Voters Will Realize They ‘Just Won’t Survive’ with Trump as President, Says Activist DeRay Mckesson
Max Zahn, Yahoo Finance, December 21, 2019
In the Democratic presidential debate on Thursday, all seven candidates made the case for why they can defeat President Donald Trump. In a newly released interview, activist and podcast host DeRay Mckesson says Democratic voters shouldn’t worry too much about it — voters will realize it’s not in their interest to vote for Trump.
“What’s interesting about Trump is that the trauma is not ending — he’s just keeping it steady,” says Mckesson, who came to prominence in 2014 as a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement.
“The closer we get to election time, people will realize that whether they like the nominee or not, they just won’t survive in a world where he’s president,” Mckesson adds.
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“People will mobilize out of necessity,” Mckesson says.
In 2016, Mckesson backed Sanders in the Democratic primary but supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the general election — a choice he described in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
“From the left, people were like, I can’t believe you would sell out like that,” he recalls about the response to the op-ed. “You know, you’re like, I believe [Trump], right? I believe him when he says he’s going to do all this damage in the country. But I think those people will get it together [in 2020].”
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Age 34, Mckesson leapt onto the national stage five years ago when he joined protests against the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, becoming a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. The host of a podcast called “Pod Save the People,” Mckesson published a memoir last year called “On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope.”
In 2016, Time Magazine named him one of the 30 most influential people on the internet.
The House had a ‘responsibility’ to impeach Trump
While Mckesson believes Trump will lose in 2020, he said the House had a “responsibility” to impeach Trump even if the Senate ultimately acquits him.
Mckesson criticized Democratic leaders for putting off impeachment earlier in Trump’s term, but credited Democratic New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for advocating that the House uphold its role in the proceedings.
“People like AOC have it perfect,” says Mckesson. “We have a responsibility, and we do our part.”
“When it goes to Senate, they have to do their part,” Mckesson adds. “If they don’t remove, then they don’t remove, but that doesn’t mean that we actually don’t uphold our end of the bargain.”
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