With an election less than 2 months away, Black voters need to be clear about what is at stake on November 3rd. Too many of us are engaged in some fantastical exercise of liberation theory and are missing the forest for the trees. While some of us engage in a rhetorical exercise in revolutionary rhetoric, the forest is literally burning around us. If there ever was a time to ‘keep it real,’ now is the time. There won’t be much to debate, except how we escape the United States, if we are faced with a second term of Donald Trump. I am not using hyperbole in describing this moment. Our lives are very much at stake and in ways that approximate the dangers posed to Blacks during the Black Codes.

Donald Trump is a demagogue and fascist. He is a racist who will use every lever of power at his disposal to maintain White supremacy. We don’t need to ask what he will do in a second term because we see the evidence of his maniacal rule during his first term. This is the person who gave cover to White supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia and identified “very fine people” on both sides despite the evil, racist and murderous intent of one side. Donald Trump is the president who has publicly sided with the cause of the Confederacy and deemed its treasonous leaders patriots. This is the man who scapegoated Latin American immigrants and felt no guilt in putting children in cages. This is the same individual who lied about something as verifiable as the size of an inauguration crowd to position himself as a monarch. Donald Trump has taken every moment of Black and brown pain in this country and used it to rally White hate and resentment, to the point that his followers believe armed insurrection is a proper response under ‘democratic’ governance. He has packed the federal courts with ideologues who see no problem with trashing the Constitution to serve the political ends of their master. This is the president that has assembled a criminal enterprise to run the federal government and has openly engaged in lawlessness to serve his personal needs and feed his ego.

For the first time in the modern presidency, the occupant of the Oval Office has openly sided with the nation’s sworn enemies and has aligned himself with the uber-enemy of this country, Russia. It was not too long ago when the word ‘communist’ sent Republicans into a tizzy and anyone deemed sympathetic to Russia was deemed an enemy of the state. Russian President Vladimir Putin now owns the President of the United States and is actively engaging, with the blessing of Donald Trump and Republicans, in a campaign to undermine our elections and destabilize our democracy. Let’s face it, the Kremlin is driving U.S. policy and Donald Trump is the Russian government’s agent.

Like the despot he is, Donald Trump has vilified the media and charged ‘fake news’ when journalists uncover the truth that the president is the architect of a fake narrative aimed at weakening and undermining the federal government. He has ridiculed the military and attempted to cast himself as a dove when his real goal is to make the nation more susceptible to Russian interference. The same can be said of his attacks on the intelligence community and the nation’s postal system. Trump’s sole purpose is to create soft targets that will make it easier for Russia to infiltrate our infrastructure by allowing propaganda to sow seeds of doubt and mistrust among Americans toward our elections, the military, and the work of our intelligence bureaus. This is a strategy crafted in Red Square and weaponized by Putin’s provocateurs in the White House. Donald Trump is the Manchurian candidate Hollywood director John Frankenheimer warned us about in 1962.

During a national health care emergency, Donald Trump has perfected the role of genocidal maniac, disputing science, and rejecting the advice of his own medical experts. He has time and again purposely misled the American public and fed his base with a steady diet of lies that has not only jeopardized the health of all Americans but even those who support the president. Donald Trump has done so knowing full well the deadly nature of COVID-19 and its disparate impact upon the elderly and Blacks and Latinos. His obsessive compulsion for power puts him the in the ranks of a Jim Jones and other maniacs who fancied themselves a deity. And while he has proceeded with cult-like efficiency, most Republican office holders have acquiesced and sat back in not so quiet complicity. The only thing Donald Trump has to offer is racism and death, and he is prepared to push both at all costs to this nation.

It is why much of the critique of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris by some Blacks is plain stupid. Arguments against their candidacy are based upon issues that can only be resolved if they are elected. Folks that keep demanding a ‘Black agenda’ have yet to articulate their vision for such and mistakenly view the presidency as an office to resolve all grievances. If they were paying attention, they would have noticed that Trump is using every facet of the federal government – the White House, federal agencies, Congress, and the courts – to push his agenda with Nazi-like efficiency. Much of what is being used to denigrate the Democratic nominee only stands a chance of being resolved if Joe Biden emerges the winner on November 4. For those who are taking the hardline position of not voting, my only response is that if you think things are bad now, wait until the day after Election Day, or when all the votes are finally tabulated, and Donald Trump is certified as the winner. He has already publicly declared that now he can be as ‘vicious’ as he wants to be so I will leave it up to your imagination to interpret what he means.

It seems some of us have forgotten that this election is not just about us, or our beliefs. This is mostly an election about the future and whether our children and grandchildren will have a future and some guarantee of safety as they grow up. Folks who want to be part of the ‘Too Woke Crew’ and offer pseudo-intellectual critiques of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris need to be prepared to physically defend Black and brown children if Donald Trump is re-elected. At some point the petty needs to be set aside for a cold dose of reality. We have a president who has made it abundantly clear that he is a White supremacist and is prepared to sacrifice the lives of Black and brown people. He is a combination of Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan with deadlier efficiency. The choice on the ballot in November is between White Supremacy and Democracy, and if we are foolish enough to vote for the former or sit out this election, we will have signed our death certificates.