We won!! After a grueling four years, we successfully flipped the White House!
I hope you took some time this past weekend to celebrate. We had many goals this election cycle, and getting Trump out of the White House was one of the biggest. And Trump lost. Right now, Biden has 4 1/2 million more votes than Trump and votes are still being counted. He’s also on track to get more than 300 electoral votes. Plus, kicking out an incumbent doesn’t happen very often — Biden’s win is a really big deal.
Not only that, but getting rid of Trump means we’re getting rid of Mike Pence, Bill Barr, Steven Miller, Steve Mnuchin, Kayleigh McEnamy, Betsy DeVos, Mike Pompeo, Mitch McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao, not to mention Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. They’re all gone on January 20th.
No more pandering to white nationalism, demonizing immigrants, no more Muslim bans, wondering if our president is in bed with the Russians, being more friendly with dictators than our European allies, attacking our soldiers, the gaslighting and the endless lying — it all ends. And that is something to celebrate.
And wow, I keep grinning from ear to ear when I think about Kamala Harris as our Vice President. The joy and excitement I’ve personally felt, and seen from so many friends and family, is SO great.
But…
Our eyes must remain open. I firmly believe that we won the White House because many of us woke up the day after Election 2016 and started to get much more civically involved. If we let our foot off the gas, things will go bad really quickly.
Michelle Obama summed up exactly what I’ve been thinking, saying “Let’s remember that tens of millions of people voted for the status quo, even when it meant supporting lies, hate, chaos, and division. We’ve got a lot of work to do… And two years from now, four years from now, there will once again be no margin for error.”
As I see it, most Republicans suffered NO consequences for their behavior of these last four years. Voters gave them their jobs back. They made gains in the House. They maintained control of their state legislatures. They have no reason or incentive to act any differently than they have been. I fully expect that we’ll continue to see Trumpism thrive in them.
It’ll take a while to turn the tide against their brand of politics so we can’t let up. The 2022 midterms are going to be really tricky, as they always are for the party who holds the presidency. And who will rise up from the Republicans as their 2024 presidential nominee? Will Trump run again? (He could.) Will Don Jr. try? Or, will it be someone like Trump — a celebrity of some kind, with lots of popularity and a dedicated following, who will command outsized media attention, AND will be far smarter and competent than Trump. Our democracy might never recover from that.
So…
We must remain engaged. We got rid of Trump, but many of the things we’ve despised about these last four years remain. We cannot abandon those in our country who have been hurt the worst and continue to hurt. That’s not who we are. We must stay in the game.
We all must find a way to thread activism (or micro-activism, as I like to call it) into our daily lives.
As for Political Charge, I think you can see that I have no intention of hanging up my spurs. First up, we have the Georgia Senate runoff elections. We still have a shot at getting control of the Senate! And after that, we will have the consequential Virginia elections in 2021 (governor! both state chambers!) not to mention countless special elections every month, and the vigilance needed to push back on Republican legislators at every level of government. We must continue to fight for voting rights.
What I’m planning to do is back off slightly from my daily posts, and post three times a week (on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) plus the ever-popular cartoon roundups on Saturdays. I plan to use this extra time to make my posts more resourceful, and ultimately more helpful for you all. I am planning to release a survey soon to get your input, so be on the lookout for that, too.
Stay tuned for Wednesday’s post, when I will publish a great list of the ways we can all help make sure the two Georgia Senate races go blue. Onward!
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Thank you Tokyo for all you do!
Thank you, Fran!
I appreciate your fine work and it helps me with my Resisters’ List of 25 other activists. I am very interested in learning about ways to help with the GA senate runoff besides financial contributions. Thank you for everything you’ve done.
You’re welcome, Wendy. Do stay tuned for my Wednesday post, when I talk all things Georgia.
Thank you! I am so glad to know that you are hanging in there with us. We’ve just gotten started and it wouldn’t take much to slip back into the morass.
Agreed.
Thank you and I agree with you about vigilance. I have to admit that I haven’t allowed myself to relax and celebrate yet, because I think the GOP will do anything it can to hang on to power. My celebrations will come on Dec. 14th (the deadline for the vote getting certified) and Jan. 20th 🙂
I am confident that Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president on January 20th. But that doesn’t mean that what Republicans are doing now isn’t deeply damaging to our democracy.
I want to thank you for all your blogs during these past years. They have generally been ‘spot on’ and very helpful to me as I maintained communication with my Indivisible group. I quoted you many times (with proper citation). You have been inspirational and motivational. Thank you. PSM, Co-Chair, Indivisible East Manatee
Thank you, Phyl. I’m glad to hear that my posts have been helpful as you and your collaborators do the critical grassroots work needed to strengthen our democracy. We are stronger together!