keep the timeline more or less intact, at least.

No, you wouldn’t know it if they’d failed. Time doesn’t work that way.

No, the current incumbent isn’t a result of a horrific failure by time travelers to prevent an evil catastrophe from –

Huh. You know what, Mick’s not going to give a definitive answer on that one. Just assume that if the Legends had failed, things would be even worse.

No comment on North Korea. Just – no comment. Ever.

Yes, ever.

The Legends are on it, okay?!

Not the point Mick was trying to get at here. More what he was trying to get at is – Len. Snart. Captain Cold.

Fuck it, Mick's just calling him Len for the rest of this interview -

Yes, thank you Len, your commentary that you are “always the point” is incredibly helpful here.

Fucking drama queens.

Anyway.

That's about when it turns out (or rather, when they all discover) that Len didn’t, in fact, die – or maybe he did, and it got reversed, or something like that – and he ended up in a different universe. Fighting Nazis.

Listen, if there’s one thing that Mick’s going to take a permanent never-gonna-change-it-no-matter-what-new-evidence-appears-no-matter-what position on, it’s gonna be Nazis. Mick fucking hates Nazis.

Yes, neo-Nazis count.

Yes, they have a First Amendment right to free speech, meaning no government oppression.

Yes, Mick realizes that means he’ll have to stop punching them all the time if he gets elected President. It’s okay. He’s sure that some fine, upstanding people will take up the slack and keep on the good work for him.

Listen, if Super PACs are “sufficiently unrelated” to a presidential campaign to raise money on behalf of some asshole – and yes, Mick’s counting himself here – then the Nazi-Punching Party which endorsed Mick and which he may or may not go to regular meetings of is “sufficiently unrelated” for the purposes of government oppression of free speech. You get me?

Fine, Mick will probably stop attending meetings.

Probably.

Len can still go, though, right?

See, Lenny, you can still go. Bring a goddamn camera.

Fuck, being President is going to be no fun at all. Why is he doing this again?

Oh, right, because the World’s Worst Caricature is running for office and the Legends and Gideon have all agreed that letting that guy get elected would literally mean the end of the world. That’s it, kaput, no more history, everyone’s all back to using sticks to write in the dirt again – what weird mutated creatures are left over anyway.

Ugh.

Trust Mick, you don't want to see the things Mick has seen. It's bad.

Mick would like it known that he does not approve of things going in a political drama-slash-mutated creature sort of way. Sci-fi was always more Len’s things. Mick prefers ninjas.

Yeah, that meeting with Tokyo’s Prime Minister went awesomely, why do you ask?

Shut up, Len. There was some discussion of policy; it wasn’t all about what classic ninja movie was the best. Though the last five hours were definitely all movie marathon. Not gonna lie.

Where was he?

Right, Len. Fighting Nazis. Terrible nearly world-ending invasion of the present Earth by the Nazi forces of that Earth, including the superhero and meta equivalents, repelled only by the combined forces of basically everybody.

Len and Mick teamed up to save the day, just like old times.

Okay, old times, they teamed up to steal things. Basically the same thing.

Listen, Nazis from another dimension invaded. That trumps everything.

For anyone other than the current incumbent, anyway. Fuckhead.

Yes, that’s on the record.

What? What the fuck is “Presidential decorum”? Listen, you, unlike you, Mick’s actually met George Washington, and if you think that every three words he uttered wasn’t some variation of ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, or ‘damn’, then that’s just because you’re reading the cleaned up history version. He was a soldier. And before he was a soldier, he was a surveyor, which as far as Mick can tell means “walked out into the forest with a compass and came back out hating bears”, and if that doesn’t make a man swear, then nothing will.

No comment on whether or not Mick hooked up with him.

Just give up. You’re never going to get a comment.

So while everybody else was being scared shitless at how the Nazis from another dimension – and yeah, Mick’s perfectly aware that the usual term is “another Earth”, but fuck it, “another dimension” sounds like a crappy 1950s sci-fi “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” and makes Len grin every time, so Mick’s sticking with it – were invading, especially when they got all the white supremacists on this Earth to join up with them, taking advantage of all those so-easy gun laws to arm up into an actual local army, the current incumbent decided to throw a temper tantrum because the attention wasn’t 100% focused on them for five fricking minutes.

Also, Mick’s pretty sure they’re actually not-so-secretly a Nazi supporter. All that talk of cooperating and seeing what they have to say and how they were “good people” – total fucking crap, obviously. That asshole was probably disappointed when Mick and Len had their Moment of Awesome sending them all back to where they came, right into the trap Len’d been setting up with the other resistance forces on that Earth.

Either way, as everyone knows, as soon as the Nazis were gone, the next thing the current incumbent decided to do was push a horrible law outlawing any metahumans – and they defined metahumans in the stupidest possible way, and all because they wanted it to cover people who actually didn’t have any powers like Len and Mick, which didn’t even make sense – and trying to make Earth-1 full on fascist.

Yeah, fascist. They put lots of fancy words and stuff – no, that’s not right, their speechwriters put fancy words and stuff around it, but that law was – is – fucking dystopia nightmare fuel right there, okay?

Listen, Mick literally has someone from 2042 going around and testifying to how awful that law makes literally everything. What more evidence do you fucking need?

So, yeah. Horrible future. World's Worst Caricature running for office, almost certain to pass it if they get in.

And that means -

Someone was gonna have to man up (woman up? non-gender up? human up? wait, is the last one specieist?) to stop it.

