Imagine you’re at a big gathering at someone’s house. Family, friends, neighbors, some folks you don’t know—you’re all in that house together.

Suddenly there’s a mob outside. They start beating on the door.

Imagine that everybody puts their shoulder to the door except you. You don’t like what the mob would do either, but you just watch everyone else push. They ask you to help, but you say no. “I’m not that strong,” you say. “It won’t make a difference.”

Of course you wouldn’t do that. But in 2020, when Donald Trump was running for a second term as president, a lot of Tennesseans did. Only about 60 percent of eligible voters in Tennessee bothered to vote that year.  

Thanks to the Americans who did vote, Trump didn’t win a second term in 2020. And we know what a second term would look like, because he’s told us.

He’s talked about imprisoning his political enemies. Using the military against protesters. Shooting shoplifters on sight. Rounding up undocumented immigrants—including people who’ve lived and worked here for decades—and putting them in deportation camps. Being a dictator on “day one.” Giving Vladimir Putin the go-ahead to invade our NATO allies.

In 2024 and every election year until we defeat Trumpism, we’re faced with a binary choice. If we want to keep our democracy so we can make it better, we have to vote for the only party that’s both dedicated to democracy and big enough to win. That means voting D all the way down the ballot.

We can’t just vote against Trump. We have to vote out the Republicans who’ve chosen Trumpism over democracy: congressmen and senators who don’t respect the Constitution, state legislators who don’t respect civil rights, school board members who don’t respect truth and educational freedom.

The mob is at the door.

We can beat them if we all push together.