The Majority Roared On Saturday -- Will They Follow Through In 2018?

Vote in 2018. Get others to vote in 2018. Don't wait until 2020.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

The overwhelming turnout and passion of Saturday's anti-Trump marches around the country (and the world) should not come as much of a surprise.

The marchers represent the majority of Americans. And they know they have been screwed.
The majority of this country thinks climate change is real, supports a women's right to choose, a higher minimum wage, reasonable gun regulations, immigration reform and LGBT rights.

The new president, cabinet and Congress are on the wrong side of all of these issues as well as many others supported by most Americans.

The majority of this country got screwed by the Russians, the FBI, the Electoral College, Congressional gerrymandering, state laws intended to reduce Democratic voting and a derelict media that provided Donald Trump with billions of dollars of mostly uncritical coverage and didn't ask a single question about climate change in four national debates. And the majority didn't help themselves with a mediocre candidate and unacceptably low voter turnout, spurred in part by a failure to appreciate what was at stake in this historical election.

How could Obama leave office with nearly a 60 percent approval rating if the majority of Americans are experiencing the "carnage" that Trump described in his odious inauguration speech?

Because they aren't.

Americans approved Obama's job performance in large part because of those inconvenient, old fashioned things we call facts. Unemployment has been cut nearly in half, crime is down, the stock market nearly doubled, the auto industry was saved, climate change was finally addressed and the deficit was reduced dramatically.

That's why Trump's inauguration speech was so off-key. Most Americans still think America has lots of work to do but also know that Trump's dystopian self-serving vision is fantasy.

So what's a majority to do?

Vote in 2018. Get others to vote in 2018. Don't wait until 2020. Change can happen very quickly. Say what you want about the Tea Party but it started in 2009 and effectively took over the Republican congress in 2010. With Trump in power, the Tea Party is nearly indistinguishable from the Republican party. If yesterday's marchers bring their passion to the election of 2018, we will wake up in November 2018 to a very different world. Voting isn't enough, make Republicans feel pain for supporting Trump. His support is already thin and if politicians think they will pay a price for supporting him, they will turn on him quickly.

Younger voters, who took to the streets in droves yesterday, are most opposed to Trump -- no surprise as they will have to deal with the long term consequences of his policies and pathological personality.

Based on exit polls, If only 18-24 year olds had voted in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton would have won in a landslide with over 500 electoral votes. While many younger adults are active and socially engaged, they don't care much for politics. With the Republicans in control of the White House, Congress and most state governments, younger voters do not have the option of passive participation in the political process..

The millions of people marching peacefully Saturday can reclaim America. Let's hope that Saturday's passion was more than a group hug and leads to tangible votes in 2018 and 2020 that put the American government back in alignment with the majority of this already great country.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot