2020 The Year in Review

Stata Center, MIT

It was one of the worst years of my life – tragic, violent, full of injustice, incompetence and sheer insanity. And though I’d like to forget, turn over a new leaf and welcome a new year, 2020 will forever be remembered as the year of the pandemic, a year in which nearly 2 million worldwide died from COVID-19, close to 350,000 in the U.S. alone. And it didn’t have to be this bad.

It was the year Trump’s incompetence became deadly, a president who knew of the dangers of the virus and downplayed it, telling the states to figure it out on their own while encouraging them to open up and stay open, apparently, as evidence shows, in favor of a herd immunity theory that if it had not been exposed and debunked upwards of a million Americans could have died. Trump himself never wore a mask or promoted social distancing at any of his meetings or rallies. It wasn’t until he literally came down with the virus that he finally wore a mask and then when released from the hospital, made a public display of ripping it off his face after climbing the White House steps, noticeably gasping for air.

It was the year in which many whites acknowledged their own white privilege and began to understand that racism is not just the action of a few bad actors but that it is institutionalized, and part of the fabric of the country from its beginnings. Tragically, it was another year in which police unnecessarily used deadly force against black men and women. George Floyd, Breona Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, Daniel Prude, Walter Wallace. Black Lives Matter.

And while there were so many other horrible events and developments that defined 2020: the California wildfires; a death on the Supreme Court with a rushed and out of touch replacement, growing numbers of emboldened white supremacist groups and hate crimes; and the GOP’s full embrace of Trump and his anti-democratic actions that have enabled relentless attempts to undermine the the 2020 election results, there have also been some silver linings.

Donald J. Trump, the worst president in the history of this country, lost the 2020 elections, and will not be back for a second term. The nation will soon not have to pay attention to the gas-lighter in chief who wishes nothing more than to stay relevant. No, the man who whines that they didn’t give him Time person of the year; the man who pretends that he actually got the Nobel peace prize when he didn’t (he’s full of noble gas), will lose his tweeter followers, try to grow a media empire and fail just like he failed in all his other ventures. He may spend a good part of post presidential life in court, raising money from various grifts to pay his legal fees. But one thing is certain, that after this year and the 3 horrific years that came before, Donald Trump will be gone. In the words of Robert Hunter, who wrote the lyrics for the Grateful Dead song “He’s Gone” (1972), “Like a steam locomotive/rolling down the track/He’s gone/He’s gone/and nothing’s gonna bring him back.”

2020 Las Vegas Dem Debate

And then there were 6 – Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Biden, Klobuchar and Bloomberg.

If I were Warren, Buttigieg, Biden, Klobuchar or Bloomberg, I’d go after Sanders primarily tonight. I think the Bernie Bros would be one issue worth bringing up.  I would demand that Sanders disavow – that he pledges to investigate and root out the divisive intimidators in his campaign. Second, I’d question his ability to unify the country.  The Democrat tent is much more than a progressive block of activists, socialists, college students, and people 40 and under.  I would question whether a socialist can win the support of Democrats in the critical states of PA, OH, MN, MI and WI.  Any Democrat can win HI, CA, IL, NY, DE, and the NE states.  If I were one of the other 5 candidates, I’d make my case that I could win the key rust belt states. I’d argue that I would expand access to health care (and not end it for those who have it). I’d pledge to kill the tariffs that have hit farmers hard. I’d promise to clean up the environment and rebuild the EPA.  I’d commit to an agenda that would tackle the issue of climate change. I’d end fracking and invest in alternative energy sources, thus creating more jobs and would look to invest in  the nuclear energy sector. I’d commit to other infrastructure projects including upgrading the electrical grid, repairing roads and bridges and modernizing rail and airports.  Finally, I’d commit to visas for all migrant agriculture workers and a path to citizenship for all who want it as part of a comprehensive immigration reform.

This debate should not be about taking Bloomberg down.  He’ll likely do that himself.  No, it’s time to take Bernie down a notch and once the race tightens, the field should go after the Bloomberg candidacy.  Do we really want another billionaire running the country?  The one in office now has nearly destroyed the nation and all of its democratic institutions.