Now, you’d think the other party would do something about that, wouldn’t they? But noooo, they decide to shoot themselves in the foot by nominating some old geezer taking a hard line about how everything’s going to change now that everyone’s “together” – never mind the details, togetherness is what’s important, right guys? the movement's gonna fix everything! because it's a revolution! of feelings! Of all the dumbass hippie-dippie crap... – and coming up with increasingly more stupid ideas that wouldn't work. Doesn't matter, of course, Mick was all set to vote for the fucker anyway, along with everyone else, just to keep Worst Caricature outta office, but no. See, then, three fucking months before the election, the asshole gets found out to be corrupt as fuck! Except he won’t resign and let anyone else run! And his fanboys have made their way into the levers of power, so the party can’t kick him out, either! And all the goddamn ballots have already gone to the printers!

That’s how this whole thing really got started, you know. Three fucking months, and the only other person who’d been entered to run for President in all 50 states before the deadline passed is – you guessed – Heatwave for President.

Fucking hell.

At the time, the entire freaking organization was being run by the people who now make up Mick’s circle of advisors – Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen, Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, and Iris West – because they’d all thought it was freaking funny or something, and everyone suddenly had to change gears real fast to try to make it into an actual thing.

Not that anyone thought it would work. You know, they just thought - might as well give it a try. Can't just roll over and give in; gotta go for the Hail Mary pass if that's all that's left to you.

No one actually thought it would work.

At least, no one thought it would work until the polls started changing. First time they polled it, Mick got, like, 5%.

Second time they polled it, he got 30%.

Now he’s somewhere near 50%.

Jesus.

If Mick wins, Mick’s taking a weekend to go sit quietly in a room and hyperventilate for, like, an hour.

Thanks for the hug, Len. Means a lot; Mick knows very well how much you hate public displays of affection. Or emotion. Or anything but drama, drama, drama.

Huh? Yeah, Len and Mick are partners. They’ve always been upfront and clear about that.

No – no – partners.

Yes, criminal partners. But also, you know, partner partners. If you get what Mick’s saying.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, they’re married. Len’s going to be the First Supervillain or whatever they call it when it’s a guy.

What do you mean, nobody…? It’s fucking legal and everything! Central City’s Hall of Records has a copy of the goddamn certificate!

…oh, okay, yeah. Fair point. Can’t even imagine the type of backlog you’d have to go through to get Central City bureaucracy to do anything, much less respond to a freaking FOIA request. They'll probably get around to responding to it sometime in the 2030s.

You mean people really didn’t know?

Huh.

Well, that’s gonna surprise a lot of people, then.

First ever non-straight resident of the White House? Don’t be ridiculous. Haven’t you met Lincoln?

Right. Not everyone time travels. Sorry, keep forgetting.

Yes, Mick’s met Lincoln.

No, Mick’s not going to comment on if he hooked up with him, either. Jesus. Stop asking.

Why hadn’t Mick mentioned meeting Lincoln before? Because it wasn’t important? It never came up!

It’s not like anyone asked for a listing of all the time eras he’s visited!

Of course the Legends never mentioned it; it wasn’t when Mick was with them. It was during his Kronos period. Listen, it’s a long story, okay? And they’re getting close to actually starting to yell out states, so maybe everyone should pay attention to that instead.

Yes, Mick is totally aware that he’s being weaselly. He’s a politician now. He’s allowed to be weaselly sometime.

What’s everyone got against weasels, anyway? Perfectly nice animals.

Mick has a pet rat, you know. If Mick wins – yes, he’s still using fucking “if”, nothing gets decided until we hit Ohio and Florida, Iris – does that make Ratigan the First Pet or something now?

Is there a First Pet position?

Wait, there is? Kickass.

Never been a rat before? So what? Mick’s got nothing against dogs, you know, but he doesn’t have a dog. He has a rat. People will just have to deal.

Heh. Not Mick’s fault you don’t know what part of this interview you should make the headline.

…thank you, Len, he’s not going to go with “Bisexual Rat-Owner Wins Presidency; Husband Approves”.

No, “President-Elect Uses ‘Fuck’ More Often In Last-Minute Interview Than Any Prior Candidate” isn’t a good choice either, Iris. Probably historically inaccurate, too; LBJ was real big on the whole swearing thing - no comment on the hook-ups! Jesus!

What? No, Ramon, no one is running a headline that goes “Time Traveler Confirms Academic Suspicions Regarding Lincoln’s Sexuality”. No one cares!

Fine, maybe the history journals care. But no one else. Not like it’s a big deal. People can sleep with whoever they want.

Oh, it’s still a big deal in some ways? That sucks. Okay, that’s going on the agenda of things to do to fix in the next four years.

Eight years?

No.

Yes, he means it! Why the hell would he run for office twice? How bad can the next option be?!

And Sara just ran into the room. Please say that you’re not here to tell everyone that some horrible thing has happened in the future that –

Actually, never mind. Please be here to tell everyone that some horrible thing has happened in the future and that you desperately need everyone here to go take care of it immediately.

No?

Damn.

Wait.

What do you mean, Mick won?

Oh fuck.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, what are you planning on doing now, Mr. President-Elect?” the reporter asks, beaming like a maniac, as the giant television shows the explosive celebrations occurring immediately outside – literally explosive, since Mick had insisted on bonfires and fireworks and at least four different pyrotechnics teams. “What’s your first move?”

"What kind of question is that?" Iris laughs as Barry swings her around. “We can worry about that tomorrow! Tonight we party!”

“The world is saved!” Cisco cheers.

“I’m doomed,” Mick says, his head rolling back. “They’re never gonna let me quit.”

“Probably not,” Len, who is perched right next to him, says to him, not without sympathy. “But it’s okay. I’ll do the work for you.”

“You’re the best, boss,” Mick says, not without feeling. “Why couldn’t you have been Vice President?”

