Vote That F*cker Out

What else is there to say at this point, except: Go to the polls and take at least one person with you

Where have I been when I should have been writing this newsletter? I have been putting every spare minute of my time into getting Donald J. Trump out of the White House and back to his own house.

Photo credit: Matt Smith/Shutterstock.com

Today, Election Day, I am busy making calls into Florida today and have never been so inspired by the people of this country. A single mother with a new baby promised to strap her daughter onto her chest and go vote, even though she hasn’t slept properly in weeks. A half dozen older African-American women told me that they were voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — and taking their whole families to the polls with them. I caught one Seminole County woman as she was driving to take an elderly person to the polls, something she planned to do for the rest of the day.

I said this on Twitter last night, but for those of us who have worked on campaigns, at this point in a race you can feel the difference between a winner and a loser, and Biden-Harris is a winner, my friends.

I can feel it in my bones. We are going to escort Donald Trump out of the White House the way democracies do it: we’re gonna vote that f*cker out. It may take longer than we want to have final results, but we are closing this deal.

I started this campaign with phone banking and crunching through the New Hampshire snow for Elizabeth Warren. I am ending it more or less confined to my home, in the middle of a raging pandemic that has been mismanaged by a feckless, corrupt, and dishonest president who has contributed to the death of over 250,000 of my fellow Americans. Today, on the phone in Florida, I am talking to voters whose wives and husbands have died of Covid-19.

As a country, we have not faced such a profound moral reckoning since Watergate. And yes, together, we shall overcome.

I’ll let Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby deliver the closing argument. (H/T: Eric Alterman)

To keep yourself from doom-scrolling, try these reads:

• Kristopher Burrell, “When It Comes to Racial Justice, Why Is It Wrong to Demand the “Impossible”? Because when white comfort matters most, Black lives are not a priority.” (Public Seminar, November 3, 2020)

• Sonny Bunch, “Back to Basics: Make Cocktails Normal Again: What to drink to get you through election night—or, heck, the whole day.” (The Bulwark, November 3, 2020)

• Ann Branigan, “Activist Patrisse Cullors Delivers Final Rallying Cry to Black Voters: 'Add to the Power We Built in the Streets.'" (The Root, November 3, 2020)

• Steven Shepherd, “What the final polls say about the Trump-Biden race: Biden enters Election Day with a more comfortable lead than Hillary Clinton had four years ago.” (Politico, November 2, 2020)

• L.D. Burnett, “Is Character Making a Comeback? For four years, Donald Trump has presided over the decline of decency. Joe Biden is bringing it back.” (ARC, October 23, 2020)

What I’m watching:

• “It makes you want to cough up a hairball:” Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter break down Donald Trump’s taxes—and tell you how to fix the broken system he exploits.

Claire Bond Potter is Professor of History at The New School for Social Research and the co-Executive Editor of Public Seminar. She is the author of Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020).