With the election of Donald Trump, the US has lurched towards political and social turmoil, an era where democracy is under attack.  Progressives have a moral obligation to resist autocracy and injustice.  Here are eight steps for building an effective resistance to Trump.

1. Be kind to yourself:  Right now, I’m upset and angry.  What I’ve learned from my experience as an activist is that before I take action I must be centered.  I need to calm myself.  Breathe.

In my experience as an activist, I am most effective when I am physically healthy.  And, I need to be psychologically healthy by following my spiritual practice, which includes meditation and time in nature.

2. Take care of your family, friends, and community.  Building the resistance begins at home.  Most members of my family are terrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency.  Treat your family with kindness and offer comfort.  Extend that circle of love and support to your friends and community.

The Trump era has opened with bullying and bigotry.  Progressives must stand up for all Americans.  We must oppose bullying and bigotry and widen our circle of love and support to those who are victimized by Trump and his supporters.

3. Cultivate Compassion:  The struggle begins immediately but the resistance will last four years.  We must reach out to our adversaries with compassion.

At the heart of my nonviolent tradition is the maxim: “There is that of God in every person.”  This teaches that when we engage others we first seek out their humanity.

In the present moment we have three sets of adversaries.  The first consists of those progressives who, in the 2016 election, didn’t vote the way we did: perhaps they voted for Jill Stein, or wrote-in Bernie Sanders, or didn’t vote at all.  We need to reach out with compassion to our fellow progressives and, without rancor, ask them to join us in the resistance to the Trump regime.

The second set of adversaries consists of those who voted for Trump because of economic worries.  They share many of our progressive values, and our concerns about Trump, but on November 8th they set these aside and voted for Trump because they believed he was going to “fix” the economy.  We need to reach out with compassion to our fellow populists and , without rancor or judgement, ask them to join us in the resistance.

The third set of adversaries consists of those who voted for Trump for other reasons.  Some were motivated by bias, fearful of “the other.”  Some were motivated by their religious beliefs and saw Trump as “the chosen one.”  Regardless of why these Americans voted for Trump, we need to reach out to them with compassion and listen to what they have to say.

4. Focus: At the moment, there is so much to do, the darkness is so pervasive, that progressives will feel pulled in multiple directions.  It’s vitally important for each of us to focus our energy and begin with simple direction action.  (In India, Gandhi’s resistance to British rule began with a salt boycott.  In Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr’s resistance to segregation began with a bus boycott.)

5. Begin with small steps:  There are three simple actions that all of us can do now.  Actions that take little energy, but help to focus our attention, and build the resistance.

5a. Contribute to the National Popular Vote Initiative (http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/).  This grassroots movement seeks to have the next President determined by the popular vote rather than the electoral college.  It has bipartisan support and should succeed in the next couple of years.

5b. Demand that the national Democratic leadership represent all the Party not just Washington insiders.  It’s a difficult truth that Hillary Clinton would be President if she had had rock-solid Democratic support. (According to the New York Times exit polls, Trump held 90 percent of Republicans while Clinton held only 89 percent of Democrats.)  Clinton lost because some progressives saw her, and the national Democratic leadership, as not representing our values.

5c. Contribute to Planned Parenthood (https://www.plannedparenthood.org/).  So many progressive organizations need our support that it’s hazardous to select one.  However, Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides vital women’s health services, has come under unprecedented attack and will likely lose all federal funding.

6. Join with others.  Developing a broad, mindful resistance movement is an exercise in community building.  Start locally but move outside your circle of comfort to enroll allies.

7. Literally, stand up for democracy.  It’s not enough to tweet or email or share a Facebook post.  The resistance is about meeting face-to-face with our allies and (eventually) our adversaries.  Go to a meeting, rally, or march.

8. Remember the midterm election campaign begins May 1st.  Conveniently, Trump’s first 100 days in office will conclude on May 1st, International Worker’s Day.  That’s when progressives should begin the political process of regaining control of Congress.

The resistance begins today.

