Most midterms don’t carry dire consequences, but this year they certainly do. This year, we all need to put aside our emotions, and possibly our personal beliefs, at least temporarily, and vote purely from a place of logic, reason, and ethics.
Our founding fathers spent a great deal of time and thought drawing up the Constitution. They laid out a complex set of rules designed to protect our democracy and to prevent the consolidation of power. They created a system of checks and balances to safeguard against the rise of monarchs and oligarchs. Currently that system is not functioning because a group of people in power have repeatedly chosen to ignore the rules laid out in the Constitution. The group that I’m referring to is the Republican Party.
Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or independent, you need to put serious thought into how you vote on November 6th. You need to forget about the hot button topics like immigration, gun control, or abortion, and simply focus on the idea of lawfulness vs. unlawfulness. This election is not about left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, it is about whether or not we believe in following the Constitution. This election is about holding officials accountable to the rule of law. If you vote Republican in November, what you are saying is: the Constitution is optional, that the rules of government need only be followed when they suit the needs of those in power.
The Republican Party has shown a frightening willingness to bend and even break the rules to obtain party goals. There have been many such instances, but few are as obvious, and as dangerous, as what has happened with the Supreme Court. Again, let’s put aside our emotions, I don’t want to open a debate about sexual assault or alcohol consumption, but rather to focus on ethics and accountability. The Senate’s job in confirming a justice to the Supreme Court is to ensure the justice meets the highest standards. Throughout the Kavanagh proceedings, the Republican members of the senate were completely negligent in their duty. In 2016, this same group of Republicans ignored the rules of government by refusing to even discuss the nomination of Merrick Garland. Mr. Garland had been lawfully nominated by the sitting President. If the senators had felt Mr. Garland unfit, after holding confirmation hearings, then they could have chosen not to confirm him. Instead, they chose to violate the Constitution and nullify presidential power by leaving the seat vacant for over a year until a member of their own party entered the White House. There is no gray area here. Senate Republicans violated the constitution in 2016. When you vote Republican, you’re supporting these violations.
The Congress, Presidency, and Supreme Court were given specific powers and instructions to serve as a check on one another to ensure that our government functions as a proper democracy. If leaders choose to only follow the rules when it is convenient for them, the whole system breaks down. Rules are often inconvenient, but they need to be followed to ensure the rights and safeties of everyone. Imagine for a moment, if your town council deemed a traffic light in your neighborhood to be “optional.” They didn’t remove the light, they just left it up to each driver to decide whether to obey it or not. It might seem convenient, say if you were late for work, to have the ability to blow through the red light, but it would also be exceedingly dangerous for you and everyone else on the road. In fact, if you knew such an intersection existed, would you even attempt to drive through it? Yet, this exceedingly dangerous crossroad is precisely what current Republican leadership is building.
If you care about democracy, if you care about the constitution of the United States, then it is imperative that you vote Democrat in 2018. If we do not restore balance to the government, then the whole system could crumble. Again, pause your feelings about specific political issues, and think about the larger picture. Currently, the Republicans control the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and are in the process of stacking the Supreme Court. I’m not advocating for total domination by the Democratic Party either, but simply preserving the checks and balances that were written into the U.S. Constitution.
A message needs to be sent to the Republicans in power: the Constitution is not optional; the rule of law must be adhered to. Once balance has been restored, and a system of accountability returns to Washington, DC, I would encourage you to vote for whatever party you deem worthy, just make sure that party is showing its worth. If you are Republican, demand more from your leadership. Let them know it is not OK to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they want to follow. This isn’t a party issue, this is an American issue.
I would like to end this with one very serious thought. I want you to think about this, repeatedly, between now and when you cast your vote November 6, 2018. Let’s fast forward to the 2020 election and ask yourself this question: if Donald Trump runs for another term in 2020, and loses the election, do you believe he will leave office voluntarily? Over the past 200 years or so, this would have seemed a ridiculous question – But consider everything we’ve seen from Trump so far. This is a man who, to this day, still contests the results of the election that he won. How do you think he will react if he loses? It is highly probable that Trump will contest the results of the 2020 election, and refuses to step down from office; should that happen, it will be up to Congress to remove him from the White House. So then, you need to ask this follow-up question: would the Congress, as currently comprised, be willing to perform that duty? From everything we’ve seen over the past two years, the answer to that question is a resounding “No”.
This means that essentially the 2020 Presidential election has already been decided. One of two things will occur: 1. Trump wins the election fairly or 2. Trump loses the election, refuses to concede, and Congress allows him to stay in office – at which point our democracy ceases to exist. We will no longer need to worry if Vladimir Putin interfered in our elections, because we will have our own version of Putin to contend with sitting in the White House. This may seem far-fetched but with all that has gone on in Washington over the past few years, is it really hard to imagine? More importantly, are you willing to take that gamble? Because that is what is at stake with the election next week: If we do not change the completion of Congress on November 6th, the outcome I just described is a very real possibility. So please, think long and hard about what is important to you and the future of our country.
If we can return balance to our government, then our democracy can survive and thrive. If we have checks and balances, if we have a variety of ethical leaders who follow the rule of law, then all those other problems can be worked out. However, if we continue on the current course, where one political party pulls all the strings, and one small group of unlawful men forces their decisions upon us, then the Constitution of the United States will soon be a historical footnote. Our system of government was designed to prevent a dictatorship, but in order for that happen, we must all demand our leaders follow the rules and if they don’t we must replace them before it is too late.
#VoteThemOut #BlueWave #SwingLeft
3am Cynic 