People of America,

I propose we join together to defeat the evil.

I propose we participate in the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort for Hillary Clinton.

I propose we sign up now.

Take me for example. I, being cool, live in Brooklyn. New York will, absenting a great reality-earthquak, vote for Clinton. But New York is next to Pennsylvania, a swing-state. Therefore, I should mail in my ballot, take off Novemeber 8th, and let rich concerned Democrats bus me to Philadelphia. If I couldn’t excuse myself from the workaday on November 8th, then I’d need to go to Philadelphia during the weekend and stump.

Why should I behave in this manner? And should I do so even if I was convinced Hillary was going to win with or without my bothering?

This country and it’s people and it’s world all actually exist and matter.
Representative democracy is the best form of government around.
Donald Trump–who is dictatorial, misogynist, and xenophobic; and who is uninformed and unthoughtful says whatever pops into his head and then demands everyone believe what he’s said–points away from wisdom in regards to both specific policy decisions and the integrity of the democratic process.
The republican party stopped offering workable ideas (ex: budgets that add up) decades ago.
The country is divided along party lines to the point that we can no longer believe that people supporting the other party are both mentally competent and decent.
We don’t debate policy decisions; choosing instead to go haywire over general policy differences.

What is to be done?

We need to at least be present in this election. We who feel sick at what has happened and that it has gotten so far need to go out and push against the disaster. And the disaster is Trump but it is also what has made his candidacy possible. The disaster is nonparticipation of the mind and heart. The disaster is participating with desperate hopes, fears, and prides rather than participating with thinking and feeling about what is really at stake and what is really possible.

We need to show up. We need to show up and say that we are shook up about what has happened in the last thirty years and we are desperate for all of us to wake up before it is too late. How many have fought and died for the promise of a nation where the citizens kept the rulers in check? And all we have to do is show up: how could we not?

So let’s all pick a day in the next month and go door to door for this vision: A representative democracy where the citizens pay attention and take responsibility and act responsibly and demand politicians who also pay attention and take responsibility and act responsibly.