“Because they can’t be in the same building for too long,” Len explains. "Meteorite strikes."

"Oh," Mick says glumly. "Right."

Len pats Mick’s arm comfortingly. “Don’t worry. There’s a long, storied precedent of First – uh, First Spouses – running the joint for their husbands.”

“Damn right there is,” Mick says, rubbing his face. “Thank god for Woodrow Wilson, that's all I'm saying - don't you even ask," he warns the reporter.

“Besides,” Len continues, sounding quite practical. “Sara makes a great Vice President. After all, if you die, who would you want to avenge your murder if not Sara?”

Mick nods.

“Um,” the reporter says, blinking at the two of them. “That’s…not what a Vice President does?”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“…moderately sure. I’ve been reporting on political matters for a long time now.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure she’s gonna let Jax, Stein and Ray do most of her work,” Len offers. “Even after all that trouble we had to go to in order to get her declared alive again…”

“It…really doesn’t,” the reporter says. “But thanks for the update?”

“No problem,” Len says. “C’mon, Mick. Let’s go watch things burn.”

Mick brightens and climbs to his feet.

“Hey,” Len asks the reporter, “you’re the politico here. Do Presidential spouses get immunity from prosecution?”

The reporter frowns. “Why?”

“No stealing stuff, Snart,” Barry says.

“Oh, fine.”

“For four years.”

“Wait, what?!”

"You're a role model now!"

"No! I refuse!"

"Too late now," Iris cackles.

Mick starts laughing. “Well,” he says, looping an arm around Len’s waist and dragging him towards the flame, Len’s face still frozen in a rictus of horror. “At least I won’t be the only one suffering!”

“Look on the bright side!” the reporter shouts after them. “Politicians are basically just thieves on a much larger scale!”

[sallyember]

Love, hate him, but do not ignore Michael Moore about #45 !

#wemustwinblue2020

“MY PLAN FOR HOW TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE AN ELECTION, #TRUMP IS REMOVED, AND THE REPUBLICANS ARE GONE FOR GOOD”

by Michael Moore

“TRUMP HAS DECLARED WAR ON US AND OUR DEMOCRACY.

“IT’S TIME FOR US TO PUT OUR LIVES ON THE LINE, IF NECESSARY, AND TO MAKE HIM THE LAST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT OF OUR UNITED STATES.

“Trump, right now, tonight, is up to some very nasty, scary stuff — stuff we can’t even imagine — and of course we can’t imagine it because we don’t think like Trump. Our brains are wired for love, empathy, solidarity, compassion, freedom, person, woman, man, camera, TV.

“You know like I know that Trump has a devious, wicked plan to destroy this Election. We need to declare, immediately, that it is he and the Republican Party who have to go, for the sake of this country’s existence, they must be crushed and removed.

“Trump actually has an arsenal of plans already in action to ensure he never leaves office. He has them all in high gear — some visible, some not. If you could see them all you’d be so stunned, you’d have to immediately convince yourself that there’s no way he can pull this off.

“We are all caught in Trump’s Matrix, a mad web, the work of a psychopath-in-chief with tricks so devious that fascists of old, if alive today, would marvel at what Trump has accomplished.

“For the next 11 weeks — and then for the 12 weeks between the Election and the Inauguration — Trump is planning nothing but anarchy, chaos, a call to arms of his angry white male followers and the complete destruction of our democracy.

“You think I’m kidding? You think I’m overstating the case? Do you want to take the risk that I might not be wrong?

“Most of you, understandably, chose not to listen to me four years ago when I warned you Trump was going to win the Presidency by taking Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

“May I please ask that you now give me your serious attention for what I am about to say — because if I’m right again this time, there won’t be a next time. There will be nothing left for me to warn you about. There probably won’t be much left of me.

“Here’s how Trump plans to end our right to choose the next President and Congress. It will happen fast. I am also laying out here a battle plan for us to defeat this takeover of our democracy. We must act now.

“HERE ARE TRUMP’S 5 PLANS, ALREADY IN MOTION:

“PLAN #1: Create Chaos.

“Instill Fear. Fire Up the Base with Racist Vigor. Pandemonium Ensues.

“CHECK. DONE.

“PLAN #2: Suppress the Vote

“•Dismantle the Post Office.

“•Create 4-Hour-Long Lines by Drastically Reducing Number of Polling Locations.

“•Throw Black and Brown Voters Off the Rolls.

“•Stop Those Who’ve Served Time from Voting.

“•Place 50,000 ‘Poll Watchers’ at Voting Sites Around the Country to Intimidate Voters.

“VOTER SUPPRESSION IN ACTION AS WE SPEAK.

“PLAN #3: Postpone the Election.

“Place the blame on a ‘legitimate’ national tragedy or emergency — massive deaths from the pandemic, a terrorist attack, an assassination, a deadly hurricane, a civil war in the streets, one or both Presidential candidates falling ill to COVID-19 — anything that reasonable people, even people who are opposed to Trump, will agree that ‘we just can’t hold an election right now! We just need to postpone it for a couple days, a couple weeks (a couple months… a couple years…).’

“Or, perhaps he’ll just cancel the Election outright and see if he can get away with it.

“TRUMP READY TO PULL THE TRIGGER.

“PLAN #4: His September Surprise.

“His October Surprise.

“His November Surprise.

“His January Surprise.

You think you can guess what it will be, but trust me, it’ll be far worse. We need to be ready. Stay on high alert, my friends. Millions of us will need to act on a moment’s notice. It’s the grim reaper of Democracy at our doorstep.

“We made the mistake of letting Trump get this far — why wouldn’t he now think he can get away with everything??

“THE SURPRISE IS UNKNOWN. THAT’S WHY IT’S A SURPRISE.

