Good Morning Friends,
It is election day. The culmination of countless hours, dollars and effort AND anxiety. It is time. If you haven’t early voted, it is time to go to the polls and choose. In some cases, it is time to hold your nose and pick between candidates that you would more like to choose D-None of the Above.
A few thoughts on our election process as we go into it.
1) Many people will tell you that the way we fix things is a viable third party. I agree with this. BUT in order to have this, there has to be some fundamental changes. It starts with primaries. A primary is where the parties choose their candidate. Parties are NOT public institutions. But yet, the public hosts and facilitates the primaries but ONLY for the D’s and R’s. This communicates clearly that there are only two viable parties AND they are so viable that they are almost semi-public. Get rid of publicly held primaries and you start to pave the way for a viable third party.
2) Voting is your civic duty. This one hurts me. It is your RIGHT but it is not your DUTY. It is your duty to abstain when you can’t fundamentally get behind either or any of the candidates. Why should you HAVE to pick between candidates that do not represent you? I get that freedom isn’t free and all the typical cliches. I understand that. BUT what if no one voted? What if, as a nation, we said, NO. You can do better than this. Maybe we would get a candidate that unifies, mends fences and is a true representative of the people.
3) The middle is eroding. People are moving more and more to the outer extremes. This is the backbone for civil war. I know that sounds extreme but have you paid attention on social media? Even now, is it unfathomable that we could deteriorate to that level? Y’all, the answers are in the middle. This nation is built on compromise within and unified strength without. We are very, very, very far from that now.
4) The real work is done on the local level. If you want to impact your daily life, learn about local candidates and vote for them. They are more like us. They are still connected and the work they do, impacts you immediately.
5) Finally, let it go. Today is bound to be crazy. And it may not be over today. We know that is possible which, is even crazier. But go vote, or not, and then let it go. There is so much pent up anxiety and fear and hesitation and hand wringing right now. Go do something productive and let this election cycle go. If you are of faith, pray about it. Ask your God to have a hand in it and then let it go. But let’s get back to work. This has been a distraction long enough.
