vote

There is no perfect candidate.

There is no perfect cause.

If you are waiting for either before you head to the polls, you will never vote.

And that is why he is president today.

Two years ago, we were given an imperfect choice.  After a bruising primary, too many were left feeling left out by a system that they believed was rigged to coronate Hilary Clinton as the nominee on the left.  Bernie supporters, mortified by Hilary, and perhaps simply not ready to support anyone but Bernie, stayed home.  Hilary was too much like Bill.  Bill represented an old order they no longer believed in.  Hilary represented a sense of self-entitlement.  Hilary was in the eyes of many, a throw back to the back rooms of yore and corrupt beyond redemption. 

I did not believe this.  I did not believe she was a good candidate either, and would have preferred another nominee from the left. But Hilary is what we got.  And Hilary is who I voted for.

But many told me they could not in good conscience vote for her, regardless of him.

To be sure, they could not vote for him either.  They saw in him what we all see in him to this day.

But they could not vote for her.

While they campaigned against him and everything he stood for and stands for to this day, they still could not pull the lever for her.

So they voted for Johnson.  Or wrote in Biden.  Or Bernie.  Or Mickey Mouse.

Or worse, they stayed home.

And every one of those votes was a vote for him, because they were not a vote against him.

Even the ones who stayed home.

All because she was not the perfect candidate.

There is no perfect candidate.

On Tuesday, there is no perfect candidate.

But there is a way to make sure we do not make the same mistake.

By not voting in 2016, by voting a symbolic gesture of defiance, we were, in effect, voting for him, and we ended up with him.

And as a result, we ended up with:

A government that cares more for billionaires and multinational corporations than for the rest of us, and so they "reformed" the tax system on the backs of the rest of us to the big boys' benefit.

A government in which the ends justify the means, in which winning, whatever that means, takes precedence over doing what is right.

A government that does not believe in climate change, and will let us all die rather than address it, even those billionaires, just so that they do not have to make the hard choices to save the planet.

A government that thinks nothing of separating children from their families just because they don't look like us, and they don't sound like us.

A government that does not believe that health care is a fundamental right of all people.

A government that does not believe that voting is a fundamental right of all people, especially if they think some of those people are going to vote against them.

A government that thinks it can define away the very existence of a chunk of society that is larger than they think simply due to an outmoded form of bigotry and a colossal show of ignorance.

A government that thinks they have the right to tell you what to do with your own body if you are a woman.

A government that thinks they have the right to tell you who you are entitled to fall in love with and marry.

A government in which it is okay to assault women because it's just boys being boys.

A government in which people who seek to stand up for their rights and the rights of others are arrested, threatened with arrest or vilified in terms we used to send children to detention for if they dared say in school.

A government in which science and intellectual reasoning are either ignored or considered a weakness.

A government in which autocrats, fascists, madmen and tyrants are held in higher esteem than our oldest and most trusted allies.

A government that thinks there are many fine people among nazis or members of the ku klux klan.

A government that believes that a free press, the very bedrock of our Constitution, is the enemy of the people.

A government that allows people to be shot while attending a music festival, children to be shot over and over again while attending school, people to be shot while praying, all so gun manufacturers can make more money.

Look at this list.  This is what you voted for last time, or what you might vote for again, all because there is no perfect candidate.

Look at the list.

There is no perfect candidate.

There is no perfect cause.

There is what you believe in, and what direction you believe the country should take.  If you vote, you can influence in your way, the only way the Constitution gives you, the direction we go in.  If you do not vote because there is no perfect candidate or perfect cause, you will have once again voted for him, and you will have gotten what you deserve.

Look at that list and think of other items that could also be on that list.

There is no perfect candidate.

But each of us can be that perfect citizen.

VOTE.  VOTE. VOTE.