Hey, Dems – it’s anyone’s race.  It’s not too late.  Hang in there.

On to SC and NV

Now it’s on to Nevada and South Carolina.  Dems in the more diverse states will have to figure out who they think can beat Trump and also speak to their issues.  Who is best on the economy? Who can unite the country? Who can lead the charge on immigration reform that can pass both chambers? Who has less baggage? Who can solve climate change? Who can bring back the rule of law but also put forward criminal justice reform? Who is best for down ballot candidates to give the dems the best shot at keeping the House and winning back the Senate. Who will make gun control a priority?

Is the rest of the country in love with Bernie? Can he expand the base and turn out more voters? Will his rhetoric motivate baby boomers, independents and former Trump supporters.  Have the electorate given up on Biden and Warren? Is Mayor Pete for real? Does Klobuchar have appeal in states outside of Minnesota with a diverse population? Is Bloomberg a spoiler who will guarantee a brokered convention and become the billionaire who saved the day?

Lots of questions to answer.  Stay tuned.

 

Fear: Trump in the White House Review

Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not sure what I was expecting but not this. I was struck by how it read like an episode from The West Wing full of chaos and drama. Woodward managed to inject order into the chaos and in doing so, painted Trump in a somewhat sympathetic light. His journalistic sense of neutrality is on display as he presented the first year and half of the Trump presidency as a series of huge moments where Trump’s “instincts” enabled by manipulative forces from Steve Bannon, to Peter Navarro and Fox News clashed with the views of key advisors, like the generals and Gary Cohn, who tried to be the adults in the room. Woodward takes us through defining events including the bungled response to the tragedy at Charlottesville, the Twitter wars with North Korea, the steel tariff, and Trumps pulling out of the Paris accords and trade agreements. At every decision point, Trump seems to look through a lens with three filters that revealed how he would look to supporters and the media, how much it would cost and what would the U.S. (or he) get in return. For example, he couldn’t understand why the U.S. couldn’t mine all the minerals in Afghanistan, or why the U.S. had to spend so much on NATO and the defense of South Korea. He couldn’t understand why we don’t just put the U.S. military out for hire. His instincts are to run the country like a Trump business to make money or enhance the brand. And to Trump, the brand should be about toughness and winning. Everything is winning or losing. He scoffs at the word globalism, a term he clearly learned from Steve Bannon.

Significant attention is paid to the carping between the president and his advisors and their battle for power and influence. The narrative is critical of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner who seem to have their own agenda and to have unlimited access to the president, undermining others. Some of the more incendiary bits revealed how Trump’s closest advisors viewed him. One of Trump’s lawyers, John Dowd, called Trump (charitably) incapable of telling the truth. Secretary of State Tillerson called Trump a “moron”. Chief of Staff Kelly offered a variation on the theme calling Trump an “idiot” while National Economic Council Chair Gary Cohn called him an “asshole”.

What becomes clear in the narrative is just how impulsive Trump can be (something I think we all have observed) but also just how easily he can be talked down from a bad idea. Increasingly, though, trying to put controls on Trump so that rational and ordered decisions could be made became so frustrating and impossible that many of the “adults in the room” left the administration. Now Trump has few guardrails in place to save him and the country from his bad instincts, one of the reasons he was impeached. To compound matters, he is surrounded by yes men and manipulators who have their own (very often bad) agendas – think Pompeo, Miller, Kushner, and Barr.

What Woodward did not explore were the origins of Trump’s bad ideas – that free trade and a free press are bad, and by extension that democracy is bad; that alliances and agreements are bad; that regulations are bad; that immigration is bad; and that protests against white supremacy are bad. Trump’s racism has been on display for years dating back to housing discrimination rulings against Trump properties, the Central Park 5, and Trump’s erroneous claim that Obama was not born in the United States and was an illegitimate president. Woodward does not explore the roles of Bannon and Miller in any detail or the influence of Fox “News” propaganda on Trump’s world view. And importantly, there isn’t much on the cozy relationship between Putin, Trump and the Republicans. Trump appears to support policies that favor Russia over the interest of the U.S. Why is that?

