Ink Tea Stone Leaf

I want to state this very plainly, because I don’t think we in the United States have any more room to mess around—we cannot afford to ignore the stakes of the upcoming midterm elections. It is a cliché to describe every election yet to come as the most important one in our lifetimes. It is also true that the worse things are getting, the more important it is to correct the problem. That is why it is imperative that if you have the right to vote (as does every American citizen over the age of 18 who has not been legally disenfranchised), you must exercise that right this year. And if you want things to get better over the long haul, you have to keep doing it, year after year.

The problem, of course, is that an ideological coalition that seeks to undermine the long-term public good for the advantage of short-term private gains has seized power in our government and is acting with very little (if any) restraint. This coalition is centered on the Republican party, which has become more-or-less synonymous with the cult of personality of Donald Trump. That isn’t to say that Democrats and others outside either party bear no responsibility for what is happening. In failing to take action when it would have been most effective, or in shaking the devil’s hand when it suits their own convenience, they have assumed their share of the blame. But it is the Republican party that drives this coalition, and the defeat of that party ought to be priority number one.

The ideological coalition that runs this country is the reason that the military budget is balooning while virtually everything that actually helps people (education, healthcare, nutritional and housing assistance, environmental protections, food safety inspections, labor protections, scientific research, etc) is being dismantled or defunded. It is also the reason that we are being repeatedly drawn into economic conflict with virtually every country on Earth, and why we are fighting a thoroughly stupid and immoral war with Iran. It prioritizes the wealth of billionaires while the climate crisis spins out of control—and under the direction of Donald Trump, it seems that the coalition will do its best to deliberately exacerbate global warming and inequality for as long as it has the power to make policy.

It’s hard to say what the worst of all this is, because it’s all bad. Obscenely bad. The current era of American government is defined by the idea that the default approach to any policy issue is to ruin something and loot whatever remains. It is kleptocracy—the rule of thieves—and it has been enabled by a critical mass of voters who have not felt the urgency required to demand better, and have allowed the situation to worsen and worsen until it is almost out of their power to do anything about it at all. So I would say the most insidious of all the obscenely bad things that Trump and his coalition are doing right now is their effort to seize control of the midterm elections, stripping Americans of their right to vote, or at least to vote meaningfully.

Trump, despite regularly voting by mail for his own convenience, has demonized the act of voting by mail, spinning elaborate fantasies of non-citizen voting. He has lied and lied and lied about election results, and he is trying to use the Postal Service and whatever else he can to disrupt the process. It is likely that some eligible voters will cast ballots this year, only to have them stolen by the agents of a dictator (for so he imagines himself) who cannot accept defeat, no matter how unpopular he has become.

The best way to avoid this situation would have been to deny this man the power to screw us over in the first place. That was not done, and so the only thing left to do is organize, resgister, and vote in overwhelming numbers.

I am not trying to argue that everything will be fine so long as we can return Democrats to majorities in Congress, or even unseat Trump himself. The country, and the entire world, are not going to be “fine” for a very long time. We are staring down the barrel of a long, difficult century, in which much will be lost before a corner can be turned. Our responsibility, as voters and as citizens, is to start electing leaders who will take our problems seriously and address them with courage and honesty. That means that we have to take those problems seriously, too

We do not have the privilege to be cynical about our right to vote—a right for which people have bled and died in the streets. We are not entitled to throw up our hands and say, “the world is on fire, and too much has been lost, so nothing matters anymore.” Our fellow human beings are counting on us to make good on our democracy, and not to acquiesce to nihilistic authoritatians who are not yet through laying the groundwork for a poorer and sicker world. Whatever else we do, we must vote, and elect the right people to address the problems that we will be faced with for the rest of our lives. The longer we wait to take voting seriously again, the worse off we will be.

Please check that your voter registration is current, and make a plan to cast your ballot in the securest fashion you can. Make sure your vote counts.