Left organizers map out a struggle for Election Day and beyond.
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Welcome, everyone, to The Run-Up, a brand new podcast from The Real News Network that's going to help you stay informed, engaged, and empowered this election season. My name is Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor-in-chief at The Real News, and I'm very excited to bring you all this first installment of The Run-Up.

where our very own Mark Steiner is going to give us the rundown on the Beat Trump, Then Battle Biden petition that's making the rounds as we speak. Let's go.

And we're doing a program now called Run Up, which leads us up to the election here on The Real News and covering the issues that unfold before November. And we're opening that with this. And also to remind you that as you watch this, we're about to launch the new Mark Steiner show here on The Real News, which will be coming up shortly with programs just like this. But as I'm saying that, we are living in a very complex and dangerous time.

Tuesday night's debate with Trump's call for proud boys to stand down and stand by, for people to disrupt the polls, for many is a clarion call to what America faces, what it might face in the future. A week before, 55 progressive activists, writers, leaders signed their petition calling for America to, quote, beat Trump, then battle Biden, as a strategy to be able to out of political necessity. For many of the left, it's an anathema to think about supporting a corporate centrist candidate with a debatable past on race and crime.

So in this historical moment, when 23 million people have hit the streets to protest racism and police brutality, with intense wildfires and hurricanes ripped up by climate change,

and all we face with democracy being threatened by Trump, the right wing of the ruling class, and the white nationalist mobs that want to seize power, what should our response be to all of this? We talked with three signers of that petition to beat Trump, then battle Biden. We welcome our guests, who have all been on Real News before, Bill Fletcher, executive editor of globalafricanworker.com, former president of Trans-Africa Forum, and author of Man Who Fell from the Sky, one of my favorite new books. Sonali Kaltakar, who is host and executive producer of Rise Up with Somali.

and Aviva Chomsky, a Staten University professor, the author of "They Take Our Jobs: In 20 Minutes About Immigration." So it's good to have you all with us, and I appreciate you taking the time. Let me just start with the document you all participated in and signed. One of the lines there was, "Protestations that Biden is beholden to elites are true, but beside the point, lesser evil is evil, and in this case, the greater evil is simply off the charts."

Let's talk about how that plays out. I mean, many activists, you know, I was talking to my youngest daughter who's in her 20s and Erica Blount, our producer, was talking to hers. They feel the same way. And many of the people that I've been in conversation with find it impossible to support Biden. They just think it's just, they can't do it. They say he's a capitalist or corporatist, that he was always wanting to lock them up and throw away the key. And that how can they trust him? How can he be the one that we put our faith in?

And so, you know, in all these years, people will say, "We heard that when Nixon ran. We heard it when Reagan ran. We heard it when Bush ran. The real danger lies ahead. So don't vote Green. Don't vote third party." So what is the convincing argument, beyond being in a blue state where people voting Green can feel safe? What is that convincing argument? Bill? -Using the argument that you just said, the left should have sat out World War II, Mark. -Okay, go ahead. -I mean, really, let's be real. I mean, if that -- if Pete, to its logical extension,

Let's look at who was involved in World War II. I mean, we weren't talking about paragons of virtue. There was a recognition, however, on the planet of the planetary danger. And what we need to be looking at in the United States is not abstraction. This is not some vote on American Idol. This is a vote basically between progressive forces and a right-wing populist movement.

And that's what I think your daughter and other friends should recognize, that this is not about individuals. This is not like, well, if we don't vote, we'll just have a sort of conservative but nerdy regime. No, we're looking at someone who is actively supporting armed fascist gangs. And you can't say that both sides are doing that.

You talk about what exactly the Trump forces are doing and what they represent. And what I think your daughter and other people have to be clear is that what Trump is doing, and he did it just recently with his attack on Somali refugees, is he's making this election about race.

This is about race and it's about scaring white people. So this is no, this is not about, ah, I'll take a pass and wait for the next time. There may not be a next time.