At this writing, Hillary Clinton has won the 2016 presidential popular vote by 1.7 million votes (1.3 percent).  Unfortunately, she lost the electoral college (232 to 290) because Donald Trump carried the 13 swing states by an aggregate 850,000 votes (1.9 percent). Many Democrats think Hillary was cheated; they believe there were nefarious political tricks that cost her the election.  There’s not a clear-cut case.

1. Comey’s intervention.  The Clinton campaign blames her loss on the October 28th intervention by FBI Director James Comey who, in effect, reopened the issue of the Clinton email server.  Certainly this was an unprecedented act; one that some Washington observers felt violated the Hatch Act.  Coming out of a strong performance in the third presidential debate, Hillary had momentum; some saw her winning by double digits.

Then the Comey memo was issued and the momentum shifted.  Writing in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/15/pollsters-fail-predict-trump-victory-fbi-clinton?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1) veteran pollster Stan Greenberg observed, “The [Clinton] campaign’s close was disrupted by a flood of hacked emails, whose release was linked to Russia, intended to show that friends of Bill Clinton were using the Clinton Foundation to enrich the former president, and then by FBI director James Comey’s letter to Congress… This allowed Trump to close his campaign with a call to ‘drain the swamp’ and reject ‘the Clintons’ big business trade deals that decimated so many communities’.”

Did this shift in momentum cost Clinton the electoral college?  Writing in Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/why-did-trump-win-roundup-most-popular-theories) Kevin Drum opined, “My guess is that his last minute intervention swayed the vote by about 2 percent.” (The 538 website agreed.)

Writing in the Washington Post, Aason Blake (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/how-america-decided-at-the-very-last-moment-to-elect-donald-trump/) observed that last-deciding voters broke strongly for Trump: “In Florida and Pennsylvania, late-deciders favored Trump by 17 points. In Michigan, they went for Trump by 11 points. In Wisconsin, they broke for Trump by a whopping 29 points, 59-30.”

By the way: Hillary’s emails were a big deal to many voters.  Writing in the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/10/the-13-most-amazing-things-in-the-2016-exit-poll/) noted: “Almost two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) said that Clinton’s ‘use of private email’ bothered them ‘a lot’ or ‘some.’ Among that group, Trump won 70 percent to 24 percent.”

2. Clinton’s Response: Pollster Stan Greenberg argues that, after the Comey memo, the Clinton had time to fight back but didn’t do so effectively: “[The Clinton campaign] used its advertising muscle to shift the spotlight from Clinton to Trump. Its ads running right through the very last weekend showed Trump at his worst. By then, nobody could remember that Hillary Clinton was a candidate with bold economic plans who demanded that government should work for working people and the middle class, not corporations. She was no longer a candidate of change.”

Writing in The Nation, Joan Walsh (https://www.thenation.com/article/did-race-or-class-doom-hillary-clinton/) cites Stan Greenberg’s study, “ The Clinton campaign stopped making a strong case for her populist economic policies in the closing weeks of the campaign, research by Greenberg’s Democracy Corps found. A poll of 1,300 voters—including 400 who are considered part of the rising American electorate of black, Latino, and other nonwhite voters plus unmarried white women (also known as the Obama coalition)—found they never heard her strongest economic pitches throughout the long campaign.”

3. Disgruntled Bernie voters: Perhaps it is the case that Clinton lost key swing states because of disgruntled Bernie Sanders voters.  In Pennsylvania, Clinton lost by 68.000 votes while Gary Johnson and Jill Stein got 190,000 votes.  In Wisconsin, Clinton lost by 27,000 votes while Gary Johnson and Jill Stein got 136,000 votes.  In Michigan, Clinton lost by 11,000 votes while Gary Johnson and Jill Stein got 223,000 votes.

There are not definitive studies in Michigan and Wisconsin, however in Pennsylvania the prestigious Brookings institute (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/11/11/why-hillary-clinton-lost-pennsylvania-the-real-story/) felt there was a clear reason for Clinton’s loss: “Although Clinton’s statewide total in Pennsylvania fell just short of Obama’s in 2012, this modest shortfall was not why she lost the state.  The real story is that Donald Trump ran up the score in every Republican-leaning rural and small-town county, besting Mitt Romney’s statewide total by nearly 300 thousand votes.”

4. Stolen votes: Rumors persist that Hillary’s stunning losses in supposedly solid swing states was due to various forms of voter suppression.  Writing in Alternet, Steven Rosenfeld (http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/fair-election-serious-hard-explain-questions-arise-about-trump-vote-totals-3-key) examined five states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin there are questions about results in areas that use electronic voting machines that provide no paper trail.  In Michigan, there will be a recount due to the fact that “87,000 ballots did not show a presidential vote,” a result that could indicate faulty optical scanners.

Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by a total of 106,000 votes. An excellent analysis by German Lopez (http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/11/13597452/voter-suppression-clinton-trump-2016) concludes that voter suppression does not explain Clinton’s loss in Michigan and Pennsylvania: “In Pennsylvania, Clinton got 2 percent fewer votes than Obama did in 2012, while Trump got 11 percent more than Mitt Romney. In Michigan, Clinton got 11 percent fewer votes than Obama did in 2012, while Trump got 8 percent more than Mitt Romney. Clinton simply got fewer people to turn out for her than the last Democrat who ran, while Trump appeared to get more than the previous Republican.”

Conclusion: On October 27th, Hillary Clinton was ahead in the polls but a significant number of voters did not trust her because of her email problem.  FBI Director Comey’s October 28th memo reminded these voters of their concerns about Hillary and they began to move towards Trump.  In the remaining 10 days, Clinton had an opportunity to blunt Trump’s new momentum — with an economic message — but failed to do this.  As a consequence, late-deciding voters went with Trump, seeing him as an agent of change, even though they didn’t like him.

Given his electoral-college victory, Donald Trump has amassed short-term political capital.  How he spends it will determine his success.  Early indications are that he will fritter it away.

Beginning January 20, 1917, Americans should expect an ultra-conservative government accentuated by Trump’s impetuousness and irascibility.  We can count on the Trump Administration to overreach.  That’s why Trump will misuse his political capital.

Trump was elected because his supporters believed he would shakeup the economic order.  Before the election, Democratic pollster Pat Caddell’ survey of likely voters (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/07/patrick-caddell-real-election-surprise-uprising-american-people.html#) found 87 percent of respondents believed, “The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists and other powerful money interests for their own gain at the expense of the American people.”  The New York Times exit poll indicated that of those voters whose most important candidate quality was “can bring needed change,” 83 percent chose Trump.

Jobs:  Trump should use his political capital for a massive job-creation initiative.

Trump won the election because his supporters believed that an outsider could shake up the status quo and bring some new measure of economic prosperity to America’s have-nots.  In his election night speech, Trump said: “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals.  We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none.  And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”

What Trump is suggesting seems to be the same program that President Obama suggested after the initial recovery from the great recession; at that time it was blocked by congressional Republicans.  Obama wanted a massive infrastructure-based jobs program financed by taxing corporations and the wealthy.  Republicans didn’t want new taxes, and they couldn’t abide deficit financing for jobs, so they squashed Obama’s program.

Now Trump is proposing a similar infrastructure-based jobs program but with a different method of financing: “The American Infrastructure Act leverages public-private partnerships and private investments through tax incentives to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next ten years.”  For example, in Trump’s plan, America would finance new highways by giving construction companies tax incentives up front and, after the highway was completed, letting the builder charge tolls.

It’s difficult to see how Trump’s approach will jumpstart job creation or how it will rebuild America’s diverse infrastructure. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that Trump will get the support of establishment Republicans. (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/trumps-infrastructure-challenge-to-republicans/507656/)

If Trump really is a transformational President — if he really is serious about changing a rigged system — then he will use his political capital to push through a real infrastructure program.  For an early reading of Trump’s intention, watch what happens when the Indianapolis Carrier factory closes [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/business/economy/can-trump-save-their-jobs-theyre-counting-on-it.html].  (For comparison six months into the Trump Administration: as. of 11/8/16, the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, the number of manufacturing jobs was 12.2 million, and quarterly GDP growth was 2.9 percent.)

Immigration: Rather than focus on jobs, Trump will likely settle for some sort of immigration initiative.

During his campaign, Trump made three immigration-related promises:  build “a wall” along the US Mexico border, deport all of America’s undocumented immigrants, and block immigration of all Muslims.  Early indications are that Trump has softened his position on each of these.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/us/politics/donald-trump-twitter-white-house.html?partner=rss&emc=rss)

Initially Trump said his wall would be 1000 miles long, rise 35-40 feet, and cost $8 billion.  The Washington Post studied Trump’s wall design and estimated that it would cost $25 billion for design and material; in addition, the construction would require “40,000 workers per year for at least four years.”  (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/11/trumps-dubious-claim-that-his-border-wall-would-cost-8-billion/)

Trump has backed off his demand that Mexico pay for the wall which leaves its funding an open question.  One way to finance the wall would be to hide it in the Department of Homeland Security budget  — estimated at more than $40 billion in FY 2017.  If packaged in this fashion, the Trump Administration could try to sell the wall as a “twofer,” a combination security measure and jobs initiative — even though the construction jobs would not help workers in the rust-belt states.

Trump has also softened his position on deporting illegal immigrants.  Pew Research says there are actually 11.3 million illegal immigrants (who comprise about 5.1 percent of the US labor force) (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/19/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/.)  The Atlantic estimates it would cost $140 billion to deport them – with additional billions in economic consequences [http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/how-much-trumps-immigration-plan-would-cost-the-us/445830/].

Now Trump says he would initially deport “two million to three million immigrants” he sees as criminals or “dangerous.”  Fact checkers say there are only “820,000 undocumented immigrants living in the US with a criminal record.” (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38362-trump-puts-3-million-on-notice-for-deportation)

Finally, in December Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Once again his position has evolved and now Trump calls for banning immigrants from “terrorist countries.”

It’s clear that Trump could ban immigrants from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria without much congressional opposition.

Trade: Rather than focus on jobs or immigration, Trump might take the easy way out and focus his political capital on trade,

During his campaign Trump railed against trade deals such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and NAFTA.  While the TPP is already dead — it can’t get the necessary congressional votes, NAFTA continues.  Trump could kill it without getting congressional approval (http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/15/news/economy/trump-nafta/) by invoking article 2205 on day one — US withdrawal would happen six months later.  It’s unclear what the impact would be.

Prediction: Trump’s presidency will be defined by his first 100 days in office.  Rather than govern as an outsider, and enact a radical populist initiative, such as an infrastructure-based job program, Trump will succumb to the Republican establishment and settle for xenophobic immigration programs.  It will be his first big mistake and one that is likely to scuttle Republican prospects ins 2018.

It’s essential that progressives learn from Hillary Clinton’s devastating defeat.  There are two competing theories about what happened: Hillary’s campaign blew it or she was cheated.

1) The Clinton Campaign screwed up.  The strongest argument is:  2016 was a change election and Clinton’s campaign didn’t take that seriously.  During the Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders tried to warn the Democratic Party about the economic frustration of working families but somehow the Clinton campaign didn’t get this message.

In his pre-election survey of likely voters, (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/07/patrick-caddell-real-election-surprise-uprising-american-people.html#) Democratic pollster Pat Caddell found that two-thirds of respondents agreed, “The real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but between mainstream American and the ruling political elites.”  81 percent of respondents said, “The U.S. has a two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day, where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the rewards. We need fundamental changes to fix the inequity in our economic system.” [Emphasis added]

Hillary understood the “two-track economy” problem but her message was not clear.  At the time, “Stronger Together” seemed okay as a slogan but it indicated that Clinton gave as much attention to bigotry as she did economic fairness.  While bigotry is a huge problem, in this election economic fairness was by far the dominant issue.  Thus, Trump’s slogan, “Make America great again,” was more effective.

Late in the election cycle, when it became clear to the Clinton campaign that they might lose Michigan, they began running TV ads there.  However, the Clinton ads attacked Trump; none featured Hillary’s economic message.