But the book is really more of a document of the Trump presidency up close and behind the scenes as experienced by the major players. It does not attempt to explain how or why Trump got elected, or to suggest that Trump is a bad president, though definitely one we should fear. Nor does he suggest Trump should be impeached and removed. That is left up the reader, including the meaning of the title, Fear: Trump in the White House. My own interpretation is that we should fear Trump more than ever now precisely because the guardrails are off and all the adults are gone or have flipped and become enablers (like Lindsay Graham) leaving the controls to an impulsive, unpredictable, failed businessman who has terrible instincts, undemocratic ideas, and no clue how to govern.

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Trump’s Ship of Fools

The Grateful Dead were never very political although they did a lot of fund raisers and seemed to have a social conscience, a sort of spirit that goes against all that Trump stands for.  Whereas, the Dead always had a wall of sound so that everyone could hear the music, Trump has always wanted to build a wall to keep people out.  The Grateful Dead were always about bringing people together, never alienating or walling out.  So it is in this spirit that I propose to describe the Trump years with Grateful Dead songs.

Looks Like Rain (1972)

Despite the fact that it did rain at his inauguration, Trump declared that the sun was actually shining in what can only be described as a “Sunshine Daydream” (coda from Sugar Magnolia 1970)

Ship of Fools (1974)

It’s a cautionary tale to Republicans who have cast their lot with the devil in a soul destroying Faustian bargain.

Dark Star (1968)

The Republicans appear to be navigating by the Dark Star that may just steer the ship of fools into a giant rock.

Not Fade Away (1957 – Buddy Holly and the Crickets; first played by the Dead in 1968)

Trump may believe that he is above the law but the impeachment stain will not fade away.

Loser (1971 – Garcia/Hunter)

Not only did Trump not win the popular vote in 2016 even with Russian assistance, he lost control of the House in the 2018 midterms.  And 7 of Trump’s associates have been convicted of crimes and have either already served time, are currently in prison or awaiting sentencing.

Mexicali Blues (1971)

Trump is singing the Mexicali blues because he can’t get the wall built, and he couldn’t get Mexico to pay for it, or anyone else for that matter.

Going Down the Road Feeling Bad (arr. 1971 – Traditional, 1924 )

Trump says he doesn’t feel like he’s been impeached but you know that he is going down the road feeling bad, as suggested by the all-caps Twitter tirades and that 6 page rant of a letter to Nancy Pelosi.

 

 

Trump’s Priorities

I’ve refrained from writing much about the Trump years partly because I still can’t believe he was elected president.  It feels like a cruel joke and I’ve suffered terribly watching the Trump administration roll out the most vile policies and comments that I have ever seen or heard from politicians in the U.S.  Trump has been an utter disgrace and embarrassment to a majority of Americans.  And that he still has the support of 45% or so in his pocket frightens me. I say still because despite his racism, bigotry, lying, criminality, and just overall ignorance in every area in which a president should have expertise, his supporters remain loyal.  I get why Republicans politicians support him. They won’t cross him for fear of being shamed and primaried. However, the MAGA crowd seems to view him as a sort of sports figure who they love to cheer on.  He’s the underdog with power who is kicking the liberal butts.  They don’t like elite liberals who make them feel inadequate, and they see in Trump a kind of savior.  They fanatically and uncritically embrace all that he says and does defending even the most deplorable policies.  And they don’t seem to understand that Trump’s ineffective policies and inept leadership have in many cases made their lives appreciably worse.  They don’t get that Trump is President (by accident) to further his own brand and that he could care less about them.  He wants to be reelected to stay out of prison, not to MAGA. His idea of make America great is to sell it to the highest bidder – Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the fossil fuel industry or to anyone else with cash.  I can’t help but wonder if his antics with Kim Jong Un are nothing more than a ploy to get himself a Nobel Prize or a lucrative North Korean land deal for a future Trump Hotel and Resort.  His deference to Russia clearly suggests he’s more interested in future financial deals and gaining acceptance into the Dictator Club than he is in preserving democracy.  He’s less interested in border security than he is in creating a monument to himself in the shape of a wall.