“PLAN #5: He Will Not Leave.

“When #Trump loses, he will declare the Election invalid, rigged, stolen — and he will refuse to step down.

“So, what will we do then?

“HERE IS OUR BATTLE PLAN TO REMOVE TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS:

“1. Do Not Wait — Biden/Harris Should Start Running the Country Now.

We simply don’t have time to wait until January 20, 2021. Nearly 200,000 of us have already died from Trump’s reckless incompetence with the coronavirus. By Election Day it’s possible another 100,000 to 200,000 of us will have needlessly died. A total of 400,000 dead? That’s the equivalent of one hundred and thirty-three 9/11s! Or 532 planes being flown into 532 buildings. If something that horrific ever happened, and the President not only didn’t do anything about it, but tried to pretend it wasn’t all that bad – ‘it is what it is’ – he would be run out of the White House by an angry mob of millions of Americans, lucky not to have his head put on a spike on the Key Bridge over the Potomac.

“It doesn’t have to come to that. Biden and Harris should present to America a simple nationwide plan to end the pandemic — and then act on it immediately.

“They should call a meeting of all the Governors and ask them what help do they need — and then find a way to get them that help, going around Trump and just making it happen. They should ask industry, in lieu of campaign contributions, to produce hundreds of millions of instant-result tests. They should call their Heads of State friends overseas and ask them to send all the PPE they can spare. They should get 250 million Americans to take the ‘Face Mask Pledge.’ And they should promise the scientists in our top universities all the money and help they need once they’re in office. Ignore Trump. Treat him as if he’s irrelevant and get the job done.

“2. The Republican Party Must Be Crushed and Destroyed. Trump Must Become the Last Republican President.

“In the Michigan county where I live, the August primary this month set a record turnout for a presidential-year primary. In fact, more people this year voted by mail-in ballot than ALL those who voted in 2016 — by mail-in AND in-person combined. This is a highly encouraging sign for what we now need to do:

” • We must create an historic massive turnout between now and November 3rd — a tsunami of voters the likes of which have never been seen, and may never be seen again. In 2016, 66 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. This time, though, we have to WALLOP Trump with an electoral concussion, a blow so profound he won’t know what hit him. This must be a defeat so crushing, so humiliating, a whooping of such epic proportions that he will be forced to leave 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with his tail between his legs on January 20th.

“This mammoth landslide must not only ensure that no president ever behaves this way again, we need to see to it that Trump is the last Republican president. The Election Day Uprising must put an end to this party of Trump enablers and traitors. They had a choice. They chose Trump over Democracy. They chose Putin and Netanyahu over fair elections and freedom for all. They chose the 1% over the 160 million working Americans. They chose the NRA over the massacred children of Sandy Hook. They chose to rig our elections, our textbooks, our economy. Democrats helped them along the way, and we’ll take the stick to them and fix that.

“The Republicans, though, chose to let hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens perish from COVID-19 because loyalty to Party and to Trump was greater than their duty to the American people. For that alone, the Republican Party must be put out of business for good. Vote out every last one of them.

“Conservatives will have to form a new party, much like when the Whigs were sent packing in the 1800s. The Republicans must pay for their crimes.

“• We must flip the Senate —- and not just by the three seats we need for control. We should shock the pundit class and, as the Republican Party is reduced to ashes, grab a solid 55+ seat majority. Colorado, Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Montana and even Kansas, South Carolina and, yes, Texas (a state that is now 57% non-white) — are all possible Democratic Senate wins. Think about spending a weekend or a week helping out in one of these states. The Republicans will wish they had managed this pandemic better and had everyone busy back at work by now. All this ‘free time’ should make for their undoing.

“• Finally, we have to vote the local Republicans out of office, too. State Houses and Senates will be drawing the electoral map for the next ten years. We can’t let the cheating Republicans do this again. Do what you can to elect Dems in your state and local elections. The punishment of the Republican Party — a certified terrorist organization for having helped kill at least 200,000 Americans — is an imperative.

“3. Who Would Be Willing To, If Need Be, Put Their Life on the Line To Ensure This Election Is Held and EVERYONE Gets to Vote? I Would. Would You?

“These steps must be taken immediately:

“• The Secret Service, the FBI, the Capitol Police and the Joint Chiefs of Staff must be called before Congress and swear under oath that they will guarantee that the election will be held, they will enforce the Constitution they swore to uphold, and if he’s defeated but refuses to leave, they will escort the former President of the United States out of the White House.

” • Biden and Harris must put Trump on notice that if he does one more thing to interfere with the Election or issues one more threat to suppress the vote, they will turn him and his crime family over to the new Justice Department for prosecution.

” • Every single one of us must be strong in our publicly-stated resolve that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON ON EARTH TO POSTPONE OR CANCEL THE ELECTION. That’s our unmovable and intractable position.

“No national tragedy, disease, threat or the melting of all of Greenland will cause us not to vote on or before November 3rd. Even if, God forbid, either candidate passes in their sleep between now and Election Day, the Election will continue — and the winner’s VP – or Nancy Pelosi – will become President on Inauguration Day.

” • Let’s all pledge that, if Trump tries to cancel the election or if he refuses to accept its results, millions of us will go to DC and encircle the White House, a thousand deep, until he backs down, resigns or is removed.

“• And, if you can, quietly make this commitment to yourself: ‘There are only a very few things I’d be willing to give my life for. This is one of them.’ I know. That’s dark. And heavy. And awfully sad because it shouldn’t have come to this. But if we can’t even say that, then what good are we? If we aren’t willing to make that sacrifice, then America is already over and we might as well just fold our tent and see if Canada will take the non-racist, non-homophobic, non war-mongering ones of us who have manners and get satire.

