Photo courtesy of Jeanette D. Moses |
To My Siblings in the Swing States:
I bet you are angry, and rightly so. Where we focus this anger is more important now than ever.
I can not imagine what it’s like to experience the barrage of advertising that you have had to endure leading up to today. The total amount spent on the Presidential and Senate races stands at over $10 BILLION. Our representatives literally spend more time fundraising than legislating to meet the needs of their constituents. Disgusting.
The vast majority of our elected representatives have sold out the American people for campaign contributions. The ones who don’t are being voted out of office in primaries where they’re outspent by special-interest-backed opponents. The will of the people has a “near zero, statistically insignificant effect on how they vote”. No matter how we vote, we can’t get our representatives to stop corporations from polluting our food, air, and water, let alone ensure that a 40-hour weekly wage can afford a middle class American Dream.
We are quietly experiencing class warfare, and people who work for a living are being pummeled. We’ve allowed the “United” States of America to become divided into two “sides” that both function only to serve the ruling class. So many of us are struggling as the systems that have historically supported our way of life continue to be corrupted and crumble.
It’s a disgrace that the United States isn’t a representative democracy, but instead an endless parade of loopholes, bureaucracy, waste and corruption. In the 2016 election, Trump “won the electoral college” despite receiving nearly three million fewer votes, losing with only 46.09% of the popular vote. Every six years, massively disproportional populations elect two Senators, no matter if they’re representing the 38.97 million constituents in California or Wyoming with less than 600,000 constituents. Not all voters are counted the same in our so-called democracy.
I have been feeling so angry at the direction of public discourse surrounding this election and the current state of the world. Somehow, as it so often does, “the economy” is the issue at the forefront of every voter’s mind. It pains me. As if the GDP percentage increases matter to the average working person, or the President has ANY control over the corporations that increase the cost of goods and services every time we blink.
Most of us are struggling to afford to live a life with dignity with a sense of safety and community. The average pay and the average cost of living simply don’t add up. Folks are making decisions about which meal or medicine to forego while they’re only two missed paychecks from losing their homes. None of this is working for us.
Companies are knowingly manufacturing 5,000+ cancer-causing “forever chemicals” that wind up in our food, clothes and drinking water. One side is patting themselves on the back for trying to ban six of them, and the other side is promoting ending safety regulation altogether and allowing the free market to self-regulate.
Neither “side” will commit to stop sending our weapons to a government that has used them to kill over 2% of the entire Palestinian civilian population. So far. While the continued supply is in violation of both U.S. and International law, the U.S. Presidential election will do nothing to end this genocide. Horrific.
A thriving government is supposed to be a space where the best ideas for the good of all are put forward and then acted upon. Instead, we have a system corrupt to the core. Since the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision, unlimited and untraceable amounts of money have been legally spent on our electoral process. It is killing our democracy.
Despite this deluge of truth about our deeply flawed system, I beg you to meet this moment and vote.
The term fascist shouldn’t be used lightly. I was recently reminded of its definition by John Kelly, Trump’s longest serving Chief of Staff and a retired Marine Corps General. He said, “Well looking at the definition of fascism…” then defines it, and concludes, “The former President is in the far right area. He’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators…”
Another former Army General was covered last month in the Washington Post: “Mark Milley, the country’s top military official during the last two years of Mr. Trump’s presidency, privately told the journalist Bob Woodward that Mr. Trump is a “fascist to the core” and said his pursuit of another four years in office makes him “the most dangerous person to this country,” Mr. Trump…has called General Milley a “loser” and worse, and has suggested that the decorated military officer should be executed for treason because of efforts to ease concerns among foreign leaders after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters.
We cannot let fascism thrive in our government. It’s important to recognize that Trump has been denounced by the most senior members of his own administration, including his Vice President Mike Pence, multiple Secretaries of Defense and a long list of lifelong Republicans who watched him do the job day to day. The previous Republican ticket of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have declined to endorse Trump and fully endorsed Harris respectively. That’s got to count for something as it’s completely without precedent in American politics.
To vote for Donald Trump is to ignore years of actions that have disqualified him as a legitimate American representative. This person represents the antithesis of American ideals, from democracy as a concept to the tenants of the constitution itself.
He continues to make false claims about voter fraud and claimed he won the election he lost despite never once providing a shred of evidence in dozens of court cases or media appearances. He incited an insurrection on Jan. 6 and had no regard for the safety of his own Vice President, let alone Capitol Police or Congress. Under threat of prosecution, he demanded officials in Georgia “find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”
The list goes on, and it is painful to relive knowing that none of this has been a red line crossed for tens of millions of our fellow citizens. How have we gotten here?
I wish my vote mattered as much as yours, my siblings in the swing states, but under our current nonsensical and corrupt system it just doesn’t. The 2016 election was decided by less than 78,000 votes across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The third parties had more than enough votes to close that gap, and I’m afraid that voters who reject the two major parties might give it away to Trump again. If we had ranked choice voting at the federal level, then we might be able to break this unjust two party duopoly, but this is the hell we’re living through right now.
Those who seek to divide us from our families and our neighbors do so because it’s in their best interest to keep us fighting among ourselves. They know that once the working class unites against the ruling class, we will be unstoppable to dismantle their systems of brutality. They tell us that immigrants, the press and those with opposing views are enemies. They lie about easily verifiable truths and implore us to believe their “alternative facts”. All the while, they’re robbing us blind, squeezing us for every cent, every moment of attention where they can serve us another advertisement.
Regardless of who wins the presidency, we the people deserve meaningful reform to our electoral process and our system of government as a whole. If for the third time in a generation the popular vote is nullified by the electoral college, might that be the spark that lights the flame? Please keep that in mind when you vote in a state where “your vote doesn’t matter” because it just might.
We must unite across the political spectrum and come together to deliver for the working class and act where we align. But it matters who we rise up against. If we’re living under a fascist authoritarian who aims to turn our military against our own citizens, we are doomed. Use your righteous anger to help create positive change.
Please, vote for Harris today. Tomorrow, we can get back to doing the real work. We must unite against the climate crisis and keep our planet habitable. We must unite to bring healthcare as a human right to all and stop the needless suffering of our siblings. We must unite to reform our corrupt government and make it work for us all. We must unite these divided states to make a more perfect union for the working class. We can and we will be, out of many, one.
Thomas Whidden is an activist, Teamster and the drummer/vocalist for LOCATIONS.