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Election Day, November 3, 2020

Donald Trump Has Been Good for Democracy

Millions of Americans got engaged during this presidency. That's a
positive for the nation

 

A protester on Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington on Monday.
(Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

**First Ballot**

The week before the inauguration in 2017, a group of women decided to
sublimate their agitation into a show of strength. They turned out more
people than the president did for his swearing-in. Many of the marchers
joined chapters of an organization invented by two former legislative
staffers who wrote a guide to using peaceful protest to change Congress.
Frustrated with the party who enabled the rise of a demagogue, leftists
got serious about electoral politics and started recruiting the first
batch of ordinary people who could mount a challenge to the ossified
Democratic leadership. A week after the inauguration, they all flocked
to airports to demonstrate on behalf of foreigners they did not know,
trying just to enter the country and reunite with loved ones.

This movement had many contours, many spokes in the wheel. It had its
share of opportunists and grifters, as is par for the course in modern
America. (The conservative movement, at its essence, is a sophisticated
direct-mail targeting program to bilk nervous seniors so movement
leaders can afford mansions in the D.C. suburbs.) But at the root, it
had millions of ordinary people, white suburban moms and
first-generation immigrants, practiced activists and novices who'd
never contacted their member of Congress before, teachers and factory
regulars standing up for their rights in the workplace, organizers and
the organized, Black people tired of having the color of their skin be a
direct threat to their existence, all of them using their voice,
shouting, participating.

They would not be in these streets, not in these numbers, not with this
intensity, if it weren't for the occupant of the Oval Office. The rise
of Donald Trump had an equal and opposite reaction, and it got millions
of people acquainted with their democracy again. Tonight we will get the
next set of results of that engagement. The process of not only
protecting but improving this democracy doesn't end, and that's the
next step for the movement sometimes called the Resistance. But I can
tell you this: Trump's presence, what it meant and what it signaled,
activated this country, in bad ways but also in good ones. You
absolutely can say that it restored our democracy for the challenges
ahead.

**Read all of our Election 2020 news here**

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This movement has already proven victorious. It took the House of
Representatives and won 40 seats, the largest gain for the Democratic
Party since 1974. It has spilled over into a wave of labor action,
awakening from a long slumber. It has turned sports leagues into
activist collaboratives, downtowns into zones of defiance, and modest
homes in the suburbs into organizing hubs. It finally had the strength
to build a climate movement that knows how to energize people. It
enabled women to lead

and reflected America in all its diversity as well as any political
movement in my lifetime.

Am I saying that this work would have been impossible in the absence of
Donald Trump? I remember the previous eight years, the loss of thousands
of legislative races, the insular way in which the Democratic Party
operated. It's not up to parties to build political movements of
course, but the rank and file sleepwalked through the Obama years,
assuming that their leaders would take care of things. Progressives
couldn't win a primary. Mainstream Democrats couldn't win an
election. And the culture did not reflect the urgency necessary in our
politics, to force governance.

Under Trump, people got to work. It's been hidden because of the
pandemic, but I can confidently say that there was more voter
mobilization in this election than there was in the very top-down,
highly organized Obama year of 2008. We know that the fundraising at the
grassroots level broke all records, in support of someone in Joe Biden
who was last considered charismatic in 1973. Take a second today and
visit mobilize.us , an aggregator for the
digital organizing-virtual phonebanks, textbanks, friendbanks-that
we've been consigned to this election year. There are hundreds of
events, on top of the thousands or tens of thousands over the past
couple months.

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You don't get serious about democracy until you get the sense that it
can be taken away. Whether you think that Trump represented a bumbling
mistake, a rift in the space-time continuum or an approaching fascism,
he concentrated the minds of the nation. He generated all the elements
of resistance necessary for a show of political force. And it's been
healthy for all aspects of the left. The only way that real governing
change will come to America is through a popular movement. And the only
way that change will come at the level commensurate to face our
challenges is with a vibrant left. Both have been byproducts of the
Trump years.

For all the assaults on norms and expectations and the democratic
process, ultimately 160 million or more Americans will vote in this
election, shattering the old records. Millions more volunteered,
marched, protested, organized, and fought for their rights. Democracy
needs energy, and American democracy sorely needed it. Trump's
election provided it.

The hope is that once the switch is turned, once people are activated
and engaged in democracy, that they don't walk away. With the
treacherous circumstances right now and the need for restoration, we
absolutely cannot have an empty playing field left to a few to clean up
after the election. Four years have taught us that democracy is worth
fighting for. The future must continue that fight every day.

**Read all of our Unsanitized reports here**

We Really Can't Do This Without You!

An Election Retrospective

I'm extremely proud of our election coverage this year, and we decided
to collect it together in a state-by-state roundup
. We covered
elections in 37 different states, which is quite incredible given our
little staff and tiny budget. You can peruse our state-by-state roundup
here , and it
will get you up to date before the polls close. Thanks to our
superlative writing staff and contributors for all of their work.

Also, the Prospect staff made its predictions

on the outcome of the race. You'll have to go to the link

to get mine!

**Days Until the Election**

It's today.

Support Independent, Fact-Checked Journalism

Today I Learned

* Dixville Notch was a 5-0 sweep for Joe Biden
,
the first unanimous vote in the first-in-the-nation hamlet since 1960.
(CNN)

* It's news that 127,000 cast ballots recorded under a process enacted
months ago won't be tossed in the trash
...
pending appeal! (Axios)

* Educate the voting public and they learn: there are fewer spoiled
absentee ballots

this year. (New York Times)

* Donald Trump has already lost today: he lost Deutsche Bank

as a lender. (Reuters)

* Turns out it's boring to be a poll watcher so the Trumpers decided
not to do it
.
(ProPublica)

* My projected electoral map . (270
To Win)

* Vote! (Vote)

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