Don’t let 2020 be another 2016

My New Year’s resolution: Beat Trump

If you dream of a day when you’ll never have to care about anything President Donald Trump tweets, blurts or belches out again, 2020 will either be one of the best or one of the worst years of your life. And all of us who dare to dream should be humble enough to admit that none of us knows exactly how to make it one of our best years.

Whether you are a plain-vanilla Democrat, a democratic socialist pining for a political revolution or a “Never Trump” Republican willing to give up another best-selling book to dispose of this deadbeat from the White House, we all have one thing in common: No one knows for sure how to defeat Trump.

All of us have either backed someone who was beaten by the clown who is probably retweeting Russian bots from the Oval Office right now — or backed someone beaten by someone else who was then beaten by that clown. And all of us can point to reasons why that defeat doesn’t count, or was the unjust result of odious forces summoned by enemies who should be allies. But nothing changes the crucial fact: We all lost when Trump won.

There’s only one thing we know with 100% confidence, and that’s how to make 2020 one of the worst years we’ve ever seen. How? Just repeat 2016. That’s why I only have one New Year’s resolution: Don’t let 2020 become 2016.

This resolution has more parts than Trump has grown children profiting off his presidency:

1 Never assume Trump will lose.

Take no comfort from the good polls, the soothing prediction models or the president’s unforced errors triggering gag reflexes all across America.

Because he disgusts us, it’s easy to ignore what Trump is good at — besides inheriting things. But our willful ignorance aided his rise. It’s time to admit that his expertise includes salesmanship, demagoguery and avoiding taxes.

And let’s never forget what he’s best at: exploiting our weaknesses. He looked at the Republican Party and recognized it was populated by cowards perfectly susceptible to his transactional approach of trading favors for even bigger favors for him.

We can’t expect Trump’s base — rich people, white evangelicals and white folks without college degrees — to substantially turn on him. Instead, we have to direct our energy toward everyone else, aka the vast majority of potential voters. 2

Focus ruthlessly on turnout.

Our political system has been so warped by money and dog-whistle politics that it might be easier to anonymously buy an election than to get a student voter ID in Wisconsin.

In 2020, the voter suppression will be worse than anything we’ve seen. Just listen to the Trump campaign. “Traditionally, it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places,” Trump adviser Justin Clark told Wisconsin Republicans at a private event, according to an audio recording obtained by The Associated Press. “Let’s start playing offense a little bit. That’s what you’re going to see in 2020. It’s going to be a much bigger program, a much more aggressive program, a much better-funded program.” And it’s not just suppression. Trump brought new voters to the polls while Hillary Clinton lost Obama supporters by the millions. That’s why we must support vital groups focused on getting souls to polls — like the Wisconsin Democratic Party and Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight — now.

It would also be nice if billionaires like Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg poured their money into registering and turning out voters. Steyer spent $43 million doing that in 2018. By the end of this year, he had already spent $83 million — and Bloomberg $120 million — on ads for their long-shot 2020 presidential 3 candidacies.

Let the Democratic primary end long before summer.

This is the part of the resolution that worries me most, because I’m not sure whether the 2016 Democratic primary has really ended yet. Nursing justifiable grievances is a luxury we don’t have in 2020, especially because the GOP has basically canceled its primary.

Any infighting once the general election begins invites voters to stay home or to vote for a third-party spoiler.

Try to at least balance every criticism of a Democrat with at least five slams on Trump. But everyone knows this, and lectures aren’t going to change behavior. 4 So let’s …

... be ready for the worst.

Trump’s knack for fascism cannot be ignored. It should be a constant reminder that what’s at stake in the next election isn’t just the health insurance of 20 million, the reproductive rights of women and the planet itself — it’s also our freedom to pick our own president.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller told us that the Russians are coming. Sadly, the news media will gladly help them by focusing on leaked documents, pertinent or not.

And like Trump, Vladimir Putin knows our greatest weakness: race. Racism is and always has been “a national security vulnerability,” as Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and directorcounsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wrote in The Washington Post.

We can’t expect to win by just correctly calling Trump a racist. We have to address the way in which he divides us — the way he strategically uses race to sell policies that pay off the richest at everyone else’s expense. This is not easy, but we know it can be done. And it must be done.

One 2016 was enough, thank you. Hopefully, we’re about to start something new.