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Listen, we wanted another Obama. A clear, strong choice, a new leader, change we could believe in. Something brand new that challenged the establishment, and did it in a thrilling and trustworthy way. Someone who isn’t pushing 100. A breakout star. The collective American exhale, the Hail Mary we would all stand up to cheer, a grateful nation’s hallelujah.
The 2008 election catalyzed and mobilized so many first-time voters; it felt electric: do you remember the inauguration with Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace? My roommates and I sat around the TV and cried. It was the stuff of dreams.
We haven’t been offered another Obama this year. What we have been offered, however, is a choice between hate and love. Between cruelty and kindness. Between baffling inhuman coldness and grandfatherly empathy.
Why would you vote against love?
Pardon me for invoking Holocaust literature, but pardon you for not seeing the parallels in this moment: today they went after [insert group that does not resemble you]; you stand idly by. Tomorrow, my son, it will be you, and you will be facing the tyrant alone.
Division does not win, in the end, because it is the opposite of life. Life is created in communion. There is no other way.
Isn’t this way exhausting? Don’t you ache to see a light, some reprieve? Don’t we desperately need a real leader? Now, maybe more than ever?
Don’t you have dreams that are more worthy of your precious and limited earthly attention? Anything you’ve ever dreamed to create, having absolutely nothing to do with who is the president? Don’t you crave the release of this constant tension? How could you not want to be free to find your thing before you leave? And pursue it and make something beautiful, something you really mean? Don’t you yearn to manifest your raison d’être? Isn’t this shitshow a hindrance to your hero’s journey?
At the very least, the contrast is stark. And without a change of regime (which is what this administration sure feels like–brutal and without choice), this thing will go on another four years. It will definitely grow worse. And it will impact every facet of our daily lives for many years beyond.
Do we want this for our children? For ourselves? Do we really? Is your fear and hatred of the other so profound that you would truly vote against the happiness and freedom of your own grandchildren? Would you?
In any event. If you’re voting Biden, be sure to cast your ballot by November 3. Voting for anyone else? Good news! They’ve extended the deadline. Show up at your polling place anytime after November 4 for peak red hat rashes.
C’mon, ‘merica.
For the love of each other, for the impatient queue of our own dreams, and for the small people to whom we will leave this country, let’s get this one right.
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