The Strategist or The Loyalist? I think it’s more the former, by a big margin. It’s the new normal for a number of reasons, most notably because of the nature of Trump’s base, which is more or less an angry insurgency and far more loyal than any Republican base that has supported a previous president in the last 60 years. If you’re a Trump supporter, there’s a sense of ownership over him. His every move is justified because you are the one who put him in the White House, not the establishment that failed you. This, to me, is the more dangerous thing. You can’t be loyal to Trump; he has to be loyal to you. You can still be loyal to your party, you can still fight for its best interests — as I am doing, right now. But you must also not be silent. You must call your representatives, your senator, in your statehouse; you must go on air and say what is right for our country, even if it’s to the detriment of your party and President Trump. The world is at a pretty scary moment. Our constitutional democracy is under attack, both by bad policy and the erosion of norms, and you can’t just stand by, you can’t just say the Constitution guarantees your right to be rich and privileged. It also guarantees the rights of all others in the world, most notably, immigrants and the marginalized. You can’t just stand by and say, well, you didn’t do it right. You have to stand up and say, you are wrong. It’s important to note that I am not talking about a third-party movement, as some have pointed to — that would just help the Democrats. We’re in unprecedented times, so we must also remember that we’re right in the midst of history. We don’t want to look back and say: How could I not speak out? The future of the country is in our hands, and we have to take that responsibility seriously. That doesn’t mean we can’t also do things the way we always have — we can raise money for Democrats; we can help with the DNC and state party building. But we also have to say: I don’t want to wait until 2020, so to speak; I am part of this. We can be a check on this madness by standing up for what is right. Some might say, ‘Hey, it’s a Democratic civil war!’ This is not about Democrats versus Republicans. We know we need to strengthen both parties to beat this insanity. We know this is not about Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton; this is about Donald Trump versus everyone else. A strong Democratic Party will help get rid of Trump, but just as importantly, it will protect our liberties, and I know many Republicans want to do the same. Even those Republicans who don’t agree with me on everything need to know, if they oppose Trump — and for those who don’t want to vote for him, who are genuinely against him — they need to be part of this. There’s power in numbers. If we all come together, we can turn the tables on this nightmare. We need to build a firewall. We need to stop this man from wrecking our country — the greatest country in the history of the world. There’s power in numbers. If we all come together, we can turn the tables on this nightmare. There are a lot of people out there who are wondering if we should all hold hands and wait out this Trump nightmare. I’ve been asking myself: How can I not hold my nose and vote for Trump? If there were a strong third party, I’d vote for that, because I don’t want a big-government, big-spending Democrat in office. So why would I vote for Trump? I understand why third-party support is growing, but that isn’t the answer. We can’t be complacent; we can’t just believe that everyone who voted for Trump is going to change their mind. It’s dangerous. We have to save the republic. We cannot save it with a third party, because our only chance of keeping Trump out of office is for the Democrats to work, and to win. The Democrats have to be strong enough to challenge him, to force him to govern responsibly and keep him from being as dangerous as he might be. We have to save the republic by defeating Trump, by using the Democratic majority in Congress and states to impeach Trump — who is just as much a threat to the republic as Hitler was to the Third Reich. To get rid of the threat from that president, we have to have more Democrats in Congress and states, and we have to impeach him. That means we have to vote, in all 50 states. We have to take charge of Congress, and we have to vote. It’s time to stop tolerating this nonsense. We need to save the republic. We cannot save it with a third party, because our only chance of keeping Trump out of office is for the Democrats to work, and to win. I’m not alone in my worries about the Republican party. Many Democrats are worried as well, some because of racism; they don’t like seeing white Americans support a black president — but that’s a different conversation. But others are uneasy because of their beliefs in constitutional principles — what the country was founded on, the freedoms we’re supposed to be fighting for, including freedom of religion. I grew up Catholic, and as an evangelical Christian I never doubted my faith and would never vote against it, but I voted against Trump. That’s why I think we all need to be more vocal. We have to say what we believe in. We have to take the oath seriously. My parents weren’t Democrats, they weren’t Republicans, and neither was I until 2016. When I started to pay attention to politics in the 2000s, I was shocked to see this country sliding down the slippery slope of socialism. The Democratic party was sliding the same way, especially with Obama’s first term, where he tried to govern by executive order. Many think that’s no big deal, but if you look at the other countries in the world, it’s a massive threat. Look at Singapore. Singapore is a city-state, population about 5 million, they have great education and health care, but when you look at their governmental structure, it has very little red tape, few barriers. There’s no public option, no government programs to help people. There’s nothing government can do for people other than make it so that you can get to work, you can have health care, and that’s it. I can easily see us making a turn to that, where all the government does is protect us from those that want to do us harm. But all of that was about to be threatened by Obama and Hillary Clinton. We stopped that. That is a fundamental American right: the right to be able to provide for your family. The right to have opportunities and be able to raise your children. It’s also about our ability to live free and safe from oppression, free from unreasonable searches and seizures, free from having our privacy invaded. I couldn’t accept it — the idea that they were going to take our rights, and that I was going to sit by and let that happen. The other day, I saw a meme on Facebook where they were saying: The Democrats are a cult. I laughed at that, because I don’t think that’s what people really want, but many people do believe that the party is too partisan, that there is a certain purity test that everyone has to go through