*steps on a soapbox*
For more than 18 years, I have encouraged readers of this blog to vote in upcoming elections and this year will be no different. On November 5th, I hope you will join me and so many other American citizens in exercising your right (and privilege) to vote.
Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.” Never has that statement more true than this year. To say that this year, your vote is important is perhaps an understatement. There are two people running for President. Both are well-known to the voters. Both have a track record that is public knowledge. One candidate is a former President, who is a convicted felon and who increased the national debt by $7.8 trillion, but says that only he can fix what he has broken. The former President wants to pretend the pandemic wasn’t mismanaged, that women’s healthcare is best managed by state legislatures and that the insurrection of January 6, 2021 was “a day of love.”
The other candidate says we can (and must) build the middle class – better. This candidate says 400,000 dead Americans at the end of the former President’s term prove the pandemic response was mismanaged; and that the government has no business getting between a doctor and his patient. This candidate, who has worked in law enforcement her entire career, says that the January 6 insurrection was an attempt by the former President to thwart the will of 81 million voters who fired him and a direct threat to this nation’s democracy.
Your vote for one of these two people will determine not just what kind of nation we will be for the next four years, but what kind of people our children and grandchildren will be as well. The decisions we make in this election will impact our healthcare, Social Security and Medicare as well as our management of our national debt.
While this election has national implications, as Thomas Phillip O’Neill, Jr., (‘Tip’ to his friends) once said, “All politics is local,” and the late Speaker of the House of Representatives was absolutely right. This election is no exception. The political issues most important to you will always be the local one first. For example, my home resides in the following Districts:
– A Congressional District
– A State Senatorial District
– A Public Service Commission District
– A State Representative District
– A County Judicial District
– A Superior Court of Georgia District
– An Agriculture District
– And finally a City Council District.
Every single one of these Districts will be asking for my vote, my concurrence, on some candidate or issue that will fiscally impact me and mine for years to come. That is a simple fact. And if I haven’t taken the time to know the positions of the candidates and the issues in these 8 Districts – well, I’ll get what I deserve: expensive, but poor Government service.
The most precious thing in the world is a knowledgeable and informed electorate. An electorate that knows what it is voting for and against; that knows the consequences of that vote and knows that they (and they alone) will have to live with the final outcome long after all the pundits that tout the merits of any candidate or issue have gone home. An electorate that can recognize that words have meaning and liars can’t be trusted to look out for anyone’s interest except their own is an electorate that will make good decision.
We should never forget that a democracy is always only one election away from never having elections again and never has that been truer than in this election cycle. We, as a nation, should treat each election cycle as if it might be the last because one day… it just might be. Your vote is important. It is valuable. It is precious, but only if you exercise it.
I encourage you to vote on Tuesday, if you haven’t already, but know what you’re voting for (or against). My name is Bill and I approved this message.
*steps off soapbox*
