Op-Ed: Remember, Democrats, We Ain’t Won Nuthin’ Yet
By Sam Youngman and Adam Parkhomenko
This January, it will be 28 years since Leon Lett became a cautionary tale.
It was Super Bowl XXVII, and Lett, a massive defensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys, recovered a fumble and began running toward the endzone for a touchdown. But when he reached the 10-yard line, Lett held the ball out to begin the celebration early.
He didn’t see a man named Don come up behind him and knock the ball loose.
So what should Democrats take from this tortured comparison? Hold on to the goddamn ball and keep your legs pumping until you’ve crossed the goal line.
And bring five teammates with you.
And avoid people named Don.
The truth is that Donald J. Trump, through his racism, his misogyny, his corruption, his cruelty and his boundless incompetence, has awakened a sleeping giant in the American electorate. Like villagers with pitchforks and torches, we are coming for tangerine Frankenstein.
We hope. The thing is we really don’t know. We know what the polls say, we know what the fundraising says and we know a whole lot of anecdotal stuff that fills us with hope and dread and sometimes both at the same time.
We also know that no matter how hopeful we might feel, we haven’t won a damn thing yet. Frankenstein is still very much alive even if 220,000 villagers aren’t.
But still, we can’t shake this optimism. There are so many reasons to be excited. We’ve been waiting a long time for this opportunity. These last four years have been among America’s worst, and many of us have been foaming at the mouth since Jan. 20, 2017 to get back in the voting booth and exact our revenge.
And it’s hard to not feel confident when your opponent keeps pooping himself on stage. The closing weeks of the race have seen Joe Biden get better as a candidate and Trump decomposing into a sweaty pile of orange rage howling at the moon and screaming at the toaster. If it feels like we have Joe-mentum (zero apologies to Joe Lieberman), it’s because we do.
We think.
Look, we’re Democrats. Worrying is what we do best. Hell, we peed ourselves a little just typing out Joe-mentum. And you don’t even want to know how messy things get every time we see a poll that shows Biden with a double-digit lead. But you’re not paranoid if someone is really out to get you.
Over the last week, we have seen just how sick and cruel Trump and his basket of scum-sucking goat-fucking trash-eating deplorables can be when they’re cornered and desperate. They have attacked Hunter Biden for his battles with drug addiction, attacked his father for having a stutter and turned our entire intel community into Julian Assange and Vladimir Putin’s wet dreams.
And where the hell did Ice Cube come from to guest star in our nightmares after taking our money since middle school?!
There is so much to worry about because we’ve never been here as a country. We’ve never seen our intel community this politicized. We’ve never seen a president talk about refusing to leave office. We’ve never seen a president completely lose it and call for everyone he doesn’t like to be jailed. We’ve never seen a president cheer on violence or extra-judicial killings of Americans.
If you’re worried, it’s because you’ve been paying attention.
And the worst part is we haven’t seen their worst. Frankly, our imaginations aren’t good enough to even guess what kind of evil, un-American shit Trumpland will pull over the coming days and weeks to try and destroy Joe Biden and anyone else who dares to oppose Dear Leader. And that doesn’t include judges and governors who stopped defending the Constitution and their constituents so they could do Trump’s dirty work.
We would rather be in our position than Trump’s, but only a fool would count him out. How many times have we said “oh this is the thing that will end Trump?” But he’s still there, clogging up our toilets, watching Fox and Friends on our television and scream-shitting blood as he tweets into the void.
That’s why this time we have to make sure. There can be no confusion, there can be no hesitation and there can be no premature celebration (looking at you, Toobin. Now we’re looking away). This is the big one we’ve been waiting for, and we only get one shot at it.
So vote, and after you’ve voted, go to work making sure others are too. Keep making calls. Keep sending texts. Keep finding races where your money can make a difference. Keep doing what you’ve been doing, but do more of it.
Don is going to come up behind us, so don’t stop, don’t slow down and don’t start dancing until you get to the endzone.
Otherwise it’s game over (and more shitty sports metaphors) for everyone.
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