Voting Is Your Most Important Right

In 2016, about 43% of eligible voters did not even bother to cast a ballot. How this could have changed the last 4 years, we will never know.

2020 sees us in the middle of a pandemic that is out of control. The West Coast is burning. We have had 23 named storms in the Atlantic, with still 2 months of hurricane season left to go. Millions are out of work, and thus, also without healthcare. People in every major city have taken to the streets in protest. There have been riots and looting. Vigilantes are showing up with guns. The people of this country are becoming more and more divided! Where is our leadership while all of this is happening?

I've had to ask myself a few times in the past month if I have waken up in another country. I ask myself this, because what I see looks nothing like the country I knew before 2020. We are the most divided that I've seen in my lifetime! So much of the progress made has been lost. Civil rights are being threatened. LGBTQ+ rights are being threatened. Women's rights are being threatened. Religious freedoms (or the freedom to not practice a religion) are being threatened! It's like something from a dystopian novel.

As of late, our Republic...our Democracy...has been threatened! In 2016, when Justice Scalia passed away a full 8 months ahead of the election, the GOP-led Senate refused to take up President Obama's Supreme Court nominee. They claimed to believe that a Justice should not be confirmed in an election year...that the voice of the people should be heard. Four years later, with just 43 days until the election, the same GOP-led Senate is in a hurry to confirm whomever President Trump nominates for the position! They are back-tracking on the the precedent that they, themselves, set 4 years ago.

At the same time, it was reported in Forbes just yesterday (9/20/2020) that President Trump stated during his rally the night prior, "...maybe I'll sign an executive order that you cannot have him as your president." This statement comes after months of attacks by this administration against our voting system, and indications that any results that did not mean a Trump re-election would be contested. There are many who laugh off the comment as one of Trump's many jokes, such as possibly serving more than two terms. However, comments like this are not jokes. They need to be taken seriously!

If you are paying attention, you are well aware that history is repeating itself. Many can think of another time where nationalism was at the forefront of a political movement...a time that brought on a global war. A time where people were divided, and even others were persecuted simply because they were "born different" or practiced a different religion. We are watching this unfold right before our eyes right now, and yet so many are blind to it.

We can't allow this to be a close race! We need to get out and vote! We need to take our country back! This is not the time to sit home and claim your vote does not count. A vote never cast will never count, while any vote cast has the chance of making a difference. We have to take our country back. Biden may not be the ideal candidate. I know he is not the candidate I want. While not perfect, he is the only choice we have to get us back on the right track. Once we get our country back, then we can work on putting someone in office who can start to move us forward once again.