The New York Times exit poll indicated that of those voters whose most important candidate quality was “can bring needed change,” 83 percent chose Trump.  (Clinton prevailed on all the other qualities: “cares about people like me,” “has the right experience,” and “has good judgment.”)  Change voters voted for Trump even though they had an unfavorable opinion of him.

Hillary wasn’t the right Democratic candidate for a change election.  Pat Caddell’s survey found 87 percent of respondents believed, “The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists and other powerful money interests for their own gain at the expense of the American people.”  Clinton was viewed as an insider and Trump as an outsider, theoretically an agent of change.

Bernie Sanders would have been a better Democratic candidate because he was seen as an outsider and someone who understood, “the system is rigged.”

In July, Michael Moore wrote “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win” (http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/) and he was right on target.  First he predicted that Trump would focus on, and ultimately carry, four previously blue states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  States filled with angry voters who feel, “abandoned by Democrats.” Second, he predicted the election would be “the last stand of the angry white man.”  (Trump won white men by a wide margin and Clinton did not get the female voter surge that she expected.) Third, Moore predicted a problem because of Hillary’s unpopularity which resulted in a lack of Democratic voter enthusiasm.  Fourth, Moore thought that Sanders’ voters would ultimately vote for Hillary but unethusiastically, leading to a depressed turnout.  Finally, Moore predicted “the Jesse Ventura effect” where some voters would vote to blow up the system.  (On November 8th they voted for Trump because they believed he was a change agent even though they didn’t like him.)

2).Hillary was cheated: She won the popular vote and barely lost the electoral vote.  

The Clinton campaign blames her loss on the October 28th intervention by FBI Director James Comey who, in effect, reopened the issue of the Clinton email server.  Certainly this was an unprecedented act; one that some Washington observers felt violated the Hatch Act.  But to blame Hillary’s loss on this ignores the fact that, even before Comey’s intervention, Hillary had a 53 percent unfavorability rating.

Clinton didn’t hold the “Obama coalition.” (She received 5 million fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.)  Hillary underperformed among young people, African-Americans, Asians, and Latinos.  She also slightly underperformed Obama’s numbers among Democrats and Independents.  (Trump held 90 percent of Republicans while Clinton held 89 percent of Democrats.)

Hillary was suppose to overperform Obama among female voters but that didn’t happen — she only attracted 1 point more women (and lost 5 percent of males).  According to the Cook Report, Clinton didn’t do as strongly among suburban Republicans and college-educated white women as her campaign had expected.

Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by a total of 107,000 votes.  Some Hillary supporters feel these votes were stolen.  However, an excellent analysis by German Lopez (http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/11/13597452/voter-suppression-clinton-trump-2016) concludes that voter suppression does not explain Clinton’s loss in Michigan and Pennsylvania: “In Pennsylvania, Clinton got 2 percent fewer votes than Obama did in 2012, while Trump got 11 percent more than Mitt Romney. In Michigan, Clinton got 11 percent fewer votes than Obama did in 2012, while Trump got 8 percent more than Mitt Romney. Clinton simply got fewer people to turn out for her than the last Democrat who ran, while Trump appeared to get more than the previous Republican.”

Bottom line: This is such a devastating defeat that it’s comforting to imagine that Hillary Clinton was cheated by Donald Trump.  But that’s not what happened: Hillary lost because she ran a losing campaign.

In 1992, the in-house motto of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign was, “It’s the economy stupid.”  Hillary was there but, for whatever reason, she didn’t use this motto in 2016: she didn’t make economic fairness her cornerstone issue and it cost her.

“It’s alive! It’s alive!”

Republicans have created a monster and on November 8th he was unleashed on the entire nation.  What are progressives going to do about this?

Take to the barricades: We should resolve to fight the expected onslaught on democracy in whatever way we can. Better to fight fascism inch-by-inch, day-by-day than let it slowly devour our democracy. Remember, Clinton won the popular vote: 59,794,935 to 59,588,437.

