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Four years ago, I drove three hundred miles to the nearest potentially competitive state to do Voter Protection in Ohio. From 6:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., I stood outside a polling place in Cincinnati and made sure everyone who was eligible to vote got to vote.
Nothing terribly notable happened at my precinct. Trump won Ohio by almost 450,000 votes, and obviously he won the election.
So, driving back to Tennessee, I got to watch that godforsaken NYT Needle Of Despair tilt further and further towards the red as I cruised down I-65.
So, driving back to Tennessee, I got to watch that godforsaken NYT Needle Of Despair tilt further and further towards the red as I cruised down I-65.
By the time I arrived home around midnight, it was basically over.
So, I sat in my car for a few minutes pondering everything, and wondering why I had just wasted the past day and a half driving 304 miles each way when I hadn't really made a difference.
So, I sat in my car for a few minutes pondering everything, and wondering why I had just wasted the past day and a half driving 304 miles each way when I hadn't really made a difference.
But then I remembered a moment from 2008 when I was working voter protection in South Bend.
Barack Obama was pretty obviously going to win the election, and while Indiana was in play, it was only in play if Obama already had 325+ electoral votes elsewhere.
Barack Obama was pretty obviously going to win the election, and while Indiana was in play, it was only in play if Obama already had 325+ electoral votes elsewhere.
Late in the morning, a car pulled up to the polling place, and a passenger got out. An older black man, probably in his 80's, climbed slowly out of the passenger seat and started walking towards the door.
He was dressed in his Sunday best, but he walked slowly, relying heavily on a cane, and with the hunched back of a man who had lived through some stuff.
He paused for a moment, so I asked him, "sir, are you here to vote?" He heard the question, and he straightened up completely, turned towards me, smiled, and said with obvious emotion in his voice, "yes, yes I am." Then he walked in.
I realized what that must have meant to him. After all he had seen, growing up as a black man in America, he was going to go vote for the first black president of the United States. And damn did I feel it. A man's entire lived experience in one stroll to fill in a little bubble.
We are in a moment that is going to need a lot of explaining down the road. And some day, all of our kids and grandkids are going to ask us about about 2020. We're going to tell crazy tales of pandemics and news cycles from hell and general chaos.
And I want to be able to look my kids in the face and say, "I stood, however briefly, on the side of the right to vote in the face of those who chose power over the fundamental principles of this nation."
Signing up for the right side of history is pretty easy. Find one person who hasn't voted and get them to the polls on Tuesday. Volunteer to help people cure faulty ballots. Hell, stand on a street corner with a sign. But do something. Write your name on a line somewhere.
I'm leaving here in a little bit to drive 608 miles. I hope to see you out there.
