Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
“I got this,” I said, lying through my teeth.
I could feel my sisters’, cousins’ and friends’ sense of imminent doom as we approached the rendezvous point for my hastily scheduled after-school showdown with Tony Trimble, Carolina Elementary’s top-ranked, undefeated bully. They had a legitimate cause for concern. Not only was Tony “the Troublemaker” bigger, stronger and older than I was, but he also had a mustache. In the sixth grade (To be fair, he had been left back a few times). Even middle school kids had heard about the time Tony body slammed someone so hard that they were forever condemned to riding the “short bus.” But, after he smacked me in the back of the head during the tornado drill earlier that day, I had no choice but to demand a chance to reclaim my honor.
“At least let me trip him before he puts you in belly-to-belly,” said White Ben (who shared a name with an African-American kid who was nicknamed “Ben). “Then, we’ll all jump in.”
The Black kids who regularly walked home together from our predominately white elementary stopped and stared at the only white member of our after-school entourage. Even my sisters, who were highly skilled fighters in their own regard, understood why White Ben’s proposal was absurd. After spending most of our lives in predominately Black skin, we all naively assumed the unwritten guidelines that governed mutual, pre-arranged hand-to-hand combat extended across cultural lines.
One-on-one. No jumping in. No holding back.
Apparently, White Ben didn’t know the rules. He was shocked when the Black members of our after-school entourage unanimously rejected his plan to ambush Tony, but I understood his concerns. Who would laugh at his corny jokes if I was condemned to the short bus? Despite their concerns over my spinal cord being shattered into smithereens, the Black kids understood the assignment. There was only one way for me to reclaim my dignity and finally put an end to Tony’s reign of terror. I didn’t necessarily have to win the fight, but we all knew what I needed to do:
I had to give Tony “a fair one.”
This story is about Donald Trump
Just as my Caucasian compatriot believed Tony was a threat to my vertebrae, I believe electing an election denier as president threatens democracy. Although I am not privy to Amber Rose’s research, I have seen enough evidence to know the former president is racist. He is a proven liar, a convicted felon and a court-certified rapist. This is why I am grateful to the gravity, wind, MAGA Jesus and, most of all, the dedication, training and good fortune of the Secret Service.
When Trump barely escaped an assassin’s bullet at a campaign rally on Saturday, I breathed a sigh of relief. Whether it was Donald Trump’s John Wick-like reflexes, a would-be assassin’s inaccurate aim or the sheer luck of fate, I will forever be grateful that the racist, lying, corrupt criminal was not felled by the random act of a lone gunman. Turning a racist, lying, corrupt criminal into a tragic hero would be the worst possible outcome.
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I would love to feign an altruistic, Martin Luther King-like belief in nonviolence, love and human decency. But in a country founded by a violent revolution and an economy built on the indecent extraction of labor through violence or the threat of violence, I might be accused of being un-American or, even worse, promoting critical race theory. Still, as imperfect and unequal as America may be — and I have done the research — I believe there is only one way to claim this country’s dignity and finally put an end to Trump’s reign of terror:
I want a fair one.
Donald Trump is just a man who is not very good at doing things. He lost the popular vote in every single election in which he competed. Aside from white people and white evangelicals, the vast majority of every other religious, ethnic and racial demographic vote against candidates from the party he controls. He is a “brilliant businessman” who declared bankruptcy six times. He is a “stable genius” who needed his rich daddy’s help to get into college. Just because he enjoys the advantages of biased media coverage, supporters who don’t care about truth and the financial support of the richest man on the face of the planet doesn’t mean he will win. He is as human as Martin Van Buren or Millard Fillmore or George H.W. Bush or any of the second-term-seeking former presidents who voters told: “Nah. We good.”
