Often, if you pay attention, the smallest pattern of action is a fractal revealing the bigger picture.
For instance, a small pattern of action: when Kamala Harris first became the Democratic nominee for president, many of our neighbors had to display their yard signs from inside their houses; if left outside their signs disappeared.
Bigger picture: the maga-candidate and his supporters promise to erase all voices of opposition. It is their pledge, their vow, the entirety of their platform.
Our democracy is a two-party system founded on the principle of healthy debate. In other words, opposition, the active engagement with opposing points of view is the magic ingredient of our form of governance . Our vote is the sacred epicenter of the ongoing, healthy debate. Our vote is literally our voice in the debate. It is how we sustain and perpetuate the gift of democracy.
Democracy is never finished. It is not a place of arrival. It is not a noun. It is an ongoing, living process, imperfect and messy, that generation to generation strives toward a more perfect union. It is an action, a verb. We are what we do. Today -and every day – we are the stewards of this high ideal: government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Today, unlike any other vote of our lives or our parents’ or grandparents’ lives, our great-grandparents’ lives – democracy in on the ballot. Kamala Harris has been clear: she will ensure that voices of opposition have a seat at the table. That is the way of democracy.
The maga-candidate has been clear: he intends to arrest and silence all voices of opposition. He will, if necessary, use the military to do it. He’s labeled voices of opposition as “the enemy within”. That is the way of fascism.
Removing opposition silences the debate and smothers the breath of democracy.
Small pattern: over time, more and more Harris/Walz signs showed up in yards, moving from inside the house to the outside where they belong.
Big picture: the voice of opposition grows stronger, louder, more vibrant, when tyrants attempt to repress it. That, too, is an American tradition. It’s in our dna, our national character. We don’t like it when we are stripped of our freedoms. As Kamala Harris reminded us, our nation was established when a petty tyrant tried to suppress our voices and restrict our rights; when the petty tyrant tried to eliminate our freedoms he unleashed an uncontrollable voice of opposition. We the people.
248 years later, another petty tyrant promises, if elected (ironically) to remove all voices of opposition. Opposition stands in the way of his lust for absolute power. He vows to abolish the magic ingredient. He is committed to the eradication of democracy, the birth of fascism. He’s already begun his erasure of opposition by once again claiming without evidence that our elections are corrupt.
And so, today, our choice could not be clearer. Today, we exercise our right of voice. We will either carry forward our inheritance of healthy opposition or we will fall into the petty divide and end it.
Today we weigh in on the debate. Democracy or fascism? We vote.
read Kerri’s blogpost about VOTE
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The Direction of Intention 