“4. Become an Election Defender.

“Each of you should form an urgent action group – a rapid response team – in your neighborhood or town and do the following:

“• Hold a daily protest at your local post office

“• Picket the home of your local Postmaster (he/she may be on your side, so bring them some baked goods)

“• Chain yourself to a local blue USPS dropbox if you can find one. Or chain it to something that won’t move.

“• Sign up with the city clerk to be a poll worker on Election Day – especially if you’re young. Because of the pandemic, polls will be very short of poll workers. If you’re told they have enough help, then call the local Democratic Party and offer to be a ‘poll watcher,’ the group of people from each party who get to oversee the voting to make sure there are no irregularities.

“• Demand your city create more voting locations. Convince owners of arenas, theaters, ball parks, malls – places with large open spaces – to offer their facilities as polling places so that everyone gets a chance to vote.

” • Canvas your neighborhoods over the next month to get people to fill out the form you’ll have them sign to get a mail-in ballot — and if they want to vote in person, let them know when the first day is so they can do that. Make a list of who needs a Covid-safe ride. The earlier the better!

“5. The Uprising We’re In Is Only Getting Bigger. The People Will Now Call the Shots.

“Why wait for the politicians to fix the mess of a country we’re in when they helped orchestrate the mess in the first place? Why don’t we just declare how we want to live — a new way to govern and function as a country — and we will finally fulfill the promise of the American Dream that has never been realized.

“Life, liberty, true equality, a sharing of the wealth, being good citizens of this world and kind stewards of a fragile Earth.

“What have we learned from this pandemic? What we already knew: That employer-based health insurance can evaporate in an instant. Health care is a human right.

“That being told ‘we can’t afford that!’ (free college, free child care, free medical care – the things most advanced nations have) is total BS — the government CAN afford anything we decide we need!

“We’ve learned that teachers, nurses, the mailwoman, farm workers, mass transit drivers and the minimum wage workers stocking the grocery shelves at 3 in the morning are our most important citizens and they need the respect and income they deserve immediately. 74% of the country now believes a guaranteed annual income is a great idea — fifty percentage points higher than when Andrew Yang proposed it 7 months ago!

“We’ve learned to slow down, consume less — and that is what may be the path to saving the planet (when the 4% of its inhabitants [US] is no longer sucking up 25% of its resources and hoarding more than half its wealth).

“We’re about to go elect more women than ever before — a time to turn the reins over to the gender that stands a better chance of getting us through the deadly viruses of Covid, Capitalism and Republicans (R.I.P.).

“None of this will be launched by politicians. It will only come about through you and me taking action as part of the largest protest movement in our history — still growing, still going strong! — to end the racism, the abuse of the police state, the disgusting income inequality and the hateful misogyny that is going to come to an end in our lifetime.

“America, post-pandemic, must become a very different place. Let’s make this happen. Doing the above will be the best cure for the trauma of these past four years.

“Commit to being the change.

“Organize your friends and family today.

“Make your plan to campaign in a swing state Sept. or Oct.

“VOTE AS EARLY AS YOU CAN—and take 5 people along with you!

“We can do this. Trump – we’re coming for you.

“I’ll be in the first U-Haul truck that pulls up to your door.”

MICHAEL MOORE

http://michaelmoore.com

Love, hate him, but do not ignore Michael Moore about #45 Love, hate him, but do not ignore Michael Moore about #45 ! #wemustwinblue2020 "MY PLAN FOR HOW TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE AN ELECTION, #TRUMP IS REMOVED, AND THE REPUBLICANS ARE GONE FOR GOOD"

[outsideangle]

The Expat’s Dilemma: Reckoning With a Trump Presidency From Abroad

Waking up in my foster home of Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday, November 9th, I felt a mix of hope and certainty that my country would come to its senses. Judy Woodruff and co. looked bright and cheerful on the PBS NewsHour live stream as the polls on the eastern seaboard closed 16 hours behind me and tallies began coming in, and with the previous week’s polls showing an almost assured victory for Hillary Clinton—some being so bold as to predict with 90% certainty or more—the crew had good reason to be. I was excited, bordering on proud: my country was about to elect its first female president and show the world that yes, actually, Americans do happen to do the right thing eventually. Eventually has turned out to be much further off than predicted.

