Part 1 was published prior to the 2020 election.
Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Remember to thank your poll workers. If you are part of the vote-in-person community, the poll workers who assist you received training for handling a flow of voters. They also received education to call for help in the case of voter intimidation. I’m one of these poll workers.
Elections are part of our constitutional republic – citizens are responsibility for electing their representatives who govern the nation. Despite what the politics industry and pollsters would have us believe, elections do not feature rival teams where one is a winner and the other a loser. Elections as part of democracy provide a method for moving forward despite our disagreements in priorities, beliefs and level of influence.
More than anything else, our disagreements about the how and what of governance should be founded on an agreement of election integrity. What are our standards for deciding an election has integrity? Or not?
As I received training as a poll worker, I was struck by the apolitical nature of the process itself. Everyone is treated the same. People work in pairs or more, always a check for accountability and witness. The supervisors are available to answer questions. There is no discussion of the candidates, ballot measures or such allowed. Our elections are a sacred process for our democratic republic, if we protect them as such.
Why would someone profane the sacred process of elections to plant seeds of doubt? I propose that conflict profiteers – those people who make a living on dividing us – have ulterior motives. The conflict profiteers primarily seek two things: money and power. They cloak themselves in “ truthiness ” to feed our love of conspiracy theories. And it’s worked.
Conflict profiteers have struck at the core of democracy itself: our elections.
Does voter fraud exist? In very small numbers, yes. The Heritage Foundation database on voter fraud documents 62 election irregularities in 2016. In 2020, there were 17 cases. In the 2020 cases, two were about ineligible voters. The remaining 15 convictions involved forged signatures for ballot measures and other crimes to influence local elections. No evidence of presidential vote interference. None. Zero. Zip. Trump lost the election. It’s time to look forward and give up the nonsense.
It’s up to us, the citizens, to accept our responsibility to restore faith in our elections. To be helpful, to be involved and to administer the election ourselves. Across the nation, election administrators from county offices, their staff and the thousands of volunteers are stepping up. In two weeks’ time, they will dedicate themselves to a free and fair election for the rest of us.
Let’s trust each other to have good intentions. Let us trust, but verify, each action we take as election workers. Our nation depends on us. We must depend on each other.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."