Figure out what went wrong:  Before we get back in the ring, Progressives have to understand what unleashed Trumpenstein.  Trump won because there were a bunch of angry white men who voted for him to shake up Washington.  Clinton was seen as more-of-the-same.  (Before the election we expected Clinton to win because the pollsters didn’t accurately gauge the power of the white anger.)

This truly was a “change” election.  Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had warned us that a great many Americans see the system as “rigged.” Trump picked up this message.

Exit polls will show that this election was primarily about economics although sexism and racism played a part.  Trump convinced more working Americans that he was fighting for them.  He had a compelling message, “Make America Great Again.”

Trump voters gave him their votes even though they didn’t like him, because they wanted to shake up Washington.  (They didn’t like Clinton either but given the choice between two unpopular candidates, many voters — particularly men — chose the male candidate).

Hillary was seen as an insider; Trump was seen as an outsider:  Democratic pollster Pat Caddell noted that in his survey of likely voters (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/07/patrick-caddell-real-election-surprise-uprising-american-people.html#) two-thirds of respondents agreed, “The real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but between mainstream American and the ruling political elites.”  81 percent of respondents said, “The U.S. has a two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day, where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the rewards. We need fundamental changes to fix the inequity in our economic system.”  And 87 percent agreed, “The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists and other powerful money interests for their own gain at the expense of the American people.”

Trump painted Hillary as a member of the ruler power elite; someone who is a career politician and, therefore, not able to fix the “two-track economy.”

When Barack Obama first ran for President — relatively new to Washington — he was seen as an outsider.  For those of us on the left, Trump was seen as a loose cannon but for millions of voters he was seen as an outsider — someone not part of the ruling political elite.

Trump built a coalition of populists, racists, and “Supreme Court” voters:  Pat Caddell observed, “The American people believe that the country is not only on the wrong track but almost 70 percent say that America is in actual decline.”  Populists want to break up the” two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day, where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the rewards.”  Progressives need to take back the populist mantle from Trumpenstein — which shouldn’t be difficult once Trump arrives in Washington.

Trump also appealed to the “alt-right” a loose coalition of racists, sexists, homophobes and xenophobes.  In Washington, he’ll be encumbered by these connections.

Finally, there was a segment of Trump’s vote who were anti-abortion voters, “hold your nose and vote for Donald in order to save the Supreme Court.”  One of the continuing challenges for progressives is to move these one-issue voters.

There is no time for fear; this is the time to fight:  When we were in Nevada getting out the vote for Democrats, we had dinner with fellow activists who asked, “Where are all the others who are worried sick about the election?’  Each of us knew Democrats who had the wherewithal to go to Nevada or other swing states but because they were immobilized by fear, remained California.

Democracy is at risk.  We must overcome our fear.  We have to oppose Trumpenstein now and every day.

Michael Moore http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/michael-moore-morning-after-do-list?) writes that progressives have work to do: “Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people.”  Force our congressional Dems to “fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day.”

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.  The majority of voters agree with the progressive agenda.  Now we must get to work to make sure that all Americans understand this.

If Hillary Clinton loses the close election with Donald Trump, the primary reason will be the October 29th announcement by FBI Director James Comey that the agency was, in effect, reopening their investigation into Hillary’s email server. It was evidence of an orchestrated coup planned by the Trump campaign.  Whatever his motives, career-public-servant Comey served as a Trump foot soldier.

James Comey became FBI director on September 4, 2013, and is scheduled to serve another 7 years.  (Given adequate cause, the Director can be removed by the President.)

On October 29th, Comey sent a letter to Congress that — according to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/fbi-hillary-clinton-email.html ) — reported that although the FBI had closed investigation on Hillary Clinton’s email server, “Emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, which law enforcement officials said was an F.B.I. investigation into illicit text messages from Mr. Weiner to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. (Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, is married to Huma Abedin, [Clinton’s] top aide.)  The F.B.I. would review the [newly discovered] emails to determine if they improperly contained classified information, which is tightly controlled by the government. Senior law enforcement officials said that it was unclear if any of the emails were from Mrs. Clinton’s private server.”  Subsequently, we learned that the suspect 650,000 emails were on a laptop belonging to Huma Abedin’s ex-husband, Anthony Weiner.

