At last.....

Election ballots were mailed to voters throughout Oregon a few days ago, and mine is already here.  Voting to re-elect our Democratic Governor and Representative is a no-brainer, of course (there's no Senate race in Oregon this year), but some of the more local non-partisan races will take a little research.  Fortunately everybody gets a massive pamphlet of voter information as well, and of course my mailbox has been awash in propaganda for days.

Northern Illinois University recently released a map ranking the states by how easy it is to vote in each one, and our state ranks first in the country.  So no one who lives here has any excuse for not voting.  We're one of three states where all voting is by mail, and there are even ballot drop-boxes all over the place for those who don't want to spend their hard-earned money on a stamp.

No doubt you've seen the reports of high turnout for early voting (notably in Texas, though it ranks 46th on NIU's map) and how this could be a good sign for Democrats.  But don't get overconfident -- it's also being reported that the early vote is skewing heavily Republican.  In 2016 most people were sure that Trump would lose, leading the marginally motivated to feel secure enough to throw away their vote on a third candidate or not bother to vote at all.  Never again.

All over the net you'll see the voices of cynicism and discouragement -- "voting doesn't change anything", "both parties are the same", etc.  It's hard to tell which of these are Russian trolls up to their usual tricks and which ones are genuine ideological idiots up to their usual tricks, but in practice the difference doesn't matter.  The real-world effect, either way, is the same -- to help Republicans.

If voting didn't change anything, the Republicans wouldn't be working so hard to discourage "the wrong people" from doing it -- most notably in Georgia and North Dakota, but they're pulling this kind of crap everywhere in the country where they have enough power to do it, even in Kansas, which you'd think would be a safe state for them, if anywhere is.  The enemy knows that voting matters.  A lot.  That's exactly why they want you to believe it doesn't.

As for "both parties are the same", it's astounding that the Bush administration wasn't enough to disabuse everyone of such drivel, but after two years of Trump, the level of willful blindness it requires verges on insanity.  One party's President nominated Kavanaugh and its Senators voted almost unanimously to confirm him; the other party's Senators voted almost unanimously against him.  One party has been fighting for years to destroy the ACA and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions (even if some of them are now lying about it as they see how unpopular their stance is); the other has been fighting like hell to preserve it.  One party is pushing to legalize discrimination against gay people and even dreams of taking away their right to marry; the other supports equality before the law.  One party openly demands the gutting of Social Security and Medicare to pay for the gargantuan tax cut they just gave to the wealthiest; the other will keep those things safe for you when you eventually need them.  One party has kowtowed and made excuses and dodged the subject every time Trump let loose with some vicious rhetorical attack on journalists, minorities, scientists, and anyone else who dares stand up to him, while giving the thugs in Charlottesville a pass; the other -- well, it's impossible to imagine Hillary, Bernie, or any other plausible Democratic President behaving that way, nor would the rest of the party let them get away with it if they did.

I could go on for pages.  You know I could.  There has never been a time in living memory when the differences between the parties were so vast and the stakes so dire.

If you won't vote for your own sake, do it for the people in Georgia, North Dakota, and across the country who have been robbed of the right their grandparents had to fight so hard for.