It’s a curious feeling, being the only American in an office of internationals, watching as Florida falls, your birth state of Wisconsin flips, and your home state of Pennsylvania fumbles under the crushing weight of Appalachia, and all the while trying to plan a lesson for your evening class. I started receiving texts from friends everywhere—American and not—as the poll closings rolled west and our hope gave way to panic and fear and frustration. Some of my co-workers tried making jokes, and I nearly snapped at one of them, but channelled that anger into a Facebook post proclaiming that now was not the time for humour. My ex-girlfriend and I, both Americans living in Australia, traded messages of outrage and heartbreak—hers worse, as her parents had voted Trump—as we realized what was happening at home; she ended a Tinder date early that night so we could drink whiskey and beer and wallow in our powerlessness from across the Pacific. We shared an awkward kiss goodnight when I went home, born of uncertainty, but it fit with the new world we’d been hurled into. Uncertainty is a frustrating emotion, but after the election nothing was stronger than my sense of powerlessness. I’ve felt it subtly for years, but didn’t begin acknowledging it until the killing of Michael Brown and the events that followed: continued deaths at the hands of police who never faced consequences, one mass shooting after another, and watching the government slowly be taken over by ultra-conservative politicians who not only didn’t care about any of it, but also wanted to limit the rights of minorities by strengthening the institution that kept them repressed. I was living in South Korea as an elementary school English teacher through most of that, and in my rational mind I knew that being home and joining movements wouldn’t really change anything, but my geographic inability to take part in activism and grassroots participation exacerbated the feeling—even then, I sometimes wonder if, were I home, would I have partook at all, or was it looking in from the outside that made me long to engage. Watching your home burn from afar, stuck, awakens an entirely different set of emotions than having the flames around you. That was a different time, though, and nobody could’ve predicted Trump’s ascension to the Republican nomination—he’d only been a contender for two months when I returned to the United States in August of 2015. When I left again, this time for Australia, in February 2016, nobody could believe his hate-filled campaign was still running, and with such success. As I watched him clinch the nomination and somehow hold his own in polls with Hillary Clinton, I began thinking, “I should be there. I should be fighting this. I should help.” All I could do from abroad was send in an absentee ballot and sign petitions, and these felt like hollow actions. Hate is not passive; it is aggressive and threatening, and passive resistance will not stop it. I tried to be active and assert my power in Melbourne the Saturday after the election, where I joined a march through the city protesting Donald Trump. A few days prior, I had posted on the event page, “I’m an American living here, and I cannot WAIT to protest this demagogue my country has somehow chosen,” and was met with numerous critics telling me to “get over it” or “get out of Australia.” One sad soul with a lot of time on his hands (he commented at around 3 AM on a Friday night) went through my old profile pictures, found one of me dressed up in a sports bra as a female jogger for Halloween and posing with my female friend grabbing my boob, and overlaid the sentence, “I WONDER IF SHE’D FUCK ME WITH A STRAP ON AFTER THE TRUMP PROTEST.” The photo was deleted, but he posted it again the next day telling me I was a “seppo cuck,” and still people are saying “you lost, get over it.” Regarding the cry of “you lost,” I can understand the criticism of protesting, especially outside the United States. However, to call out protestors for that is to miss the point: we protest not because we lost the election, but because we will not tolerate the rhetoric that elevated Trump to office—we protest to show we will not let human rights go quietly into the night. Many people don’t have the luxury of “getting over it.”

The march turned out a few hundred people, mostly socialist student activists, and while it felt good to be in the streets, it was too soon after the election for anything to come of it. The sense of powerlessness quickly returned.

In other attempts at effectiveness, I’ve not stopped reading analysis and action plans, even going so far as to give myself a Christmas gift in the form of a subscription to The New Yorker. The day before the inauguration, David Remnick wrote how it’s our duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from Trump and his cronies in the Cabinet, referring back to 1787 and that the Constitution’s ratification alone did not “guarantee [its] endurance and health,” and that it’s the “constant work of citizens, collectively and individually,” to maintain it. At The Washington Post, Linda Hirshman urges us to take cues from abolitionists of the 1850s when it comes to achieving a goal after a disastrous setback. These are great ideas, but once again leave little opportunity for expats to participate.

One piece of reading that did help temper my seething fury was “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda,” which pulled from the methodology the Tea Party used to gridlock the country. It presented some direction and concrete ways to affect change, and this essay wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t read that guide—I’m ecstatic to see all the local action groups it’s inspired. Still, though, all I can do is write or send emails, but I can’t be there in person to confront my Members of Congress or march in protests, and that pains me.

At least I’m not the only expat who feels this way; there are several million of us living outside the country, after all. I’ve asked other Americans living abroad how they wrestle with this sense of inefficacy, and nobody seems to have a perfect answer yet. Laura Hagy, who works in Haiti, and Kathleen Phelan, an Australian/American dual citizen, both agree that “having open and honest dialogue” with Trump supporters and people they disagree with is the cornerstone of resistance. I admire the optimism, but from my travel experience I have not once met an American Trump supporter, and face-to-face discussion would probably be the only way to sway opinions—our comments on Facebook posts and message boards are useless and, for me, an unrelenting wave of frustration at the hands of obvious trolls. Bob Kennedy, who lives in Korea, thinks the most effective method is to “lobby the DNC to never again play kingmaker for a candidate,” and I’m inclined to agree with him.

When people on my travels ask me how Trump won, I tell them he didn’t; I tell them that the Democrats lost. The DNC is a hollowed-out husk of a party that needs to be restructured and find its base again. Since Obama’s 2008 victory, the Democrats have lost more than a thousand statehouse seats, 12 governorships, nearly 70 House seats, 13 Senate seats, the presidency and the Supreme Court—that is failure on a colossal scale. If Democrats are going to be the party of resistance, then they need to get it together and demonstrate that they can be effective again.

Ms. Phelan’s final thoughts on best resistance are a little morbid, but no less accurate: “Just survive.” That’s almost all we can do from outside the country, though Ms. Hagy shares my feelings that “[being] far away doesn’t mean I have an excuse to be inactive,” and it’s something both of us are still grappling with. It’s the crux of the expat dilemma this election has posed: reconciling the love for travel and residing abroad, and the internal drive to fulfil one’s civic duty.

Every day since the election, that predicament has been kicking around in my head. My first idea was to start a non-profit organization where expats can donate money and, depending on the amount donated, have a “surrogate” represent them—that could be marching at a protest in their place, or perhaps reading a letter to their Congressperson on their behalf. I also toyed with returning immediately, joining the Democratic Party to try and shake it up from the bottom, and running for office in 2018. Ms. Hagy, for her part, is seriously considering a return to the US to take a more proactive approach. For myself, I decided to put my ideas on hold and move to Singapore for a few months to give the organizations in America some time to figure out a plan of attack, then move back and join the most effective, but still the waiting nags at me. Several weeks into Trump’s presidency and he’s taken a hard-line on immigrants as I’ve moved from one country I’m not a citizen of to another.