As to priorities other than himself, his family and his brand, let’s look at some of the key vacancies in executive branch positions that need Senate confirmation.  Out of 726  positions, 137 have no nominees even named.  These vacancies say a lot about Trump’s priorities. Below are a list of a few with brief commentary:

Homeland Security has only an acting director and just 41% of positions within the department filled.  One would think that the 2 billion request for the wall might be more wisely spent to adequately staff the department.  Amazingly, Homeland Security has no Deputy Secretary, no CFO, no Undersecretary for Management, no ICE Directors, (one just announced after two withdrew their nominations) and no Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Over at the Justice Department, less than half of the positions have been filled (and we are almost three years into the Trump presidency). There’s no nominee for Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Program Division (surprised?), no Assistant Attorney general for the Tax Division (but of course not), no DEA Administrator or Deputy Administrator,  no Parole Commissioners, no Special Counsel for Immigration-related Unfair Employment Practices, and no Director of Community Relations Service.

At the Department of Interior, incredibly, there is no Director for the National Parks Service, one of the most treasured of our resources and widely visited by tourists from all over the world. But not having a Director for the Parks Service is no accident because Trump hates the environment and can’t understand why we don’t just chop down the forests and frack the hell out of Yellowstone.

Even the Executive Office of the President is understaffed. Clearly key positions are deemed unimportant like Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs, Office of Science and Technology Policy and of course who needs an Associate Director for Technology Policy? Not Trump.  I mean, there’s no need to secure our elections or to invest in technology.  We have the Internet, what could be more advanced? And there’s no Chairman for Economic Advisers, and no members even nominated for the Council on Environmental Quality, but who cares about the environment and we all know global warming and climate change are a big hoax.  God is just punishing Macron with a hot summer for levying a tax on big tech companies. We’ll get them back by taxing French wine and anyway, American wine looks better.

And here are some key ambassadorships that are vacant:

Ukraine, Honduras, Belize, Brazil, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Estonia, Georgia, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Singapore, Tanzania.

I wonder if Putin told Trump to stay the hell out of Ukraine, Estonia, and Georgia.  And that we don’t have diplomatic relations with Brazil and Chile is unconscionable.  No diplomat in Japan, what?  And how on earth are we supposed to address the refugee crisis on the border if we have not established a diplomatic relationship with Honduras? Oh, right, Bolton says we can’t do diplomacy.  And that’s also what Senator Tom Cotton is whispering into the President’s ear.

 

 

Warren might be the best candidate

How do the Dems beat Trump? It goes without saying that they need to nominate the best candidate.  But which of the candidates would have the strongest chance of beating Trump? Or should that even be the metric, especially if any of a number of candidates could beat Trump.  According to the latest Quinnipiac poll that Trump calls fake and 538 rates as an A- pollster, Biden, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, Bernie, and Booker all beat Trump.  Of these candidates, who would be the most formidable on the campaign trail and who among them would be the best president? Frankly, I think the most formidable campaigner would be Elizabeth Warren.  I think Trump fears her or maybe Bernie the most.  Bernie might give Trump a good go,  but a shouting match in all CAPS between the two I think would work to Trump’s advantage.  Harris should fare better than HRC in that she is more likely to stand up to Trump,  but she is not the choice of the progressive crowd who the Dems need to turn out to have a chance.  And then there is Buttigieg.  I think his greatest appeal is that he is an outsider and the polar opposite of Trump.  He’s much smarter and calmer, and more thoughtful and articulate, and more accomplished.  I think he could turn out the vote although he too may struggle with progressives and to attract blacks, women and latino voters though he should fare well with moderates, young and old.  However, Trump will pounce on Pete’s youth, the fact that he wasn’t a combat fighter and served the military “deep state” in intelligence.  He’ll try to concoct some deep conspiracy that Buttigieg is a part of.  Trump will say Mayor Pete is a CIA plant and perhaps even question his credentials and attack his status as the son of an intellectual “foreigner” who maybe didn’t “belong”, not unlike he did Obama with the racist birther nonsense that he claimed Hillary started.  Biden on the other hand is who Trump HOPES to face.  He thinks he can characterize Joe as slow and sleepy, which are not exactly the attributes of a leader.  Trump will associate Biden with Obama who he claims left the country a mess for him to clean up.  Biden could very well be put on the defensive, in the same way that HRC was put on the defensive in regard to her record as Secretary of State under President Obama.  The defensive candidate always looks weak.

