We’re at a pivotal moment, with two clear paths.
No matter your age today, there might come a time when a young person you care about asks where you were in 2020, and what you did to stop Donald Trump and his enablers. Stop them from taking away women’s right to bodily autonomy. Stop them from outlawing protest. Stop them from legalizing vigilantism. Stop them from denying people their right to vote. Stop them from requiring their religion in schools. Stop them from poisoning the air and heating the planet. Stop them from attacking journalists. Stop them from ending lawful oversight of the presidency. Stop them from allowing a pandemic to rage out of control. Stop them from breaking apart families and putting children in cages. Stop them from stealing power if voted out, as Trump pledged to do this week.
These aren’t exaggerations. Those are their policies, voiced by their leader and backed up by his partners in Washington and by Republican politicians across America. Trump, his administration, and his cheerleaders are already doing these things. If they are allowed to retain power, they will only get worse.
Reading this right now, with just 30 days until early voting begins, you might scoff at that dark outlook (I hope you’re right). Or you might have read a little history and seen the last four years, and you might see the threat.
You might also see the promise. You might see the opportunity that lies before America, led mostly by young people, to work for a better future. For a future where racist systems are reformed, where environmental justice is weighed as part of economic prosperity, where the world’s riches are not increasingly kept in the pockets of fewer and fewer men while others go hungry. A future where you can get an education and go to a doctor if you’re sick—without going into debt. A future where you can trust your President and trust that the government has your back. That future, and more, is sadly only possible today if we elect Democrats (at which point the work begins).
You might feel like there’s nothing you can do. But there is. For 40 days, America has the chance to vote.
If you’re reading this you’re probably already planning to cast your ballot. But not everyone is—not here in Cornwall, nor around the country. How can you help people make a plan to vote for Joe Biden, and for every other Democratic candidate on their ballot? It’s vitally important even in “safe,” “blue” New York.
Here are some ways: TAKE ACTION
None of us, alone, can change the outcome of a national election. But together we can. Choose something from the list linked above, and do it with a smile. Because there may come a day, when this grim period in America starts to fade into history, that a kid turns to you and says “where were you? What was it like? What did you do?”
I plan to answer “I did what I could.”