During the previous Clinton email investigation, Huma Abedin gave the FBI all of her digital devices so they could examine them for incriminating emails.  She did not give them Anthony Weiner’s laptop because she did not think that any of her emails were on it.  Now the FBI has reason to believe that some of Huma Abedin emails are on Anthony’s laptop.  

How would Huma Abedin’s emails get on Anthony’s laptop without her knowledge?  Most likely, someone set up Anthony’s laptop to be the backup device for their in-home wireless network.  If this turns out to be the case, then most times Huma Abedin accessed her email a “backup copy” was sent to Anthony’s laptop.

Before getting a search warrant (on October 31) the FBI presumably examined metadata — that is, email routing information (as distinct from email content) — for the emails and determined that some of them had an address that corresponded to Clinton’s email server.  For example, this could mean that among the 650,000 emails are personal messages sent by Huma Abedin (who had an email address on Clinton’s server) to Anthony Weiner.

What the FBI are looking for are emails between Clinton and Abedin that occurred during the period when Hillary was Secretary of State (2009-2013).  Within this subset, the FBI will be searching for previously-undisclosed emails that contain classified information.

How long will the FBI investigation take?  Theoretically, it could be done in a week or two but it will undoubtedly take longer.

News outlets report that Director Comey knew about Anthony Weiner’s email trove at the beginning of October.  Why did Comey wait four weeks to make his announcement?  There are three possible explanations:

1. A technical explanation is that it took FBI programmers several weeks to sift through the email metadata and discover that some emails belonged to Huma Abedin (or had the address for Clinton’s email server).  If this is true, then the slow process suggests the FBI are not going to discover anything else before November 8th.  The technical explanation casts Comey in the best light.  But it still does not answer the question of why he chose to reveal this information before the election.

2. A sociological explanation of the October 29th announcement is that Comey responded to threat of mutiny within the FBI.  A November 3rd Washington Post article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hes-got-to-get-control-of-the-ship-again-how-tensions-at-the-fbi-will-persist-after-the-election/2016/11/03/d28fc6c6-a050-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html?) indicated that Comey’s action was the result of a long-standing feud between New York FBI agents and their bosses in Washington.  The article indicated that some rogue agents were about to leak information about the Weiner email trove and, therefore, Comey’s announcement was forced.  (News reports indicated that Comey acted against the advice of the top leaders of the Justice Department and, perhaps, a violation of the “Hatch Act.”

In a November 5th interview (http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/05/politics/tim-kaine-fbi-hillary-clinton-email/), Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Kaine suggested that, “there were people within the FBI actively working… to try to help the Trump campaign.”  Kaine tied these FBI agents to Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and a Trump-lieutenant.

3. A political explanation is that Comey deliberately tried to affect the presidential election.  There is a connection between Comey and the Trump campaign and the conduit is Rudy Giuliani.  In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York.  In 1987, Giuliani hired Comey as his assistant.  Comey worked directly with Giuliani for three years.  (From 2002-2003, Comey served in Giuliani’s former position as U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York.)

On October 25th, when discussing the state of the Trump campaign on”Fox & Friends,” Giuliani said, “We got a couple of surprises left.”  On November 4th, once again speaking on Fox News (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rudy-giuliani-fbi-clinton-emails_us_581c9e3fe4b0e80b02c93d6b), Giuliani confirmed that he knew about the FBI investigation into Anthony Weiner’s email trove — “Did I hear about it?  You’re darn right I heard about it.”

Whatever the reason for FBI Director Comey’s October 29th announcement there is no doubt that it impacted the election.  According to the 538 website, on October 29th Hillary Clinton had a 80 percent chance of winning the election; on November 6th she had a 66 percent chance.  (During the same period her margin in the polls diminished by roughly two percentage points.)  Comey’s announcement not only impacted the Clinton-Trump race but also down-ballot races for control of the Senate and House.

Whatever James Comey’s motivation, his announcement was ill-advised.  Clearly one of the early tasks for President Hillary Clinton will be ask Director Comey to resign and to initiate a shakeup of the FBI.