So here’s how I rate the candidates in 20 categories:  just the top 3 in each category and only considering the top 5 candidates in the national polls: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg and Harris.  Points: 3 if listed 1st, 2 if second and 1 if 3rd.

Campaigners: Warren, Buttigieg, Sanders

Policy: Warren, Biden, Buttigieg

Credentials: Biden, Warren, Harris

Star Power: Harris, Buttigieg, Warren

Personality: Warren, Harris, Biden

Communicator: Buttigieg, Biden, Warren

Fear Factor: Sanders, Warren, Harris

Women: Harris, Warren, Buttigieg

Presidential: Warren, Buttigieg, Harris

Least Baggage: Buttigieg, Harris, Sanders

Cool Factor: Buttigieg, Harris, Warren

Known Quantity: Biden, Sanders, Warren

Restore Image Abroad: Buttigieg, Harris, Biden

Climate Change: Harris, Buttigieg, Warren

Stand up to Russia: Biden, Warren, Harris

nonTwitter Dems: Biden, Buttigieg, Harris

Progressives: Sanders, Warren, Harris

Rust Belt Appeal: Buttigieg, Biden, Sanders

Big States: Biden, Harris, Buttigieg

South: Biden, Warren, Harris

And the winner is:  Warren (29), Buttigieg (28), Biden (27), Harris (25), Sanders (11)

And it’s fairly close though Sanders’ star has fallen and the novelty has worn off.  Now that he has branded himself as a Democratic socialist, which was not a particularly smart strategy, he’s toast.  I predict that O’Rourke will pick up some support from the Bernie and Biden crowd making the race even closer and paving the way for Warren to take the lead.  If her debates skills are as good as advertised, I expect her to become the frontrunner.

 

 

A Winning Ticket?

What are Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s chances of becoming the Dem. Nominee for President in 2020? Not very good, but possible. Consider this, in the 9 states for which there are polls, he’s running 5th.  Now wait before you say that doesn’t sound right.  It is right.  Don’t forget that some of those polls are from early April.  A lot has changed since then.  In the most recent Economist/YouGov national poll as reported by Real Clear Politics  he’s in 4th. Rounding out the top five is Harris at 9%, Buttigieg at 10%, Warren 12%, Sanders 15%, and Biden 27%. Given that Mayor Pete is still not well-known, these numbers are pretty good for him. After the upcoming debates, I imagine there will start to be some separation between these candidates.

What’s interesting is the question of momentum.  And there are only 2 candidates who seem to have any and they are Warren and Buttigieg, both of whom have increased their standings in the national polls versus the states polls, some of which as I mentioned are from early April.  In the state polls, Mayor Pete would have received a total of 8% of all of the delegates in IA, TX, NH, CA, NC, FL, PA, SC and MA, whereas in the latest national poll, he’s at 10%.  Warren’s numbers are 10% and 12%.  By contrast, Biden and Sanders have lost momentum.  Biden’s numbers are 32% and 27% and Bernie’s 17% and 15%.  Harris’ state number is 10% and 9% in national polling.

