To Everyone Who Showed Up

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I know it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your vote doesn't matter, that there's nothing you can do to change the outcomes. In a country with Optional Voting, the biggest challenge is always getting people to actually show up to cast their ballot.

For someone like me, in a country where Voting is both Mandatory (OK, the penalty for not voting is a only a $55 fine and general mockery that you didn't just draw a graphic picture on the ballot instead) and subsequently made as easy as possible, it's honestly baffling that anyone would stay at home, especially with so much on the line.

Yet, that's exactly what happened. Nearly half the eligible voting population... didn't.

Thank you for caring enough to make a difference, even when it seemed like the odds were too overwhelming for your vote to have any more impact than throwing a pebble in a river.

One pebble along may make little difference, but many pebbles can dam or divert a river, charting a new course. It's not a quick process, or an easy one, but our efforts do matter, even when it doesn't seem like it.

Thank you for campaigning, for encouraging other voters to register and show up, for speaking up against misinformation or outright lies.

Thank you for refusing to give up on the hope of Democracy, that fragile, precious dream.

That goes for people on both sides, by the way.

I may not agree with your politics, or what you envision as the future of America, but Democracy only works if everyone from both ends of the political spectrum show up, not just one side. Having people with opposing opinions is a good thing; if everyone agrees, then it's not a debate, it's an echo chamber.

Having to work to reach a compromise means that you have to actually try to get people on your side and reach an agreement that benefits the most people, not just the few.

That's the danger of any great majority in politics, Left or Right: the concern that they won't worry about debate, they'll just push through whatever fits their agenda.

Obama and Biden both did things I don't agree with, and things that I believe could have used more dissenting opinions to hammer out the details, even when I agree with the overall outlines.

Trump's first term was a shit-show, but at least then he had established Republicans who knew what they were doing and tried to keep the ship from capsizing entirely.

Given his current cabinet picks, which even Trump seems to realize are going to have trouble getting confirmed, I'm genuinely worried that Trump won't even have that, this time around.

Prioritizing loyalty over competence has never worked out well in the long term. There's a reason we look down on people who got where they are on Nepotism, even when they're actually good at their jobs: we want people in power to be there because they're the best person for the job, not because of who their parents are, or who they went to school with, or who they gave free passes to.

So, in a time when it genuinely feels like the incoming administration is planning how to completely destroy any sense of a functional government, thank you to everyone who tried, in whatever way, to sslow or stop that from happening.

Even if it was a fighting retreat, or a rearguard action, even if all you did was give a red state a little more of a purple tinge...

Thank you.