Millennials, between the ages of 18-35 and numbering about 76 million, are a powerful voting bloc. But many are still trying to come to grips with the trauma of a Sanders-less presidential election and are thinking of wasting their vote as a protest of some sort. That would be a colossal mistake, for they can play a critical role in propelling Hillary Clinton to victory over Donald Trump in this most consequential of elections.

It is becoming clear as the election nears that the Clinton base is relatively narrow and getting narrower. The stubborn “Berniecrats” and distrustful independents are a problem with a neat solution in doubt as the election nears. Yet another problem is the early assumption of solid support from non-white Americans has shown to be weaker than expected. The vaunted Clinton ground game may have been limited in key markets by the distraction caused by a much stronger primary campaign that drained assets meant to be used in the massive run-up to the November election.

No wonder Trump is preemptively depicting himself not as a loser, but as the victim of a rigged election. You know he won’t go away quietly. Nor will his base, whose fire he has recklessly stoked. I can’t believe he’d give a gracious concession speech, a call to come together and support the one president our nation has. He’s more likely to summon a retributive movement – a fifth column of Trumpistas.

Hearing her biography over and over during the Democratic convention confirmed one undisputed fact about her: she’s not only “from the Sixties,” as she said at a Democratic debate last year, but she’s of the Sixties. And she’s of a very specific side of the Sixties, the earnest activists who wanted to transform the world by digging deep into policy and challenging outdated norms and practices. For these activists, the popular phrase “question authority” had both a political and personal meaning.

All successful people, particularly those in the public eye, have a sneaking suspicion that they’re really just frauds, and that when the public takes a closer look and stops praising their “genius,” then they’ll be found out. For most high achievers, that bit of insecurity is a motivator, the drive that allows them not to settle for the mundane and to keep the bar high for everything they do. But that’s not the same for mediocre people like Trump, the ones who lack the tools to reach that higher bar. So, in lieu of reaching high, they go low.

When GOP presidential contender Donald Trump shouts that he’s the “law-and-order candidate,” he is pilfering the line that George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton worked to death during their White House bids. The law-and-order line is heavy with racially coded images of rampant black crime, and this is a surefire way to pander to fearful suburban whites.

Bush and Fox were friends, ranchers, businessmen, and came from the same rugged landscape that made their working together a done deal. Both men were determined to take the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the next step by addressing the limitations and flaws in that agreement. The limitations were political (no free movement of people across borders) and economic (no single currency for the United States, Canada, and Mexico).

A surefire way to occupy our attention is to tell us a story. Stories require conflict; without conflict, there’s no change, no drama, no plot. Trump is a walking attention magnet. He’s the never-ending story, the prince of plot, the king of conflict, the drama queen of TV and Twitter. A Trump presidency guarantees change. “Even if it’s like a Nazi-type change,” in Vizcarra’s words, it will never, ever be boring.

Muhammad Ali for many people was more icon than athlete. Like Jim Brown or John Carlos, he was someone who inspired African-Americans and Muslims to fight oppression, move beyond the comfort of success and speak out against injustice no matter the cost or inconvenience. Between the Will Smith-led biopic and various tributes over the years, most Americans know that Ali spoke out against the Vietnam War, converted to the Nation of Islam and was a global humanitarian. 

Clinton’s ads could use Trump’s own words against him, but they may not stick; that’s why Trump has been called a Teflon candidate, as was Reagan. The Clinton campaign can try to brand Trump a liar, but though fact-checkers have given him a record number of pants-on-fires and Pinocchios, people aren’t joining or leaving him because of accuracy; that’s not what a protest movement is about.  Besides, fact-checking just plays into Trump’s applause line that the media are disgusting liars.