So what accounts for this momentum?  The obvious answer is campaigning.  When people hear Mayor Pete for the first time, they are impressed.  And when they hear him again and again, they are struck by his consistency.  He is passing each test, each appearance with the highest marks.  Similarly, Warren has been impressive with her focus on her plans – she’s like that saying, “there’s an app for that” only replace app with policy – “I have a policy for that.”  Unlike Buttigieg, she has name recognition, but her name has been somewhat tarnished by the DNA debacle.  She has worked hard to earn back respect as someone who could legitimately beat Trump.  The theory of the case previously had been that Trump would never let her off the hook for claiming Native American heritage and would taunt her with chants of Pocahontas (by the way, Scott Brown was the first to do this when he ran against her for the MA Senate seat) in an attempt to throw her off her game. And she might take the bait and hit back, but that would play into Trump’s small hands.  But she is one hell of a fighter and would give Trump the fight of his life.  She could talk about his bone spur deferments, his inflated claims of wealth and success and of course hit him hard on all of his criminal behavior while in office.  She could intimidate him with the I words – Impeach and Imprison but I don’t think that is what would get her elected.  I think if she stays focused on policy details and continue to discuss them with the raw passion that Hillary failed to express, she has a good shot of taking him down.

Now imagine this:  Warren/Buttigieg.  That would be an intriguing ticket and perhaps a winner.  Time will tell.

Harriet Tubman on the 20 dollar bill

Trump will go down in history as the worst president ever and it won’t even be close.  His presidency will also contain an asterisk because there is sufficient evidence to suggest that a foreign government meddled in the election to help him become president.  Not surprisingly, “45’s” favorite president appears to be #7, Andrew Jackson, one of the worst presidents, IMHO, in our nation’s history.  He supported the Indian Removal Act, the product of a land deal in which a minority of Cherokee ceded all tribal lands to the U.S. The deal was challenged and struck down by the Supreme Court. However, Jackson ignored the ruling (sound familiar?) and forced the “migration” of tens of thousands of Cherokee to Oklahoma. During this traumatic forced relocation march along what was known as the trail of tears, an estimated 4,000 Cherokees died.

And now Trump, in predictable fashion, is on the wrong side of history again.  During the Obama administration, Harriet Tubman was selected to replace Andrew Jackson on the 20 dollar bill by the year 2020.  It was high time for a women to represent on paper money and particularly an African-American one who was instrumental in saving the lives of hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad.  For most, the move to replace Jackson with Tubman on the 20 dollar bill is not in the least controversial, until Trump set in motion a plan that would delay this action until at least 2028, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin when questioned by MA Representative Ayanna Pressley.

Today, Democratic Presidential hopeful, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was asked in an interview with Robert Costa of the Washington Post whether he thought President Trump is a racist.  Buttigieg said that Trump’s words AND his actions indicate that he is.  And this latest move, in a sign of bad faith, defending Andrew Jackson, the architect of what many consider a genocidal policy toward native Americans, over an abolitionist and national hero, who risked her own life to save many others from a life a slavery is unconscienable but not surprising. It is very much in line with his defense of preserving civil war monuments, and supporting white supremacists, and is just one more exhibit to demonstrate that Trump is hell bent on fueling culture wars and erasing Obama’s legacy, which seems to be his only governing philosophy.

Hey Dems – This is how to beat Trump

Before I dive into this topic, let me say that I’ll vote for whoever wins the Democratic primary, even the candidates I’m not too enthusiastic about including Delaney, Sanders, Gabbard, Hickenlooper, and Gillibrand. I have to say too that I am still irritated by Bernie’s behavior during the Democratic primary of 2016, and the fact that he only cooly supported HRC, and to this day wants nothing to do with her or by extension her supporters. By I’ll leave it at that for now.

If there are any lessons from the 2016 Republican primary that Trump opponents could learn, it would be that you can’t out bully Trump.  He thrives on petty fights on the low road.  He’ll give his opponent a nickname, remember “Little Marco”, “Lying Ted”, “Pocahontas”, “Low Energy Jeb”, “Crazy Bernie” and bait the candidate to go on the defensive or to strike back.  As long as the debate is about nicknames, and grade school insults, Trump wins.  The second lesson is that he lies, by the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale’s count, 4,424 falsehoods as of February 20, 2019, nearly 6 lies per day since Trump became president. Practically everything he will say on the debate stage will be misleading, a falsehood or a flat out lie.  Given this fact, the democratic candidates need to understand that Trump supporters don’t care if he lies – truth is of no importance.  Nor do they seem to care that Trump may have committed crimes while in office, that he and his campaign may have colluded with the Russians to win the election. Many Dems and Repubs view events through a partisan polarized lens – us vs. them; good guys vs. bad guys.  What Republicans seem more interested in is fighting culture wars rooted in the fear that they may loose their guns, their cows and hamburgers, their bibles, the right to life, the right to pollute with impunity, the right to large tax breaks, the right to keep blacks, legal immigrants, and the elderly from voting, and the right to keep the country as white as possible by walling out non-white immigrants.

