So — acknowledging to the best of my ability the unearned privileges I wake up with every day just because I'm an old, straight, white guy — here's a partial list of things I think matter acutely in the next month … human blessings and liberties I'm convinced the prevailing wing of the Republican Party intends to put an end to starting in 2023, unless we stop them at the ballot box in November 2022 ... and keep stopping them until they regain their senses.
Note: When I say, "I'm convinced Republicans intend this or that", I mean that — regardless of what individual Republicans say they believe or how they behave in private — no coalition of Republican Members of Congress today will [can be counted on to] stop the ones who mean to deprive Americans of these liberties.
- I'm convinced Republicans intend to remove from your LGBT+ friends and family the equal protection provided by law for married people in the US. If you don’t think you know how important those protections are, google "spousal rights".
- I'm convinced Republicans intend to criminalize certain sexual behavior between consenting adults in their private lives. If you don't think you know what that sort of criminalization means, ask an old gay couple.
If they thought they could get away with it, I'm convinced Republicans would manufacture a way to end marriage for mixed race couples … again — I mean that, regardless of what a Republican says they believe in private or how they behave individually, no coalition of Republican Members of Congress today will stop the ones who mean to carry this out if they can find a way.[I’m less concerned about this in 2024 … not saying some wouldn’t seek to restrict mixed race marriages if they could find a way, but I *think* that impulse has lost momentum.]- If you’re a woman, or partnered with a woman, I'm convinced that Republicans intend to control your reproductive healthcare choices no matter what *you* say and no matter what *your doctor and other healthcare professionals* say. I think Republicans intend to remove informed consent in women's health care so you, your sisters, daughters, grand-daughters, aunties, cousins and friends will have no say in your own reproductive health care. [Well…we know how that is playing out.]
- If you’re a woman or girl, I'm [still] convinced that Republicans intend to control your right to travel between states and outside the US in order to keep you from accessing reproductive healthcare outside the state where you live. One more time: No coalition of Republican Members of Congress today will stop the ones who are looking for a pretense to deprive you of the liberty to travel freely. [But states can, and have, and a new Congress could put it to bed, maybe permanently.]
- I'm convinced Republicans intend to roll back access to high quality, affordable healthcare in general — to the point that the worst off citizens in the US are made relentlessly sicker and poorer by high-cost, low quality healthcare where they live.
- I'm convinced that Republicans intend to revise voting districts and extend extraordinary executive powers to partisan elected officials and appointees until they can consistently override the will of voters — so they can override *your* vote, perhaps — in order to assure the election of Republicans and the passing of Republican-backed initiatives and referenda, no matter what.
I'm convinced of all this because Republicans have said they want all this … that they're working on all this … that they will do all this if we don't stop them.
In more normal times, I’ve voted *for* one candidate more often than I voted *against* another. These are not normal times.
Right now, about [180] 300 Republican nominees for national office [US Congress — and the Republican nominees for president and vice president] and [candidates in 14] key statewide offices are election deniers — meaning they deny or refuse to accept the election of President Joe Biden. None of them, as far as I know, deny or refuse to accept that they and other Republicans were duly elected on the same ballot as Joe Biden … it’s just him, so far.
If they’re elected, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that none of these 300 Republican candidates will suddenly decide to resist those in their party who intend to deprive you and your friends and family from the blessings and liberties outlined above (and more that I haven’t included here).
So, let’s elect candidates who won’t deliberately harm people we love or respect (or both).
If you’d like to know which of those 300 candidates are running for office in your state, see https://electiondeniers.org/. I’ve made this Washington Post analysis shareable: https://wapo.st/3eaEJE6.
Consider voting for the Blue candidates who are running against those Republicans … not because you agree at every point, but because you agree on this very important point: We won't stand by (like pretty much every [a majority of] Republicans in Congress) while the prevailing flank of the Republican Party intentionally harms our friends, family members, and fellow citizens, and so hacks away at the roots of democracy.
I think this is just common sense, because there are more of *us* than there are of *them*.
On balance, there are more Democrats than Republicans ... there are more women than men ... there are more young Americans than old ones — who are more likely to have genuine friendships and a lifelong stake in the well-being and human liberties of friends and family members who Republicans are dead set on harming unless we stop them.
If we vote Blue in November, then do it again in 2024, and every two years for the rest of our lives ... If young voters take over the Democratic Party and make it better — more just ... more inclusive ... more equitable ... more humane ... more of everything they care about — we will elect visionary leaders who will coalesce around, not so much making America *great* as making America genuinely *good* [h/t Pepper Henderson].
What else is there but to register and vote as if voting Blue really matters [right now] in 2022 — because it really does.
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