The beginning of his time in office has had me reconsidering, though. Since taking office he’s written horrific executive orders on immigration, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and—most frighteningly—restructured the National Security Council and given renowned white-supremacist Steve Bannon even more power. Then there’s the fiasco with Russia that forced Michael Flynn’s resignation, and it surely won’t be the last scandal this White House sees. We’d been preparing for the worst, and a shred of me hoped, “maybe it won’t be as bad as we’re expecting.” But here I am, and there they are.

The day after the inauguration, the Women’s March on Washington took place, and my parents and some of their friends went to DC to protest—my mother even knit a plethora of Pussy Hats—and my brother marched in Philadelphia; I could not be more proud to have a family that’s ready and willing to take a stand, especially when I’m not there to join. For my part, I participated in Melbourne’s solidarity march. I arrived expecting a few hundred people, much like the protest the Saturday after the election, and was astonished to discover more than 6,000 crowded around the steps of the State Library of Victoria, all despite a massacre down the block that claimed six lives the day before.

That crowd, and those all over the planet, showed me that I am not alone. It demonstrated that there are expats everywhere—and non-Americans—who are prepared to stand up to Trump and his vitriol. I wrote postcards to my Senators as well, as per the Women’s March action plan; I’m writing this essay, and intend to write more; I’ll keep sending messages to my representatives. All I can hope is that people do more than protest—that they get involved by donating time and money to organizations that need it and participate in our democracy.

So far the signs are positive, and it’s the most important thing friends and family can do for me back home: send the hope on. Me and other expats only ever see the news, and the news is rarely ever good; we need the good stories from home to keep us going—to let us know that change is in the works. I still don’t know what the best course for me to affect change is—maybe this blog will help, at least in a selfish sense—but perhaps I do have a unique power as an expat: in my travels, I can be an example, and show the world that Americans are many things, but that we are not our president. We will, eventually, get it right.

Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty (via The New Yorker)

[thisdaynews]

Democratic all-stars line up to back Trump impeachment

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/democratic-all-stars-line-up-to-back-trump-impeachment/

Democratic all-stars line up to back Trump impeachment

Former Vice President Al Gore is one of the most prominent Democrats now urging a formal launch to President Donald Trump’s impeachment. | Scott Heins/Getty Images)

White House

Alumni of the Obama and Clinton worlds are joining the pro-impeachment caucus after years of reticence.

House Democrats demanding President Donald Trump’s impeachment picked up new support in recent days from people who know a thing or two about Congress investigating the White House: alumni of the Clinton and Obama administrations.

The bold-faced Democratic names untethering their voices now in urging a formal launch to Trump’s impeachment — Al Gore, James Carville and Chris Lu among them — had previously stayed quiet for many reasons. They thought 2020 was the better solution to oust the president. They didn’t want to make it worse for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime liberal firebrand now tasked with steering a caucus featuring diverse opinions on the topic. They know how an ill-led attempt to get rid of the president could come back to bite their party’s own 2020 prospects.

Story Continued Below

Then came last week’s explosive allegation that Trump attempted to pressure Ukrainian officials to sway the next election, and with it an avalanche of fresh public statements that it’s time for Trump to face the full force of the Constitution.

“It makes breaking into the Watergate seem kind of like kid’s play,” Neera Tanden, the longtime Hillary Clinton aide who also served in the Obama administration, told POLITICO when asked about her public shift last week from simply backing the House’s impeachment inquiry into a full-blown member of the pro-impeachment crowd.

“We’re a people who are perpetually outraged about things, but this sort of took it to a whole new level,” explained Lu, a former top Obama White House aide and deputy Labor secretary.

Obama aides often celebrate how, over eight years, they avoided the kinds of administration-crippling scandals that plagued their Clinton predecessors, though they didn’t survive unscathed either: Fast and Furious, Solyndra and Benghazi became household terms thanks to GOP-led oversight efforts.

In an interview, Lu said that he spent Friday stewing over whether the institutional forces of congressional oversight and the next election were enough to properly check Trump — before deciding over dinner with his wife that the answer was no. “This isn’t about politics but doing what’s right,” he finally wrote on social media.

Other ex-Democratic luminaries described coming to similar realizations.

“When the facts changed, I changed my mind,” said Carville, the ex-Clinton senior strategist who played a lead role as an attack dog defending the Democratic president against a GOP-led 1998-99 impeachment effort.

Carville said he’d been of the view, before last week, that special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia findings were “horrific” but still best dealt with in 2020. Now, he’s suggesting Democrats speed a single article of impeachment through the House describing how Trump contacted a foreign government to urge it to find dirt on a political opponent, a move that would then put the ball in the court of several vulnerable 2020 Senate Republicans.

“Let’s see Sens. [Susan] Collins, [Martha] McSally, [Thom] Tillis, [Cory] Gardner, [Joni] Ernst and [Mitch] McConnell all stew on it,” Carville said.

This new wave of Obama and Clinton alumni backing impeachment recognize they have no vote on the matter. Still, party leaders and Democratic lawmakers in the thick of the investigation say their newly found positions carry weight, considering their past work in the trenches of White House politics and policy — and because a raft of newly elected lawmakers may not be so familiar with the nuances of Watergate or the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

“Having influential people raise their voices reinforces that every factor is pointing toward taking stronger action,” said Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Gore and Vice President Joe Biden who argues that the latest developments involving Trump and the Ukraine “add more urgency” to the need to impeach the president.

From a practical vote-getting standpoint, there’s another benefit to having so many of these former administration officials weigh in. Many used to work with people who are now serving themselves in Congress.