So Sonali, I'm curious that as you jump into this, I mean, the audience you speak to is an audience of many people on the left, many revolutionaries and radicals on the left, right? You know, you mentioned there's a lot of people on the left who don't support Biden. I don't support Biden. I don't support Biden. I can't support Biden because supporting him means getting behind him. I see Biden as a means to ending Trump and Trumpism. And we really have to look at it that way. And I'm really glad Bill brought up

what Trump said about Somali refugees. If you watch the rally that he held the day after the debate on Wednesday night, when he was in his element, when he wasn't facing a moderator and somebody and Biden and an audience of mixed political persuasions,

when he was surrounded by the people that supported him, not only did he say, "Biden is going to unleash a flood of refugees into your neighborhoods." I'm an immigrant, so he's talking about people that look like me. But he took very specific aim at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Black Muslim Arab with

former refugee who represents everything that his base hates. And as they chanted, lock her up, he said, I can't believe we elected her. How did we let that happen? You know, he was essentially calling on his supporters to kill her. You cannot interpret what he was doing in any other way because his supporters are armed, they're fascistic, they are bloodthirsty. He was essentially...

saying to them, you have my permission to do her harm. And Biden, by not doing that,

is necessarily someone that we have to get into the White House to replace Trump. There is no question in my mind about this. And if there's a debate about Trump and Biden are two sides of the same coin, people have not been paying attention. They are deliberately ignoring the fact that Trump is unleashing hatred and questioning the right of people like me to exist and live in this country. And that's non-negotiable.

And Avi Chomsky, I mean I'm curious about you and your students and where the conversations take place. It was actually interesting because we had someone come into the class to talk about how important it is to register to vote and this is something the university does, it wasn't something that I did. And like I've never, well not never, rarely spent a lot of time being involved in electoral politics for exactly the reasons we're hearing people like your daughter say. But

What I said to my students after the presentation is, even though electoral politics is not where I feel my activism is best oriented, that I'd rather spend 365 days a year doing something else, voting only takes, what, five minutes, an hour? And to say that I'm not going to spend, expend even that minimal effort is,

is kind of putting yourself in a position of self-importance and personal purity, like I'm too good for this. So that's the conversation I've been having with my students that no, Biden is not a revolutionary. And as Sonali said, I don't support Biden, but I've never, except maybe voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary, voted for a candidate that I supported. But

But again, how much time and effort does it really take you to take that action? And I mean, I'm glad that there's other people engaged in other kinds of activism that aren't my favorite kind of activism. I'm glad that there's people who are engaged in, on the left, engaged in electoral politics. I'm glad there's people on the left who are

sitting in offices in Washington, D.C., doing behind the belt way logistics and negotiations. That's not my preferred avenue. It sounds like it's not your daughter's preferred avenue. But to refuse to sully yourself by voting for a candidate who you don't think is perfect, to me, just seems really self-absorbed and arrogant.

There's another part to this, Mark, that I want to just point out. See, in some sense, your daughter is right. In different elections, the last number of elections, we've been saying that there's this danger. Well, the reality is that there has been, that U.S. politics has become much more dangerous, much more polarized than

Ever since, at least ever since Reagan at the national level. And I would argue before that, at the local level, in part because of what the strategy of the so-called new right, people like Paul Weirich and others, were advancing. So we've had a polarized situation, and we've had an element of the Republican Party, the extreme right,

pushing the so-called moderates out, making the Republican Party a hard right-wing party, and flirting with fascistic elements for years.

So it has been getting worse. And part of the problem is that liberals, for example, and specifically, have ignored how bad it's getting. It's sort of like the story I always like to tell about the guy dropped off the Empire State Building. And when he went past the 40th floor, he was overheard saying, so far, so good. That's the way liberals are about politics. Until they hit the bottom, they keep saying, no, it's really not that bad. Many people have been trying to warn.

about the danger, and now it has come home. That's why there is no question, there is none about what people have to do on November 3rd. Just to quickly jump in, I mean, I know that there's a sense on the left that everything has, you know, ruined and that nothing we can do can actually make a difference. But one of the things that came out during the debate on Tuesday that I think we should be heartened by is that

racial justice and climate change were on the table. They were part of the conversation. That hasn't happened before. And even, of course, we forget about Trump. Even Biden's answer to those, especially on the racial justice front, were not good enough. The fact that they were being talked about means that we have the power to set the agenda and put Biden on notice that on day one of his presidency, he's going to be hearing from us.

