This is the Ticket. Now vote it.

We are not the enemy.

The Primary is over. Here in Colorado, now we know who our Democratic candidates will be in the general election this November. Now we have one thing left to do. Vote for them.

Okay, it isn’t quite that easy. We have to gain name recognition. We have to persuade unaffiliated voters. We have to activate people who think it’s not important to vote in midterms. All that. But there’s one thing we don’t have to do. We don’t have to prove that we’re the good guys. We are. There’s no doubt about it. Look at our unexpected allies.

George Will

George Will, if you’ve lived on a desert island since the Clinton administration, is considered one of the foremost serious thinkers of the Conservative movement. But on June 22 his opinion column in The Washington Post was simply titled “Vote Against the GOP this November.”

Will’s language in that column was pretty high-flown, as if he couldn’t bear to use plain talk to deliver his message. Here’s a sample:

The principle: The congressional Republican caucuses must be substantially reduced. So substantially that their remnants, reduced to minorities, will be stripped of the Constitution’s Article I powers that they have been too invertebrate to use against the current wielder of Article II powers.

Translation: Republicans of conscience must vote out enough Republican members of the House and Senate that that they will become the minority in both, because they are too spineless to do their duty to check the excesses of the President.

Will hasn’t changed his stripes. He’s equally contemptuous of the Democrats he hopes will replace the Republicans whose defeat he advocates. But he knows they would oppose Trump, and Will considers that essential for the preservation of the Republic. [For the record, so do we. Good on ya, George.]

Steve Schmidt

Another former Republican who’s turned his coat is the man who gave us Sarah Palin as John McCain’s campaign manager in 2008. Presumably dealing with her gave him practice in understanding demagogues, because here’s what he has to say now:

29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.

That was a tweet written at 1:00 am on the morning of June 20, apparently after a wakeful night of soul-searching. By the time Rolling Stone quoted that tweet on June 27, it had over a quarter of a million likes. Today’s GOP, Schmidt continued, is “filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders.”

The way back to the majority, it would seem, is open for the Democrats.

What we say to each other

Sadly, the breakdown in civility that we lament in public life is rampant, too, in the Democratic echo chamber. This primary was not a “wave” election for any faction. Some liberal candidates won. Some establishment candidates won. Some who won will be called “blue dogs” if they make it to office. We aren’t called the Big Tent party for nothing.

Facebook is rife with piqued postings lamenting that. With activists snootily bragging about “withholding their vote” in the primary from unopposed candidates who lack the ideological purity they want. And bragging that they’ll do it again in the General if the candidate doesn’t move left.

Nose, meet scalpel. We’re gonna spite us some face.

This section has no quotes in it, because we’re not gonna out our friends in their moment of stupid. But these good, sincere, passionate people had better wise up.

This is 2018, not 2016

The time is past — or the time is not yet — to litigate the mistakes of 2016. Right now it is the time for unity. Solidarity. And yes, civility in the ranks. Who among us does not oppose Trump? Who does not abhor racism? Who does not believe that Families Belong Together? That Black Lives Matter? That no human being is illegal? That health care is a right?

Our differences are nothing when compared to that. The shadow of Totalitarianism is getting longer. Everyone who sees that, even George Will and Steve Schmidt, needs to work together for the common good. If they can do it, we can. Because the enemy doesn’t believe in the common good. And it’s the common good that will save us. It’s the common good that we must save.

How we do it

First, this November, vote a straight Democratic Ticket. That’s right. If the candidate has a D beside his or her name, vote for that candidate. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never heard of them. Doesn’t matter if you don’t like their face. Doesn’t matter if they worked for Hillary or worked for Bernie or took money from frackers. (Of course fracking matters. Just not on this ballot.)

WTF? you ask? Why would we, Win The Fourth Colorado, make a sweeping statement like this? We, who have been dedicated since our inception to information and analysis, to political persuasion not political propaganda? We have been dedicated to the proposition that informed voters will do the right thing. So why are we asking people to vote like robots?

It’s not because individual Republican ideas are evil. It’s because this particular president wants to be a dictator, and this particular Congress is too complacent, or too weak, to do their Constitutional duty to protect the Republic. To protect the principles of democracy. To protect freedom, and decency, and fairness.

Besides, this year’s Ballot Initiatives will be so tricky and complicated that you will have enough studying to do just figuring out how to vote those.

Voting the straight ticket is the last step you’ll need to take this fall. But it’s not the first. As a good friend of ours loves to say, it’s Necessary, but it’s not Sufficient. So let’s get to work. We’re here to help. In the fall, we’ll publish a Guide to the ballot initiatives. We’ll help you organize events to get out the vote. We’ll publicize them. We’ll help you canvass. Call on us, but don’t rely on us. Like your straight ticket, WTF Colorado is necessary, but not sufficient. Every one of us is needed. Every one must do what needs to be done.

But as you work, as you exercise your free speech and your unbridled passion, remember this: The rhetoric of division is the weapon of the enemy. When we wield it we are fighting on the wrong side. Unity, comity, equality, and compassion are the tools we must take up. Saving democracy is a matter of building. And rhetoric is lost on backs bent to the task. This is our life’s work. Let’s get to it. In peace.