“If we hesitate to impeach a president for this, we might as well pass an amendment removing the impeachment clause from the Constitution, and become a popular, not constitutional, republic,” freshman Rep. Tom Malinowski, who worked as a top State Department official during the Obama administration, wrote last Friday in a series of tweets taking issue with Trump’s Ukraine behavior. The New Jersey Democrat, whose swing district includes the president’s country club at Bedminster, added that if the Ukraine allegations were proven true “there is only one remedy.”

Another former Democratic official, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, made an ever-so-slight shift in position on Friday in the wake of the latest news reports. The New Jersey lawmaker who once wrote speeches for President Clinton called for an “immediate and thorough investigation” into Trump’s dealings with the Ukraine, while adding “no foreign country should ever be allowed to interfere in our domestic politics. Congress has a responsibility to conduct strong oversight, and we must fulfill our article 1 constitutional obligations in this matter and others.”

Spokespeople for Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler did not comment when asked about the wave of new Obama and Clinton alumni who have joined the impeachment bandwagon. But Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of Nadler’s panel leading the impeachment push, said the former administration officials can influence their Democratic colleagues.

“The more establishment voices increase the volume of the chorus,” Raskin told POLITICO, adding that he’s seen a “pervasive spread within the Democratic caucus and Democratic party of the sense to counter the lawlessness coming from the White House.”

One group not participating in the impeachment push: The party’s living ex-presidents. All three have tried up to now to stay out of the impeachment spotlight, and former aides to both Obama and Clinton said they don’t expect that to change anytime soon. “It’s just not their style,” said Philippe Reines, a longtime adviser to Hillary Clinton dating back to her tenure as a New York senator.

As for Jimmy Carter, the 94-year old Democrat told Fox Business News in August 2018, “I think that’s the wrong thing for Democrats to do.”

But impeachment has been fair game for many other senior Democrats. “The president asked a foreign power to help win an election. Again,” Hillary Clinton wrote on Friday on Twitter in response to the Ukraine scandal.

While her social media post didn’t mention impeachment, it echoed a more expansive line of arguments the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee made in a Washington Post op-ed published in April when the Mueller report was dominating the headlines. There, Clinton called it a “false choice” for lawmakers to think they needed to respond to the special counsel’s findings as “immediate impeachment or nothing.”

Instead, she urged Congress to use Mueller’s findings as a “road map” to consider impeachment while adding that his report included a “warning about the future” where foreign adversaries including Russia, China and North Korea keep trying to meddle in American elections.

“And unless he’s held accountable, the president may show even more disregard for the laws of the land and the obligations of his office,” wrote Clinton, who noted the “strange twist of fate” in her own one-of-a-kind resume that includes stints as a young House Judiciary Committee staff attorney during its Watergate impeachment inquiry and more than two decades later as a first lady whose husband faced impeachment.

Gore, the former vice president whose own unsuccessful 2000 White House campaign was weighed down by the Bill Clinton impeachment saga, said in an interview with MSNBC last week just before the Ukraine whistleblower story broke that he too understands the political calculus Democrats face on the subject, including the GOP-led Senate composition that would make a vote to convict and remove Trump a long shot at best.

“But I think we have an obligation beyond all of that to the Constitution, and the only remedy for these serious crimes that have been alleged is the impeachment process,” said Gore, who also represented Tennessee in both the House and Senate.

On Monday, Gore responded to the latest news reports by telling CNN that Trump’s conversations with the Ukrainian president “must be investigated thoroughly. “And this latest accusation, like some of the others, falls into a rare category. The only remedy is an impeachment investigation,” he said.

Some members of the Democratic administration alumni club have been banging the impeachment gong for months.

“A well-planned and well-executed impeachment inquiry may be the only way to wrest the microphone from Trump and tell a story on our terms about who Trump is and the damage he has wrought on our country,” former Obama White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer wrote in May.

Others have tried to lay low, avoiding the use of the I-word however they can. John Kerry, the former Obama secretary of state and Massachusetts senator, for example studiously skipped over mentioning the process during an MSNBC interview Monday where he also described his reaction as “one of absolute shock and amazement” when he learned the at-issue call between Trump and his counterpart in Kiev happened the day after Mueller testified to Congress.

“We need to see the institutions of our country stand up here. Americans rely on that,” Kerry explained before calling for Republicans to break ranks and speak up against the president on the topic.

For Democrats who have recently shifted into the impeachment camp, the decision hasn’t been easy. It’s meant fending off the label they were going after Pelosi, the speaker who played a crucial role in passing Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act.

“It’s hard to thread the needle of being pro-impeachment and not attacking Speaker Pelosi,” said Reines, himself an outspoken supporter of impeaching Trump for much of this year.

Several new members of the pro-impeachment club said in interviews they recognized the political peril of what they were doing. They personally know many of the freshman Democrats elected in 2018 from swing districts that backed Trump two years ago. They know about the long-shot prospects in the Senate, as well as the argument Trump allies keep making that impeachment will turn the public against Democrats and help the president win a second term.

“I think now it’s worth the risk,” said Joe Lockhart, a former Clinton White House spokesman who last Friday made his pro-impeachment stance known after earlier this year publishing an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that it’d be better to leave Trump in office because it was the “best way to cement Trumpism’s hold on the Republican Party.”

Lockhart served in the Clinton White House during the president’s impeachment in the late 1990s, so he knows the challenges. But then came the Ukraine story, which he said raises a whole new level of concern about the future of the country. “When you start doing things that call into question the legitimacy of the next election, you’re in a whole other territory,” he said.

Taking a pro-impeachment position now also may be easier given the trajectory of the issue headed into 2020. “Whether Democrats impeach Trump or not,” Lockhart said, “Trump is providing so much fodder for this that it’s now going to be the story between now and Election Day.”

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