This summer VoteAmerica, which operates nationwide registration and turnout programs, hired seasoned Democratic operative Aisha McClendon as national constituencies director — focused on bolstering the nonprofit's work with churches and historically Black colleges and universities. She had previously been a regional constituency director for Mike Bloomberg's 2020 presidential campaign, after running national African American outreach for the Beto O'Rourke campaign. Before that she'd worked for a state legislator in her native Texas. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
VoteAmerica works to ensure high turnout. We provide easy resources and tools to register to vote, sign up to vote by mail, request an absentee ballot, get election reminders, find a polling place and contact local election officials, etc.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
Registering people to vote on the campus of Dillard University, the historically Black college I attended in the 1990s.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
Spearheading the inaugural prayer service by the Black Caucus to open up the 2012 Democratic convention. It is always a struggle to get people to think outside of what they have ever done, and we had a lot of roadblocks — from buy-in from the party to getting sponsorships and finding speakers to volunteer their time. It was a huge task, and I had to call in a lot of favors, but we did it, and it was terrific. You know it's a good night when Rev. Jesse Jackson and Michael Eric Dyson crash your party!
And your most disappointing setback?
Struggling to deal with people acting against their self-interest. People are not often empowered to get out of their own way.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
Who I am is my work, who I am is my profession, what I am is my calling. I will always be a Black woman. I take the task of ensuring that Black people, especially women, are always included in the picture of what America should like.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
It was from the late civil rights and women's rights leader Dorothy Height, when she saw me trying to move to the far edge of a group posing for a photo, almost hiding myself. She said to me: Don't stand on the end; that's how women get cut out of history.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Non-dairy Blackberry Cannoli. Who knows how it would taste, but those are two of my favorite things!
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
"The West Wing," hands down. It reminds me of one of my first jobs, working in the executive office building next door to the White House during the Clinton administration.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Honestly, scroll through Facebook.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I may or may not have a "W" from an old school computer keyboard!
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."