Vote to kick them out

Vote.

By voting in this election… and only by voting… can we begin to break the political fever that is sickening this country and provoking violence against blacks and Jews and attacks on politicians and our government.

Politicians are simple. Like dogs, they understand rewards and punishments.

This coming Tuesday, Nov. 6, the election is solely about telling Republicans we have had enough:

Enough of the heated political rhetoric; the welcoming of racist movements and racially-motivated violence; the degradation of public school teachers; undermining of credibility and public faith in our intelligence community; and deriding the media as “enemy of the people”…

Enough brazen efforts to prevent people from voting, particularly black Americans, because they trend Democratic.

Enough lies, fostering of hatred and depicting people and classes of people as evil, criminals and worse.

Enough of spineless, Republican followers who don’t have the courage to speak out, unless they are retiring from office.

All of this that the Republicans have created and allowed must be repudiated. Only voting for Democrats can send that message.

Only voting Democrats into office can begin to put an end to the hate and division in this country.

I can hear it already: “But Democrats are just as bad…”

Really?

Sure. Some Democrats and those on the extreme-left have gone too far, engaging in divisive rhetoric. But there is no honest comparison between a man who embarrasses himself by yelling Mitch McConnell out of a restaurant… and a president declaring himself a “nationalist,” or who finds “very fine people on both sides.”

Democrats want you to be afraid that McConnell might actually deliver on his stated goal to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — a serious issue.

Republicans, on the other hand, want you to be afraid that a caravan of Muslims is making its way to the U.S. from Honduras — a concocted threat.

There is no comparing Obama’s “Yes we can” and Trump’s “American carnage.”

There is no comparing Obama working to unify the country and singing “Amazing Grace” after a mass shooting in a South Carolina church… and Trump saying the mass shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue would have had a better outcome if worshipers had more security.

I wish this election could be a referendum on basic gun control legislation. Common-sense things such as:

Allowing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence, the epidemic that kills over 30,000 people every year.

Banning extended magazines.

Banning AR-15 assault rifles.

Expanding background checks and extending wait periods.

Vetting peer-to-peer, intra-family exchanges, closing the gun show loophole and ending internet sales.

We can’t even begin that debate until voters tell Trump, Gov. Matt Bevin and GOP lawmakers, “Enough.”

Not voting is a vote for the status quo — Trump’s and Bevin’s status quo.

Not voting sends your signal that, “Eh, I can live with this.”

The calculation is not complicated: A vote for the Republican Party is an affirmation of all of it — Trump’s lies, Bevin’s insults and a state legislature that passed right-to-work and abortion limits on the first days of the session.

Reckless behavior, racist dog whistles, fear mongering… All of it.

The Republican Party, which controls every branch of government both federally and in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, should be ashamed of the way it has led… and it should not be rewarded for it.

Vote.

This article appears in October 31, 2018.