So let's talk about 2 to 9 for just a minute. And I think that, you know, it was hard for any of us to watch that. And it was just really difficult. But we sat through it. And two things happened that night. And there are two clips I want to play here. One that brought up the issue of proud boys and violence and when you push the idea of systemic racism. And the other about voter intimidation. Let's play these back to back. They're not that long. Let's check them out.

I urge your supporters to stay calm during this extended period, not to engage in any civil unrest, and will you pledge tonight that you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified?

President Trump, you go first. I'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that's what has to happen. I am urging them to do it. As you know, today there was a big problem. In Philadelphia, they went in to watch. They were called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren't allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.

And I am urging -- I am urging my people. I hope it's gonna be a fair election. If it's a fair election... -You're urging them what? -...I am 100% on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can't go along with that. -You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left-wing extremist groups.

But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland? Sure, I'm willing to do that. Are you prepared to specifically do it? I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing. So what are you saying? I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace. Then do it, sir. Say it. Do it. Say it.

Do you want to call them? What do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name. White supremacists and white supremacists. Who would you like me to condemn? White supremacists and white supremacists. Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. So, you know, as we watch that, I mean, those are the two, those are the instances that gave me the most, gave me the most chills of the entire evening. So here we are facing this election in November. And you have somebody threatening to literally disrupt the election and make sure that they win on the right.

And then we don't know what's going to happen during the interregnum, which by law, there are certain steps that have to be made. We don't know where it could go. This thing could take it to the streets. Violence could hit the streets. It could be a Supreme Court handing him the keys. Trump not conceding. Nobody knows what they're doing. And let me just read this one quote and we'll just jump into this. This is something that Don Goodenplan just wrote in The Nation. And I really thought it said something here for us to think about. He wrote, does anyone really believe

that Biden has what it takes to stay in the fight and win it. Because if you do, please send me some of what you're smoking, CEO, care of the nation. Of course, we have all to vote the bastard out. But as tonight made unmistakably plain, this is just the beginning of this fight. We have to be prepared to out-organize, out-mobilize, and outlast him as well. Anybody who tells you different is fantasizing or dreaming. So if that in fact is real, what he's saying,

then what do we do after this? No matter what happens, I mean, we don't know what's gonna happen with this election. Even if Biden wins, we don't know what those next couple months are gonna mean. So how do you respond? What do you tell people about what we should do next?

Go ahead Sonali, I'll let you start. I mean, so you're asking what should we do if Biden concedes and Trump claims victory or even if Biden wins what Trump, you know, the fact that Trump still has two months left in office and may format violence? And he could say, he could say, I'm not accepting the fact that you won this election. Right. There could be

millions of people on his side in the streets and millions of people on the other side in the streets. We really don't know what is going to happen. I don't think we'll have millions of people from his side in the streets. We have thousands possibly, and they will be armed. And so, of course, they will be equivalent to many more people

just by sheer virtue of being armed. It is going to be a scary time. I think we should be preparing ourselves. I talked to my two young children. I talked to them very openly about what the dangers are that Trump represents. We talk about staying safe, especially as people of color, we need to stay safe. And we know that we're under greater risk, but we also talk about the importance of standing up for bullies, right? And that's basically what this is, is Trump being a bully. And I also want to address the fact that

Trump has not just unleashed existing underlying racism in this country. We've always had that. He's sort of woken that up. But he has whipped up more than there was. And I think it's important for us to understand he hasn't just taken advantage of existing racism. He has generated greater racism and hatred because he's very skilled at manipulating people and the propaganda he spews is very effective. And so we're going to be fighting an information war. We're going to be

possibly fighting a real war on the streets, which all our cities could be like what has been playing out in Portland and Seattle. And we do have to be prepared and it's going to be scary. And I don't really know if there's a clear path out of that

