Trump has dominated the nation’s political narrative by pushing false choices. If the question is whether Black Lives Matter, Trump will present the choice between anarchy in the streets or law and order. As if a belligerent, undisciplined police force is the only choice over no police force at all.
How can this be accepted as the point of contention? Why is there no mention of the thousands of police working diligently, for departments that do not automatically consider all black citizens to be criminals? Is there no honor among the police, so that they stand up against those who shoot suspects on the back? Surely it should be possible to live in a world where all black men are not treated as criminals and where the police do their jobs of protecting society. Democrats must mobilize police chiefs that are for gun control and other issues that counter the Trump/NRA narrative.
This is but an example of why the Democrats can no longer allow Trump to set the tone of the debate. Democrats must stand up against the view that we must tolerate that fellow black citizens must live under the conditions of a police state so that the rest of us can go on with our lives. It is an intolerable lie. Democrats must back up their claims with the fact that crime is at an all time low in major cities.
When Trump squeals that engaging Putin is smart because it means that the US is engaging a nuclear adversary, the loud answer to that should be “Yes, but not under Putin’s terms!”
In the same vein, when Trump threatens to shut down the government to build his wall between the US and Mexico, Democrats must counter that Trump lies when he says that Democrats are in favor of open borders. This is not a lie of degrees, it is a lie of consequential differences.
Also, Democrats must own the narrative that if whites in the US are projected to become a less than 50% of the population by 2045, it is not because of immigration. It is because whites have a lower birthrate, it is because of simple demographics and a border wall will do nothing to stop it.
The Democratic response must be loud and clear: American values are represented in the hope and aspirations of American children being born and raised right now, on American soil.
Democrats must confront the underlying racism behind Trump voters and rally undecided and Democratic voters to the polls. There is no quiet, easy way around it. The fight in 2018 is as important as it was during the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, as it was during the 1965 march on Selma, as it was in Charlottesville. It is a matter of Democratic willpower whether Trump and his crypto-fascists will prevail. It is up to decent people to say enough is enough, and one way to start is by stop playing by Trump’s rules.