We know what we have to do ...

If Donald Trump had declared his trumped up "state of emergency" two years ago, I'd have been terrified. Now I'm just pissed off at his latest attempt to invent his own reality. He's a fabulist with too damn much power. Real people get hurt everyday while he tries to implement his racist dreams and, more quietly, his GOP enablers do actual damage to country and system of government.

As Daniel Drezner explains succinctly:

... Trump is a weak, disorganized president. But the office he occupies is so strong that even a weak-minded fool can leave lasting scars.

It's worth remembering that most of us are still not taken in by Trump's rambling bluster. According to a recent poll:

Fifty-six percent to 33 percent, more say they trust Mueller’s version of the facts than Trump’s. And by nearly as wide a margin, more believe Mueller is mainly interested in “finding out the truth” than trying to “hurt Trump politically.”

The serious media seem to think the Mueller investigation is moving toward some kind of conclusion after all those indictments and even convictions, though why they think wrap-up is immediately pertinent is not obvious from where I sit. Just today, the New York Times and the Washington Post, always competing to readers' benefit, have attempted wrap-up stories about Trump's tangled skeins of Russian profiteering and betrayal.

In any case, looking ahead if we can just get there, though presidents are usually re-elected, Trump looks distinctly vulnerable. His predicament is simple and satisfying to those us who want a different country:

The president is running hard on a strategy of riling up his base. But by doing that, he riles up the Democratic base, too, and that one is bigger.

Nate Silver at 538 insists we don't have to fear that Trump is a political magician.

Trump does unpopular stuff, and he becomes more unpopular. The erosion mostly comes from independents because Republicans are highly loyal to him and Democrats are already almost uniformly opposed. But Trump will need those independents to win re-election. He needed them to become president in the first place.

Democrats simply have to nominate someone who large fractions of us don't find loathsome. According to Amy Walter at the Cook Political Report who is no partisan:

... the battle for the 'ambivalent' voter as the most critical piece of the 2020 strategy. Trump has done little in his tenure in office to woo those not already in his base. The only question now is if Democrats will nominate a candidate who can appeal to these voters, or if they will choose a flawed candidate who will, once again, force these voters into having to decide between the "best-worst-choice."

We know what we have to do ... unify, work, and turn out everyone who would rather chase hope than wallow in fear. We can do that.

Photo from a window at a card shop on San Francisco's hippest street. Thanks Serendipity.