But we cannot back down. And I'm also wondering, really, if Biden's backers, especially those, all those former national security intelligence officers that signed on to back him, if they're going to accept this, frankly. I mean, George W. Bush and Colin Powell and Cindy McCain and George Conway and all these Republicans against Trump. I don't comment on me anymore, by the way. If they're going to allow it either, because I think they're sort of seeing the writing on the wall.

but what we mean by what we mean um about we we won't allow it to happen i mean how does that happen i mean i maybe i'm making too much of this but to me watching this and watching the history of this i remember from 1968 when we were voting the streets against nixon and humphrey to this moment there has never been a moment like this i have never felt viscerally this way since

Racist clan mobs attacked us in the civil rights movement in the early 60s. There's something about this moment that I think is very frightening and very real. So I'm just curious when we talk about organizing from the left, what do we do about this? How do we respond to this even if Biden wins? Avi, why don't you jump in then, Bill?

Let me say what I think we don't do. I think that we don't fall into the trap that we have to arm ourselves and that somehow by moving into a violent response, we're going to win this battle. I think that's the quickest way we're going to lose this battle, both

physically and ideologically. So in some ways, I guess I say we do what we always do. Like we have a history, it's not good enough, it's not enough, but of trying to mobilize for social change. And that I think it would be a huge mistake if we were to fall into the position like, oh, this is so bad, I'm gonna buy a gun.

Well, I'm not going to tell someone not to buy a gun, but I think that you don't need to and shouldn't be broadcasting that. This is not replicating what many of us did in the 1960s with waving guns around. I think that there's a few things, and I've been disturbed by people on the left

and progressive movement moving very slowly on this. So one thing is we need to have broad national and local coordination. So there's some efforts at the Working Families Party and Movement for Black Lives and some others have started towards a sort of united front effort. I think this is really important. It should have started in May, but it's moving forward. I think that that's good.

I that we need to outnumber the other side 10 to 1, wherever wherever they show up, there needs to be 10 times that number on our side. And by the other side, I'm including both fascists as well as DHS. Right. And we've got we've got to understand that the DHS folks may be deployed. And but they're not going to feel very good if we're outnumbered.

And that outnumbering has to be with good disciplined organization. As Machiavelli pointed out, a small discipline group can defeat a mob anytime. So we don't need mobs, we need well organized masses. So one of the things that like with various mass democratic organizations like unions is that they should be collecting volunteers.

We should make sure that people can get their vote safely to the polls or to however they're going to be voting. I think we also have to have a plan, depending on the scenario, to shut the country down if Trump decides, if Trump loses and decides not to leave.

And I think that the historical lesson is found in the cat-punch of 1920, when the German right attempted a coup. And basically the working class said no, and they shut it down and the and the putsch fell apart. The French right in 1961 carried out a coup after they called it the mutiny against de Gaulle. Again, the working class and other sectors said, "Not gonna happen." And the thing fell apart within four days.

So there's that. Now, the police and the military are very interesting questions. I suspect the military is going to be split. I think the indications we have is that the top brass do not want to follow Trump over the edge. And I think that they're probably being very influenced by hearing people like Colin Powell and others saying, watch it, buddy.

Now, with police, it's more complicated because of a higher level of infiltration by the right and the sort of roguish nature of many of the local police departments. So we don't know what's going to happen. So that's why organization on our part, as well as messaging, and the messaging includes not just social messaging, but we've got to put pressure on the mainstream news outlets

that they don't start conceding. I remember in 2000 watching, I think it was the Today Show, and Katie Couric was essentially livid that Al Gore was not prepared to concede and was sort of like, let's get this all over with and get back to normality. And we've got to make sure we do not have mainstream commentators doing anything that approaches that. Around this, Halligan, coming back to the document that you all signed,

employ people to realize what we're facing here in terms of this potential real fascistic world that we're seeing and rising and what the consequences could be. I'm going to come back to where you just left off and pick up what really does happen after all of this. I mean, if you, it is real. I mean, I have a little personal anecdote. I mean, I have a grandson in the army. He says soldiers are really split around this issue that he's in the army with.

