Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism. 1951.
Because we’re all confused, exhausted, scared, distrustful of others and especially our public institutions. Because we are voting during a plague which has widened every inequity in our society. Because we are voting under an administration that supposedly represents America, but only works to benefit a small number of Americans, and makes life significantly harder for everyone else.
- The Trump administration has
- systematically disassembled federal agencies,
- loaded the courts with Trump loyalists,
- fired whistleblowers,
- forced out inspectors general, and
- incited violence by police and white supremacists.
- Russian misinformation campaigns are working to tip the electoral balance toward Trump, just as they did in 2016.
- Meanwhile, ICE is still keeping migrants and asylum-seekers in cages along the Mexican border.
- Police officers are still killing Black Americans disproportionately; too many are still getting away with it.
- Five months into a global pandemic, Americans are still
- dying in large numbers,
- losing jobs in large numbers,
- feeling immense pressure to come out of isolation in large numbers.
Voting has always mattered. It matters now, more than many other years, because everything we’re seeing in this moment? It can get worse. It will get worse if Trump stays in office. Trump himself is a vindictive narcissist, but it would be a mistake to judge him as a joke. The people he surrounds himself with are ruthless in hiding behind the chaos he spreads, shoring up power for themselves, exploiting every legal loophole they can find.
We cannot afford to be complacent. We have to vote Trump and his enablers out of office.