Despite the stories, tales and myths that created the legend of the Sunny D-colored billionaire, Donald Trump is not as dangerous as the idea of Trumpism. The politician we know as Trump represents a pre-existing coalition of angry, entitled Americans who want to “take their country back.” The “back” part is what defines Trumpism. It is the desire to take back the privilege historically afforded to white men and women. Trumpism is the effort to rewind every inch of racial progress and institutionalize the religion that reinforces their superiority. Donald Trump did not make them feel this way or create the philosophy; he is simply their avatar. He doesn’t care about “the right to life” or wokeness any more than Stalin cared about the economic equality of the working class. Even the loathsome Project 2025 is just a means to that end, a plan for achieving authoritarian power. But, as the Bible says: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
My Bible is different.
Plus, killing people does not work. Even if Trumpism is bad for democracy, turning Trump into a martyr still wouldn’t end the threat his movement poses to the country. A random, dollar-store white boy perched on a rooftop with a powerful, long-range killing machine is ill-equipped to exterminate the bombastically incompetent but aggrieved Caucasian indignation that Trump embodies. Assassinating Abraham Lincoln did not accomplish John Wilkes Booth’s goal of stopping the end of race-based servitude. Assassins killed dozens of popes but Catholicism continues. Just as James Earl Ray’s rifle didn’t stop the Civil Rights Movement, assassinating individuals is an ineffective tool for social, political or economic change.
The will of the people is the only weapon that can prosper against Trumpism. We’ve tried everything else. When we assumed judges would — and I know how crazy it sounds — judge Trump, the Supreme Court granted him near-universal immunity from the law. Judge Aileen Cannon somehow decided that the Department of Justice’s special prosecutor could not prosecute him and bring him to justice. A felony hush money conviction couldn’t hush his followers’ convictions. His election interference trial in Georgia won’t interfere with him being re-elected again. Apparently, the judicial system is an ineffective tool for holding some people legally accountable for their actions.
Most GOP legislators support Trump’s bid for president. Current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is an election-denying Christian nationalist who objected to counting votes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t have enough battery life to oppose anything without going into standby mode. In any case, two impeachment trials already proved that the legislative branch of government is equally ill-equipped to stop America’s Next Top Führer.
Even if constitutionally prescribed judicial and legislative remedies successfully put an end to the prospect of a second Trump administration, Trump’s legion of MAGAmerican sycophants would just dismiss it as a “witch hunt” or say Biden is “weaponizing” the Justice Department. Trump’s battalion of bootlickers already believe Joe Biden, the Secret Service, the local police, Antifa, diversity hires and a 20-year-old armed with no special training and a rifle his parents bought 11 years ago conspired to kill Trump.
They love playing the victim.
Anything that would hold Trump back from his pre-ordained destiny would only embolden his base and confirm their conspiracy theories. To them, an impeachment trial is the political equivalent of the two houses of Congress double-teaming their hero. They hate when anyone jumps in with truth, reality or verified facts to attack their big bad bully. No holding back. No double teaming. No jumping in.
I do not possess the requisite wordsmithing skills to describe the cheers of exultation after I knocked out Tony “the Troublemaker” Trimble and ended his reign of terror, but that didn’t happen. Like most mixed martial arts matches in the elementary school division, we just threw punches and tussled until we exhausted ourselves. I trudged home with my spinal cord intact and Tony went back to what I assume was the Oval Office for bullies. He didn’t even suspend his campaign.
He resumed his menacing ways when my younger cousin Tyran fought him the next year. He was still standing on bullying business after my sister fought him. In fact, almost everyone who attended Carolina Elementary during the approximately 17 years he spent in the sixth grade has a story about the time they fought Tony the Troublemaker. But to this day, people will still tell you about how Tony Trimble never lost a fight. And technically, they are correct. I did not defeat him. Tony continued making trouble. It’s who he was.
But he was no longer a bully.
Because we fought him.
Trump is a lying, racist, incompetent, wannabe dictator who lost an election. That’s who he is and who he will always be. And, as we know, there is absolutely nothing we can do to convince his minions’ that he is a liar, a racist or an incompetent loser. But if the goal is to stop Trump from becoming president of the United States, then it shouldn’t matter what his followers believe. We’ve already proven that he can be defeated. We don’t need guns, bullets or violence. We can just use our votes. And trust me:
We got this.
Michael Harriot is a writer, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His NY Times bestseller Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America is available in bookstores everywhere.