And I know the fact about the police. And so this is, these are, we talk about arms, these are armed groups that can really confront us in the streets if we're in the streets saying no. And I think we are at a real precipice in this country. There is no real cohesive left movement that's unified, whether it's from the unions or parties of old, they don't exist. We don't exist in that kind of unified power.

So the question is, what does happen next? I mean, how do you, this would be a broad piece between centrist liberals like Biden all the way over to folks who have been battling for a more racially, economically and socially just society, period. And so I'm curious, as you saw this document, talk to people about where we go next. What does this fight take us? It's not gonna end with Biden, which is why you say, dump Trump, beat Trump, battle Biden.

I completely agree with what I've just heard being said by all of you about the kind of existential threats that we're being faced with by Trump. But that's not the only...

existential threat we're being faced with right now either. That is, we're looking at climate change and even bigger than climate change at what some analysts are calling planetary boundaries. That is, it's not even just climate change, it's more than climate change where we are very rapidly exceeding the limits of the planet to sustain life.

We're facing crises of inequality. We're facing crises of U.S. foreign policy, war. We're facing crises of hunger, coronavirus. I mean, so...

I mean, another danger that I see facing us on the left ahead is kind of what happens in every election. Like we mobilize around the lesser of two evils. And then when they win, it's like, ah, they won. We're done. So, I mean, I think that was also a big part of what we were trying to say with this letter is that the only thing that's going to make Biden better than Trump in the long run is

is us staying mobilized. And Sonali was saying that, yes, some of these issues at least came up in the debate while Biden didn't give very good answers. Again, I mean, there are so many forces against us, but if we are able to achieve the kind of organization that Bill is talking about, we also have to keep that after Biden is in power and not just say, okay, now we did it, we're done.

I feel like it's also important for journalists like myself and activists to make clear that

Biden winning and Trump losing the election doesn't mean Trumpism goes away. The entire infrastructure, you know, the Republican Party, who everyone who claims allegiance to Trump is tainted. And we need to make it very, very clear. And I think this is very important for the long term fight against fascism.

We don't defeat fascism by just defeating Trump. He has unleashed something so dangerous that we need a long-term vision to battle Trumpism. And every Trump loyalist, everybody who has enabled him from the governors of, you know, Republican governors of the state to senators who have, um,

given him a pass on the white supremacist dog whistles or enabled it, they need to be called, the Republican Party needs to be relabeled the party of Trump and the word Trump needs to be made such a dirty word that it no longer holds any sway. And like, we just will not tolerate it anymore. And I feel like that's important for us to draw that line in the sand because, you know, I feel like

what Biden is promising and not promising, these are good problems to have and we don't have those problems yet. In January, we may luxuriate in the knowledge that we get to push Biden to the left, but we also have to be on notice that Trumpism doesn't end when Trump leaves the White House. And that movement he has unleashed

is very scary and they need to be pushed back into the shadows. Their views need to be made deeply unpopular and unacceptable. And, you know, we cannot allow it to be tolerated anymore. You know, if you, if you wear Proud Boys insignia or Boogaloo Boys or anything, you should lose your job. You should be excoriated from society. You should become a persona non grata. Any

you wear a MAGA hat in public, you should be spat upon, maybe not literally, but so it should. And I think that's so important because I feel like the left isn't getting this.

You know, it's scary. I'm up at night worrying about it, about the future for my children. You know, not just climate change problems, but the fact that there are crazy right-wingers with guns who could just confront us. I was going to say, when you think about what some of the roots of this are, people

People say it's a failure of democracy. I say it's a failure of capitalism to answer the questions that people want to have answered. It's a failure to deal with the crises in people's personal lives. It gives rise to both the left, but also gives rise to racist right-wing movements who are also frustrated in profound and racist ways. And we'll go back to this again. I mean, if we're seeing this major divide, and it's all because of that failure,

no matter how it comes out in January, those groups are armed, those groups are dangerous, and those groups are very real. And they're not backing away. Well, see, I sort of disagree with something you raised, Sonali, earlier. I look at the moment we're in, and I've said this before, as equivalent to the picture of Dorian Gray, and that what Trump has done has been to pull the picture of Dorian Gray out of the closet

And now we all see it. And this is a picture that started being painted in 1607. And it is one hell of an ugly picture. But over time, we've mythologized this and at different points, we have thought that we got over the initial illness. But we didn't. And the picture has gotten uglier and uglier.

