Most of the time, it's hard to know the
real value of what you do. For most of us, we know that
whatever we did today was good enough or at least not bad enough that
we kept our jobs for another day, that our marriages stayed together
another day, that we got the kids back and forth to school, and as
important is it is to do all of those things, it's hard to know
exactly whether what we said was good or just good enough, whether
what we did was right or just not so wrong someone would say
something about it. With the exception of professions like nurses,
doctors, EMTs, soldiers, fire fighters, pilots, and a few others and
very rare cases like car accidents and natural disasters, we can only
guess at whether or not what we did was the best thing we could have
done.
And, that's fine. For me, one of the
primary skills we need to develop to live fulfilling lives is a base
level of comfort with ambiguity. Honestly, I'd go even further and
say some of the most destructive forces in human society, fascism,
racism, theocracy, are based in creating a false sense of certainty.
They are supported by and destructive because they create these
certainties upon which people then live their lives, regardless of
the consequences or impacts their actions may have on others.
Which is a long way to say that
ambiguity is not a problem and not something I routinely try to
remove from my life and my writing.
There is no ambiguity here. There is no
doubt. Even in this postmodern, post-structuralist, deconstructed
world, there is a right thing to do.
We've all wondered, in various lexicons
and with various fantastic or realistic scaffolding, what we would do
if we were put in a life and death situation, if we were given a
dramatic choice, if we were called on to be a hero.
There may not be an actual ticking time
bomb, their may not be flames or car chases or dearly beloveds
dangling from cliffs, but this is your life or death moment, this is
your hero opportunity and what you must do is clear.
You must vote Democrat in every race
this election. If you always vote Democrat, if you always vote
Republican, if you mix it up, if you vote third party, if you don't
vote, if you've never voted before, the right thing for you to do,
the heroic thing for you to do is vote for every Democrat on your
ballot.
If you're reading this, odds are you
already planning on doing that. I don't know if I have the eloquence
and insight to breakthrough to those of you who are not already
planning to vote Democrat this fall, but you can't succeed if you
don't try. That said, I know there are some of you who will never
vote Democrat, who will always vote Republican, and this is the part
where I'm supposed to say that I respect you and that we're supposed
to find common ground, but I don't, there is no meaningful common ground, and
though I will applaud those of you who undertake the long and
difficult personal journey away from this current incarnation of
Republicanism, right now your votes are literally tearing families
apart, literally destroying our system of government, literally
traumatizing millions of your friends, neighbors, and family members,
and literally killing people and if Fox News is protecting you from
that truth my little blog post isn't going to bust in.
So I'm going to focus on three types of
people who might not vote for Democrats in November.
I Oppose the Two-Party System
How much has voting third-party or
abstaining from elections done to diminish the power of the two-party
system over the last twenty years or so? How many Green Party members
are there in Congress? Governors? State legislatures?
Listen the two-party system is
undemocratic, has pushed American policy far to the right of the
American public actually believes, and fundamentally stifles the
conversation around policy and legislation, but how does helping
Republicans maintain power, despite the fact that most Americans do
not support the Republican agenda, push us towards a multi-party
system? In fact, because Republicans are actually disenfranchising
voters, specifically progressive voters, on top of everything else,
empowering Republicans by voting third-party or abstaining from
voting actually hinders our ability to transition to a multi-party
system.
If you really want to begin diminishing
the power of the two-party system, vote for very Democrat on your
ballot and then do whatever you can in your state to reform your
elections to include ranked choice voting or instant run-off
elections. It is a popular idea, it won on the ballot in Maine, and
it is the first step in breaking through the two-party system.
The Democrats Are Whores to [Insert
Special Interest Here]
With the exception of radical
conspiracy theorists, you're also probably right. Contemporary
politics is a money game and in contemporary American capitalism very
few good people have the kind of money it takes to influence
politics. Look behind your favorite Democrat politician and there's
probably at least one really bad corporation or industry (probably
pharma) donating to them.
But does that put them on par with what
Republicans do? Really? Does the fact that many (but not all!)
Democrats take money from problematic corporations really mean that
the Trump administration is acceptable? Is your ideological purity
worth all of this collateral damage?
Furthermore, as above, how does helping
Republicans remain in power by voting third-party or abstaining from
voting help get money out of politics? Do you see any Republicans at
any level advocating for campaign finance reform? Cause I don't.
So, vote for every Democrat on your
ballot this Fall and help get money out of politics by donating to
politicians that reject corporate and PAC donations and pushing for
campaign finance reform in your state.
I Don't Care
Someone you love does.
The most important voters in America
are nonvoters, those who are eligible, but don't. There are lots of
reasons for this, many of which come from structural impediments to
voting (many of which are intentional) so I'm not really talking to
those who are logistically prevented from voting (but let me break in
here to say, do whatever you can. Lyft will take you to the polls,
Get out the Vote organizations will get you there, coordinate with
your boss, your coworkers whatever, because, honestly, you might not
get another chance to vote.).
Whatever reason you have for not
caring, whether it's that feel as though your vote doesn't matter, or
that no politicians represent you specifically, or whatever is fine
and I'm not going to try to argue against that idea. I don't know
what matters to you so I have no idea how to make you care.
Someone you love cares. Someone you
love was traumatized by what happened yesterday in the Kavanaugh
hearing. Someone you love was traumatized when the Access Hollywood
tape didn't end Trump's campaign. Someone you love is terrified
because they emigrated here recently or are first generation or just
happen to have a Hispanic sounding name and there is a real chance
ICE could sweep them up. Someone you love is scared of the uptick in
hate crimes, someone you love is scared of LGBT information being
scrubbed from federal websites, someone you love is scared their
asthma will become unmanageable if the air quality regulations are
eliminated, someone you love is scared of dying from an illegal
abortion. Someone you love has gained weight and lost sleep and felt
a pit with sharp edges in their stomachs for what feels like forever
and someone you love will never be the same again the way our
grandparents who lived through the Great Depression would keep old junk in
their basements because they could never quite shake the fear of
bread lines.
Maybe politics doesn't actually affect
you. Maybe you have good reasons to not care. Maybe those reasons are
good enough for whatever logistical challenges you face to voting to
count as a hassle.
Fine. Whatever.
But you are not the only person in your
life. If you're not going to vote Democrat for yourself, vote
Democrat for someone you love. And let's put a rational self-interest
spin on this too. If Republicans hold on to the House and Senate,
someone you love will look up from weeping and ask you if you voted
yesterday and your relationship with them will never be the same if
you say, “no.” Shit, vote Democrat for someone I love. I mean, if
it really and truly doesn't matter to you, why not make my
grandmother's day?
Your Opportunity
So this is your opportunity to be a
hero. I won't say we're lucky to have this opportunity and I won't
say we should be thankful our opportunity is so easy to capitalize
on, but here it is. Our chance to do something great.
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