Prior to the 2016 election, I didn’t bother to write a post like this. In fact, I don’t remember paying especially much attention to the campaigning or the debates, to what individual people were saying or what the polls were saying. This was partly because I was far less politically active then, and partly because I believed the election results to be a foregone conclusion. Even as a presidential hopeful, Donald Trump was such an unbelievable dumpster fire that I didn’t believe he could win.
You know what they say about hindsight.
If the last four years have shown me anything, it’s that I don’t have the luxury of not being politically active or paying attention to politics. None of us do. Whether you understand how our government works or not, or whether you care about who’s in office or not, the way in which our government works and the people who hold office will still impact your life.
If you’re a person of color, a queer person, a disabled person, a religious minority, or any other member of any other marginalized group, then the odds are good that you already know this. If you’re a woman—even a white woman—then you should know this. And if you’re a man—especially a white man—you should too.
During Donald Trump’s presidency, there have been unprecedented new attacks on the legitimacy and accuracy of the free press, a source of information all Americans count on. We’ve seen attempts to weaken and privatize the United States Postal Service, an institution that all Americans use. We’ve seen rollbacks of landmark legislation protecting the air we all breathe and the water we all drink. We’ve seen the increased partisanship of scientific facts, despite the affects that issues like climate change and the corona virus pandemic continue to have on American life. We’ve seen a marked increase in hate crimes against marginalized groups and politically motivated violence against peaceful protestors from Charlottesville to Kenosha and Minneapolis to Portland, as well as constant attempts to brand anyone who disagrees with the president and his administration as traitors.
And that’s just in four years.
I honestly can’t bear to think about what the next four years might bring if we don’t vote Donald Trump and as many of the Republican senators and representatives who’ve enabled him out of office as we can. As much as Americans like to think of ourselves as world police, defending our allies against fascism and toppling dictators in smaller, less powerful countries because we can, we’ve been remarkably blind to the fascism that has already taken root here at home, or to the wannabe dictator who’s already in the White House.
Now, it’s time to take the blinders off.
I recognize that this is a risky year to go to a polling place, and that it might not be possible to get a mail-in ballot where you are. I recognize that voter suppression is a very real issue, and that there are far too many places where polling places are understaffed and over-crowded or simply don’t exist at all. And I understand how insignificant casting one ballot can feel in the face of so much uncertainty and opposition and fear.
However, the truth is that voting remains the most important thing that you or me or any of us can do when it comes to making our voices count. At the end of the day, our elected officials work for us, and they should be aiming to make the lives of we regular people who they represent easier, not harder. They should be thinking in our best interests instead of padding their own pockets and the pockets of their corporate donors. And when they fail to do the jobs that we’ve hired them for, it’s our job to replace them with better, more qualified, more intelligent, more compassionate people.
This year, I hope you’ll join me in doing just that.