After 15 years in Democratic politics, Dave Griggs has turned his focus to nonpartisan efforts to help more people gain access to the ballot box. VoteRiders works to educate citizens about voter ID laws and helps them acquire the identification necessary to register and then cast ballots. Griggs had worked to elect to Congress several of the most high-profile Democrats from his native Minnesota in recent years: presidential aspirant Amy Klobuchar, her previous fellow senators Paul Wellstone and Al Franken, and Keith Ellison, now state attorney general. Before joining VoteRiders as CEO in January 2018, he held a series of senior titles at the Democrat's campaign operation for state legislators. His answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
Guaranteeing democracy through voter ID education and assistance.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
I voted absentee for Al Gore when I was in college at NYU. I wasn't political growing up but was entirely sucked into that 2000 election and the aftermath. Hooked from there.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
The 2002 Minnesota Senate race. Got my start on this race as a field organizer for Paul Wellstone and loved every part of it. This was how I learned to work hard. Surrounded by incredible, passionate people who turned into lifetime friends.
And your most disappointing setback?
The 2002 Minnesota Senate race. The senator died in a plane crash 11 days before Election Day. That was how I learned to take pain and disappointment and use it to fuel the hard work needed to succeed in the future.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
My mother was a nurse, my father was a minister. I grew up with Midwestern values — work hard, treat people the right way, get ahead. A healthy democracy is crucial to that way of life and when people don't have the ability to have their say in their communities, it makes me angry. VoteRiders' mission is to create and implement identification tools and services that ensure voters are guaranteed their right to vote.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Show up on time, admit mistakes and speak when it's your turn.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Burnt popcorn.
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
All the President's Men.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Candy Crush.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
Sour cream is disgusting.
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."