The United States has an election in little more than a year, a long, drawn-out process that’s already been in progress for months and months. There are still more than a dozen Democratic candidates seeking their party’s nomination. Based on what’s happened so far, it’s likely that that that nominee will not be finally determined until the convention, which is in mid-July in Milwaukee next year. At that point, the Democratic nominee will have just a little more than three months to mount a challenge to Donald Trump, and to unite the various interests that comprise a not-exactly-united party.

That’s a significant problem, and then add to that the Trump re-election effort, which is already pumping up his voting base with internet and media-based presentations, along with rallies presided over by the God Trump.

I use that term advisedly, because the Trump re-election campaign is based on the staples of old-time religion – a gospel (in this case, the gospel of Trump) with very little relation to the facts; fear of change (mixed with hatred of anyone who doesn’t share their views); ignorance (willful or conditioned) about who their god is and what his preachers will do in his name; and blind allegiance.

In the last election, even without the effect of Russian internet trolls, the Trump campaign mounted a technically and practically far more effective social media campaign than did the Democrats…and unless matters change dramatically in the next few months, the same will be true in the year ahead.

The key to the success of the Trump campaign is the special tie or glue that binds his followers and supporters together, and that tie is hatred expressed in exaggerated untruths that those followers want to be true and in the demonization of anyone who questions the Great God Trump. Anyone who opposes or questions is evil… and the Trump machine is already pouring out this message, and interestingly enough, Facebook is allowing verifiable lies and blatant untruths to be aired in those ads. In addition, any fact that does not agree with the Gospel of Trump is fake news.

The actual facts are totally ignored. The amount of financial damage that Trump’s trade wars have caused to farmers cannot be undone in less than decades, if ever. The fact that Trump has done nothing for the coal industry [and never could have] is ignored, as two of the nation’s largest coal producers have shut down, and done so without giving miners their last paychecks, while one of their owners was shifting funds into a personally-owned multimillion dollar resort, complete with a replica of the Roman Coliseum (rather ironically applicable for Trump and his supporters). That doesn’t include the betrayal of the Kurds, or the caging of immigrant children, either. Or trying to make deals with foreign leaders to attack Trump’s political rivals, or trying to direct foreign government leaders to his resorts.

None of that matters. All that matters is the Gospel of hate, particularly of the “liberal elites,” personified by distorted and exaggerated statements about “lying Hillary,” by claiming that Democrats are climate extremists who want to take your guns and tax you more, by labelling all immigrants as rapists and thieves who take American jobs (even when Americans won’t do the jobs that immigrants will), and by claiming that the poor are effectively worthless welfare rats who don’t deserve food, education, or healthcare, all of whom Trump blames erroneously for destroying your lives, while asserting that only he, the Great God Trump, can make America great again.

And, all the time that the Democratic candidates are squabbling over details about health plans, about immigration, about education (details that are largely meaningless because no proposed plan gets through Congress, if it even gets that far, without major changes), the Trump hate and fear machine is welding together his constituency while the Democrats are fragmenting theirs, because they’ve forgotten a basic lesson of politics that the Republicans and Trump haven’t.

You can’t do anything unless you first get elected.