And what has happened at different points is that liberals particularly, but also conservatives, have tried to deny that this picture is still in the closet. And it has suggested that we have overcome these things. We haven't. Trump opened the closet door and said with pride, look at the damn picture. That's us. That's what we're grappling with, Mark, which is one of the reasons that the battle over history becomes very important.

What Trump is trying to do with suppressing racial justice education by attacking the 1619 Project, by attacking critical race theory. I welcome that. Let's bring this damn thing out and into the open and fight it out. That's part of what we're grappling with. And so it's, yeah, I mean, this is going to take a long time to go away, which leads to my final point.

A few years ago, I was in Italy, and I met with this organization of veterans of the partisan wars against the fascists during World War II. And the staff person, the director said, in Italy, we made a very big mistake. In 1947, there was a blanket amnesty for the fascists. They basically said, we're going to bring the country back together. And it's like all amnesty.

And this basically laid the foundation for all these creatures to reemerge, rename their organizations, and effectively rebuild a fascist movement in Italy. We've got to understand that what we're going through and what will happen when we succeed cannot be dealt with by some damn Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We have to smash the right wing.

Nonviolently. I agree with you on that last point, Bill, but I think what you were taking issue with what I said earlier was that there's always the Trump just revealed the racism. I think he revealed it, but he lit a fire under it. I believe that there are people who had come to accept anti-racism as a good thing who have now been convinced it is not.

And I think that that's the danger of Trump because demagogues and authoritarian demagogues have a very, especially charismatic manipulative ones, have a very, very, you know, have tremendous power, that cult of personality. And we've seen this in other countries who can whip up realities for people that they didn't, you know, really accept before or create realities for them that aren't there. And they,

you know, he has generated greater hatred in this country than even the hatred that we have already been living with. And we saw so much of it under Obama. We saw it before Obama. We saw it more of it after Obama in response to Obama. And it came to a head with Trump and Trump's election in the last four years. It's gotten worse and worse and worse. And they're getting bolder and bolder and bolder with their racism. I think that's my opinion.

I think that deep depth of racism has always been here. And I think it's really deep and it's not, and people don't realize how deep it is embedded in the consciousness of people in this world and the nation because of Dorian Gray in 1607. And what that means. Let me close with this, since we talk about history. If we are in a moment that I always put as akin to 1876 and '77, when they killed

and the experiment in real democracy in the South and the battle took place around that after the Civil War.

that led to 90 years of abject terror against the Black world, that led to the incarceration of Native Americans on reservations, that was where the major efforts were killed to kill the nascent growing labor movement. All that kind of erupted and was allowed to happen because of what happened in 1877. If we look at 1932, you talked about, when we talked about Germany a moment ago, Bill Fletcher, I mean, it's, for me, that moment was also about how the broad spectrum of people who despise the Nazi movement could not come together

in a unified form to say no. So if we in some senses are facing a 21st century version of those of the 19th century and 20th century examples I gave, then we really have to step back and think about how deep, how dangerous it is we're facing and how we come together and what we do. And we know Biden's not going to be up to the task, as you said in your document. He's not up to the task to do it. So it's up to us to do it.

So let's leave with that historical analogy and talk about, again, pushing a little further and harder about when there is no mass organization to stand up to that. Where do you think the fight either to push Biden or stop Biden or not allow the right wing forces to take hold in the streets goes? But I don't think that you're, I don't think the premise is correct that there's no organization. I think that there are plenty of organizations. The question is whether they will coordinate.

and whether they will elaborate a strategy and tactics that is relevant to this particular moment. There are unions, there are environmental justice groups, there are immigrant rights groups, there are a lot of groups that are out there. But we've got to understand the urgency of this moment.

and not assume that this is somehow going to be resolved without the direct intervention of millions of people. So that's the thing. I would say to everyone that is a member of an organization, like if you're a member of a union, you need to get your damn union involved in this.

