Do Not Go Gentle
Well, what do we do now?
Our country has changed more in the past five months than it has in the last 12 years. It’s easy to wake up most days with a sense of existential dread bordering on panic. With peaceful protesters being kidnapped off the street by unmarked federal agents (on the orders of an illegitimate Acting Secretary of Homeland Security), an economy that’s volatile at best, 1 in 5 American families going hungry, a deadly virus spreading uncontrollably, and now an admission of election tampering by the President of the United States, how can you not?
For those of us old enough to understand our history and to comprehend current events, while also being naïve enough to not fully understand how we got there, January 20 th, 2009 felt like the beginning of a new chapter in America. Then, late on the night of November 6 th, 2012, we felt validation.
What we hadn’t seen was the Democratic party’s gradual slip to the right, or how dangerous it was to think that both parties wanted the bipartisanship they preach about (best exemplified by President Obama offering Republicans their own healthcare plan, authored by the Heritage Foundation, and Republicans still rejecting it). Most importantly, we were blind to the racism that was simmering, ready to boil over and avenge 8 years of a black president the first chance it got.
Unfortunately, it took Donald Trump and his felonious and corrupt allies to wake us up. When we did, we came roaring back in 2018 with a blue tsunami, and I shudder to think what life would be like now if we hadn’t. Though Nancy Pelosi and other “moderate Democrats” may not be everyone’s cup of tea, Trump would not have to carry the eternal weight of being an impeached president had Democrats not taken back the House in historic fashion.
Then, the coronavirus changed the world, not just the U.S. However, it has dramatically revealed and exacerbated our flaws. Here, we remain fortified in our homes, watching other countries quickly and successfully fight off outbreak after outbreak. Meanwhile, the first wave is still washing over our country as we squabble over masks and get bullied for being “sheep” by the same people whose only beliefs come from the next Trump tweet. Though we are held hostage by this 30–40% minority of people (which is still alarmingly high), everyone with some sense of sanity can tell that Donald Trump is the problem, and that he needs to go.
If only it were that simple.
For the first time in a long time, it’s apparent that the candidate with the most support may not win, and it’s not even because of the Electoral College. Since he’s blackmailing foreign powers to interfere, suppressing the black vote in a way not seen since the 1960s, or trying to kill the Constitutionally mandated Postal Service, even someone as mentally stunted as Trump knows he needs to cheat to win. So, what do we do now?
We fight.
Instead of letting this hopelessness and despair paralyze us and make us second guess if it’s worth it to possibly get COVID in order to vote, we need to push ourselves into battle. And we can’t stop when we think the battle is over, or even when we know we’ve won a close fight. We need to keep attacking at the ballot box until Trump, Trumpism, and all his congressional enablers are so badly brutalized and eviscerated electorally that they understand one message very clearly: not in our country.
So, how can you play a part in this? In terms of voting, you can:
- Vote early in-person if your state allows it (there are usually no lines, so there’s less COVID threat).
- Request your absentee/mail-in ballot, then use a ballot drop box to return it yourself.
- Request your absentee/mail-in ballot, then personally return it at an election or polling station.
None of these options rely on the Postal Service for returning your ballot, so no matter how Trump tries to mess with them, your vote will still be counted (for more info on ways to vote, check out https://votesaveamerica.com/be-a-voter/ or https://lincolnproject.us/vote/).
As for getting the word out, you can post those links on your social media, or you can like/share/retweet posts from the Biden campaign, Crooked Media/Pod Save America, the Lincoln Project, or any other group that tries to warn about what Trump is doing. With the way social media works now, these posts may not get seen by your friends/followers unless you engage with it.
But whatever you do, DO NOT become paralyzed or disillusioned; that’s what they want. They’re trying to kill your vote because they know how much it matters.
This is what Alice Paul, Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lewis fought and died for; it’s the least we could do. As Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Between now and November 3rd, make sure you find a way to vote against the dying of the light.
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Originally published at https://www.quicknewsdaily.com on August 1, 2020.