Now that I’ve laid this out, one word of advice to the Democrats is not to engage the extreme right wing or give any oxygen to their conspiracies. The Dems have already won the culture wars by a fairly wide margin as evidenced by the popular vote and the landslide victory in the midterms.  The Dems should focus on the issues that the majority of Americans want action on – climate change, income inequality, racial justice, immigration reform, women’s rights, LGQTB issues, judicial appointments that look like America, infrastructure, and rehabilitating the reputation of the U.S. in the eyes of our traditional allies.

Here’s a look at some of the top candidates and how they could beat Trump:

Booker v. Trump – Trump seems to think he has Booker’s number, that he can intimidate him.  It may be a New Jersey turf competition for Trump who will use his thuggish ways to smear Booker.  Like his racist attacks on Obama, Trump will attempt to diminish Booker’s accomplishments by questioning his education and credentials.  And Trump has some nerve given that he threatened lawsuits against Fordham if they released his transcripts. I think the worst thing Booker could do is go on the defensive.  He needs to challenge Trump’s abysmal record and push forward his own agenda and force Trump to debate the issues.

Harris v. Trump – Trump is going to brand Harris an extreme liberal or a socialist who was bad on criminal justice issues.  He’ll take the Democrat opposition research on her and use it to his advantage.  And don’t be surprised if he pushes out a birther issue calling into question her legitimacy because she lived in Canada and her parents were born outside the U.S. She shouldn’t spend much time on the defense.  If he questions her citizenship, she can demand his tax returns.  I think she could bring issues of race to the fore, citing Charlottesville, the lack of diversity in his cabinet and with his judicial picks.  But she should focus most on her policies and on restoring democracy.  Her message must be positive and aspirational.

Klobuchar v. Trump – Trump no doubt will pounce on Klobuchar’s temper with staff.  He’ll play the sexist card and brand her emotional and unfit for running the country.  She could challenge him on this issue citing his deplorable history with women.  Like all other candidates, though, she has to remain positive and aspirational.  She won’t get enthusiastic support from progressives, but she may pick up centrist Hillary supporters, and support from Independents and Republicans who are simply feed up with Trump.

Warren v. Trump – Warren can win, but she has to navigate the DNA fiasco carefully and not let Trump get under her skin with the Pocahontas chants.  She is a fighter, however, and she may be the only one who could take him down at his own game.  I think it would be a mistake, though, for her to fight him on the school playground. Her bigger problem may be the extremist label.  Republicans like to use the extremist label (because it has this connection to terrorism) to demonize opponents.  Rather than trying to prove that she’s not an extremist, Warren should focus on income inequality which will resonate with most Americans and a vision for a better future.

Sanders v. Trump – Trump will brand Bernie an extremist and socialist, linking his vision to failed experiments in Venezuela and Cuba.  Bernie will need to brush that aside as ridiculousness and instead focus on gaining traction in the African-American community, maintaining the 2016 enthusiasm from millennials, and winning support from HRC supporters who feel betrayed by the campaign in 2016.  For BS to win, he needs a big turnout.

All the Democratic candidates need to stay laser focused on the issues that the majority of Americans care most about – gun control, climate change, racial justice, immigration reform, infrastructure, income inequality, women’s rights, LBGQT issues, restoring U.S. democracy and U.S. standing in the world, and matters of foreign policy.  And while “Space is the Place”, Peace is the Thing. These issues are the path to victory and the best way to out Trump Trump.