The Jurassic Park franchise is one of the most successful in cinema.  It’s right up there with The Matrix, Star Wars and the earlier Transformer franchises.  A few of the franchises’s movies like Jurassic World are as good, in my opinion as any of the movies in the Marvel franchise in terms of sheer entertainment.

The scene in which Indominus Rex fights T. Rex is an adrenaline high-ball of special effects.  It also contains the most memorable moment of the film.   Gray, Claire’s nephew, tells the adults and his older brother, “We need more”.  When Claire asks “More what?” Gray says, “Teeth, we need more teeth.  In just a few words Gray sums up the problem and the solution.  Watching the fight Gray sees that T Rex is loosing because I Rex has more teeth in a fight that will be decided by how much biting and rending one can do compared to the other.  He knows that T. Rex, their champion, cannot win unless they bring more teeth to the fight.  Enter Blue, velociraptor, who adds more teeth to the fight to defeat I. Rex. T. Rex and Blue tag team I. Rex who is finished off by the Mosasaurus.

I am at that moment in the 2020 campaign where I realize we need more teeth.  We need people who have the weapons to cause serious damage and the resolve to bring some serious hurt.  I’ve analyzed and over analyzed what the Dems got wrong in the 2016 election.  Now to be sure, the Dems don’t bear sole responsibility for Trump’s presidency.  Main stream media’s epic fail, Russian interference, the Republican Party, people who voted for Trump,  people who did not vote, people who cast a protest vote, alt-right hate mongers, the FBI, Mitch McConnell, Sanders and his supporters, and even President Obama are responsible for the implausible becoming possible and then the possible becoming reality.  Yep, there are no shortage of partners, willing and unwilling, in this crime.  But what went wrong is less important than how we make it right.  And for that we need more teeth.

As long as Dems continue to underestimate Trump, his enablers and his Russian handler, we cannot win.  We must be able to anticipate what Trump will do to stay in office and out of jail.  We must remind ourselves over and over again that there is no bar too low for Trump, his administration, his co-conspirators in the GOP and even his rank and file supporters.  Not only this, we must be willing to brawl not just fight.  Speeches in the middle of a melee don’t cut it.  Lofty sentiments and ideological litmus tests don’t help.  This is the wrong time for the “it’s not whether you win or lose” speech.  Instead we should be telling ourselves that failure is not an option.  Because it isn’t.  We should collaborate and cooperate with any group or person who’s  committed to Trump’s defeat regardless of their motivation.  Trust me when I say Trump is doing the same with those who are committed to keeping him in office.  We can fight about policy after we preserve our democracy.

Just think back to moments in history when great leaders had to make difficult decisions.  Moments in which they had to decide between “bad” or “worse”.  Lives would be lost in either case so the question they had to decide was how many. WWII provided many of these moments.  Imagine Winston Churchill’s angst over the decision to destroy the French fleet at port in Algiers.  1500 French sailors died.  Thankfully we are not grappling with such a difficult decision although the impact of our decision will be just as momentous.  All we have to do is to decide to vote on November 3, 2020 .  I am going to vote for the Democratic nominee because we cannot take 4 more years of Donald Trump.