The Obamas are kind and smart people, but as politicians, their presidency was unfortunate and unsustainable in the residue of an enduring legacy that lived beyond them in true democratic electoral rule — they were bad at getting Democrats elected. People loved President Obama, but that popularity did not transfer to overwhelming legislative successes that matched his election mandate. In fact, Obama spent too much time trying to make peace with Republicans when all they wanted to do was remove him from office. Obama wasted the first two years of the majority he won in the House and Senate and then never recovered after his first midterm election disaster that poisoned the last six years of his presidency.

At the 2016 Democrat convention, Michelle Obama played the morality card against the GOP, by proclaiming, “When they go low, we go high” and that ridiculous phrase never had any power beyond the wish and the fairytale — going high was only the pabulum of early virtue signalling — lacking any substance that did anything to help anyone. Just ask Hillary Clinton how going high worked out for her as president.

What the Obamas, and the Democrats, generally fail to realize is their opponent, the Republicans, are smarter, better organized, craftier, more cruel — the GOP own the courts and they have better lawyers, just ask Al Gore about his presidency — and if Joe Biden hopes to win in 2020, he needs to go LOWER than Donald Trump, not higher, to meet the ferocity of the viciousness that is about to become Mr. Biden over the next two months; and I fear he, and the Democrat leaders, think they’re going to win just because of voting and goodwill, while the election is really going to be won in the streets, bloodlines, the courts, and in a multitude of lawsuits.

I know it’s unpopular to believe a second Trump term is inevitable, but we have to realize what is at stake — not for us, but for Trump. His entire life and future are in play in 2020. This is actually life or death for him. He will stop at nothing to avoid the tax courts waiting for him and the unraveling of his executive orders in real time. Four more years will give him just enough time to avoid prosecution.

Know this: the 2020 election teeters in the percentages.

Trump can be defeated, but to win, the Democrats can’t play by their usual standard rules or by their own self-righteous, but beleaguered, morality. They need to get dirty. They need to fight back. If Trump somehow loses in the Fall, the Democrats need to be prepared to clean up the remainder of what will become a domestic terrorism presidency in decay. Trump will destroy everything around him in rage before 2021 rings in the New Year.

The Democrats can deal with mopping up after a catastrophe. They’re good at that, but they need to get there first.

First, the Democrats need to get over the idea that Trump is bad and Biden is good. That’s a losing hand. Nobody cares about darkness and light in a presidential election. People only care about themselves and if they can manage and handle their own bottom line. This, and every election, is a wallet referendum — unless the economy is good, then elections are about maintaining safety and keeping the status quo. Remember that!

So, votes matter until they don’t. People try to vote. People can be thwarted from the vote. People can be intimidated away from the vote. There are more liberals than conservatives in America and the Republicans know that fact, and every day over the past 50 years they have been actively working to attack all liberal votes as being fraudulent — and those conservative lies always go unanswered by liberal truth seekers who mistakenly think everyone knows what they think they know, when they do not, because nobody pays attention to anyone other than themselves.

The Democrats know they have the voter advantage but do nothing to protect those who are most vulnerable in not being able to vote. Sabotage happens in secret; resolution must happen in public to be effective so safety is affirmed. Republicans know how to play this repression game and the Democrats appear frightened to fight back in public with actual, provable, deeds that confirm defeat of the Republican plan.

Proactivity is missing on the blue side and in that red power vacuum, the smarter, more subterranean plan wins and gets put forward. That’s what I mean about “going lower” when “they go low” — to protect the vote is more than the Speaker of the House proclaiming awareness of what the GOP are planning to work to deny with the ballot box and in the mailbox.

There’s nothing wrong with fighting fire with fire. It’s fair to take an eye for an eye. It’s foolish to think just because you say you will go “high” when they go “low” that it means anything other than a motto without motivation or substance — great idea, fun to proclaim — but “going high” is naive and unsurmountable as a mode of operation in a contested election.

Democrats tend to intellectualize elections with ideas and thoughtfulness and inclusion, while Republicans are more base, they prefer to emotionalize and scare and intimidate their voters; and you don’t have to go back to the childhood playground to know which method finds more success in the tall grass.

The bully always wins an unfair fight in the stones. The only way you beat back a bully is to punch the bully in the nose before your arm gets broken. You need a mob mentality. They hit you once; you kick them 10 times! That’s the only way to win. That’s the only way to get the message across to the teeming masses.

And, no, it doesn’t help to fight silently and in secret like an assassin — because the voters need to know where you stand and if you stand with them and what you’re doing to thwart the clearly stated intentions to cheat and steal an election at any cost! No sniping! You need an axe and a bazooka to stop the bamboozle! Let them see you bleed!

The media will not help the Democrats. The media want a fight. The media is big business. The media loves drama. The media, despite what they may claim on air — need Trump for ratings; and yes, win or lose, Trump will be the story, but don’t think the media will do anything but breathlessly report every false claim against the Democrats while ignoring the openly stated goals of the re-election effort. Trump pays their bills. Trump is the enemy they love to celebrate.

Don’t believe the polls. Vote as if your life depended upon it — and then don’t be surprised if Trump loses the popular vote by five million votes and still wins the presidency again in the Electoral College. It’s all math and conning the numbers. Trump has 26 governors. He owns the Supreme Court. He is desperate to win. He has massive powers he can invoke to form the vote, to cause disruptions, and to beat back every single norm of our moral code in the effort to stay the star of the reality show he believes he created for the goodness of humanity — even though his presidency has all always, and only, been about him.

Elections are manipulations of micro-percentages and we have one of the most effective malignant narcissists ever to control the oval office, so don’t finish the count on election night even if Trump loses the popular vote big time because, in the end, he’d rather burn down the country than accept defeat. That’s what’s at stake in 2020 and just voting will never be enough to win.