Since the early morning hours of November 9, 2016, millions of people have been waiting for this moment: The one where we start our official path to voting Donald Trump out of office on November 3, 2020. Beginning with the Iowa caucuses this week, the real countdown begins.

The Democratic primary has turned into a referendum on who can complete the task of ousting Trump in November by as big of an Electoral College margin as possible. Don’t get me wrong: Voting Trump out is a noble and critical goal for safeguarding our country.

The problem, however, is that no one seems to be thinking beyond that.

If (and I hope, when) Trump peaces out in January 2021, his successor is going to take on the job of digging through the rubble of our democracy, figuring out how to piece everything back together, and then troubleshooting how to make progress happen on top of that. It’s an incredibly tall order.

Where does one even begin to describe the massive repercussions of Trump’s presidency? We’ve damaged our relationships with countries from Mexico to China, and generally come off like jerks to the rest of the international community. We’ll be stuck with a judiciary branch comprised of hyper-partisan and wildly underqualified judges at all levels, some of whom were granted lifetime appointments. A never-ending stream of platforms and websites are recklessly pushing misinformation. The number of newsroom jobs is falling precipitously, while Trump has helped erode public trust in the media. We’ve got potential cuts to funding for social safety net programs including Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Corporations and billionaires are sitting pretty with their tax cuts. And, to top it all off, the climate crisis has been allowed to accelerate unchecked, thanks to the stewardship of Trump’s environmental agency leaders — many of whom used to work for fossil fuel companies and don’t believe in the consensus on climate science.

“Mess” doesn’t begin to cover the flaming eruption of dumpster sludge we’re all swimming up against. And I hate to break it to everyone, but our country won’t suddenly revert back to its pre-2016 glory — which wasn’t all that great for many Americans to begin with — just because the votes swing in the Democrats’ favor.

My point is not that we shouldn’t think about which presidential candidates have a strong chance of beating Trump; people have debated the merits of the current Democratic slate for literally years now. And if Trump wins reelection in November, it’ll likely only embolden him in his second term, as we’ve seen from autocratic leaders around the globe throughout history.

But another question to ask simultaneously is who’s going to make sure we don’t find ourselves in this mess ever again? Which candidate is going to codify institutional norms that were able to fall by the wayside as soon as Trump, his cabinet cronies, and the GOP at large no longer felt like following them? And who’s going to work on not only reinstating a more secure democracy but also moving us forward?

We also need to think beyond the presidency. There are over half a million elected seats in the United States; the presidency is only one. It’s a powerful position, but if we’ve learned anything since the Obama era, it’s that a president can only do so much if that person doesn’t have help. November 2020 can’t just be about voting out Trump. It has to be about a movement to elect officials down the ballot who will get us out of this quicksand and onto firmer ground.

And if we do succeed in November, how will we keep the public interested in continuing to stand up to injustice? What will happen to all the resistance groups, the rallies and marches, and the righteous anger? Who’s going to stick around to fight for this country? We know now that we can’t just wait for elected officials to do it. If we’re not all thinking about what our roles will be in a post-Trump world, we’re already behind.

The repercussions of the Trump administration, no matter how long it lasts, will reverberate for generations to come. It’s not about just getting him out of office. It’s about coming up with a game plan now. It’s about making a commitment to continue the work we’ve started. And it’s about beating Trump’s legacy to a pulp.

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