This is not about just sitting back and saying, well, our union only deals with wages, hours of working. If you're involved in environmental justice movement, you got to get that organization engaged in this. And in the next several weeks, it's registering people, making sure that people are protected and outnumbering the right 10 to one every time those folks show up. It's doable.

I agree with your optimism, by the way. I think it is doable. I think also, you know, it means that people have to, when this election takes place and they bring their poll watchers in, we have to have people to protect the voters and stop them from doing it. It cannot just be allowed to happen. So there's a joke in Latin America. Why has there never been a coup in the United States? Because there's no U.S. embassy there.

So, I mean, Latin Americans have a long history of mobilizing against coups and they often lose. And the main reason they often lose is because the United States intervenes. So just to add to your optimism, there's no United States out there waiting to crush us if we do turn out in the streets like Bill suggested.

Samali? You know, I agree with what Bill said, needing there to be a mass mobilization. And I actually think a lot of it is happening. I mean, there have been already more than a million votes cast in the election, which is really heartening. And Democrats are, people who identify as Democrats are

They're sending in their votes by mail in much larger numbers than Republicans, which is freaking out the Republicans. One of the things that I know people have worried about is that Biden doesn't have a door-to-door operation, but the Trump people do. So they're apparently registering new voters.

not sure how much of an effect that's gonna have. But yeah, there was only one way to beat the close votes in the swing states and the misinformation that Trump is gonna be spewing, which is just vastly outnumbered. I mean, we are many and they are few.

We were many compared to their few in 2016 when so many millions of Americans who were left but didn't like Hillary Clinton didn't vote for her and she still got 3 million more votes than Trump. And this time around, I think I really, really

I mean, I'm worried about being optimistic because we can't rest easy. But so far, there are some signs that we're going in the right direction, but we cannot rest. We can't rest on our laurels. And there are, you know, there are big sort of mainstream-ish, left-ish groups like MoveOn and Indivisible that are mobilizing, that are organizing, they're calling upon, they have plans in place for what to do on election day or beyond if Trump doesn't concede. And, you know, people should get involved. They should absolutely get involved.

even if they're a Biden-loving Democrat. And on that, I think we should be engaging the Biden-loving Democrats to be in this together and say, I disagree with you on Biden and we'll start arguing on January 22nd, 2021. Right now, let's be on the same team.

If Facebook and those places are any example, I think that you're seeing people from the people who love Biden to those who say no to Biden, but we're going to stop these fascists are kind of in a broad spectrum coming together. I think that's where our hope lives.

And I guess we'll leave it here that leave it there for today. This has been a great conversation. I appreciate all the work the three of you do in terms of fighting for a democratic world and the stuff you do in all your worlds. And appreciate you taking time here. The Real News, Bill Fletcher. It's always good to have you with this. And so I called the car to have you back. And once you get back more and I'll be times he always good to see you as well. So please keep up the work and we'll see where we go.

Thanks. Thank you very much. And we'll be linking to that document, "Beat Trump, Then Battle Biden," so you all can look at it yourselves and give us your ideas and thoughts about where you think we should be going. And we'll be covering this election, running up to it. So next week, we will have -- I want you to be ready for next week, when next week we have the hosts of the Police Accountability Report coming up to talk about their perspectives

in that regard when it comes to the election and where that could take us. Taya Graham and Steve will both be joining us then. So please do that. And I'm Mark Steiner here with producer Erica Blaum for The Real News Network saying thank you so much for watching. And it might seem weird, but it's not weird. Vote and push them back. Take care. Hello, everyone. This is Mark Steiner, contributing editor here at The Real News and host of The Mark Steiner Show that will soon be coming back to The Real News.

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