"BLOODLESS, IF THE LEFT ALLOWS..."
This election is deadly important
I was in such a great mood, after watching Kamala Harris’ Town Hall with Charlamagne tha God that I found myself singing. Harris was SO honest, so honorable, thoughtful, and strong. You can’t talk that way without being grounded first in your own integrity and then in the facts of your case. It’s the basis for great leadership, and she’s got it.
Having not turned on the furnace yet, I was wearing a bathrobe over my clothes, and there I stood, stirring a pot of turkey chili, belting The Battle Hymn of the Republic toward the setting sun.
Turned out I wasn’t alone in thinking of abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe and the way her words apply to these times. Matthew Dowd had some wonderful quotes from her on Twitter.
“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.”
“Disarm, disarm. The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.”
“Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion.”
Maybe Howe’s ghost was popping back to give us a pep talk. Or maybe a ‘battle hymn’ bubbled up from our collective unconscious because we’re feeling the stakes of this election more viscerally as the day comes closer. The great anthem of the Civil War, adapted from John Brown’s Body, fits the moment pretty exactly. This election is a battle, of good vs evil, solidarity vs division, tyranny vs freedom. It has its origins in the issues of the Civil War, and if we win it decisively, it may save us from tyranny.
The work of democracy, to solve problems by majority rule instead of war, has never been so important. Sending another postcard, donating another $20, can feel pretty mundane until you remember that Kevin Roberts of The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 has described this election as “A second American Revolution…bloodless, if the left allows it to be.”
He has it upside down, of course. The American Revolution was fought to end tyranny, and the right is fighting in order to become tyrants. If Democrats and their allies can get the vote out in immense numbers, we can avoid the bloodshed the right wing threatens. Millions deported, women as chattel, a President with powers to imprison and murder his opponents, and a Supreme Court who back him all the way and have already enacted their cruelty in rulings against the rights of women, the homeless, and innocents facing the death penalty.
It’s not ‘just’ an election, because of decisions that court has already made, allowing millions of dark money into campaigns and ending 14th amendment protections for voters. When you look at right wing efforts to stop Democrats from voting, from forcing people to stand in hours long lines to their full-throated campaign to recruit intimidating ‘poll watchers’, Right-wing activists pushed false claims about election fraud. Now they’re recruiting poll workers in swing states. you realize that voting itself has become a heroic act.
I talked to my sister, whose town in Florida, was flooded by Hurricane Helene. Seems like it happened a looong time ago—3 weeks. She’s been sleeping in her gutted trailer, with no water or electricity, and I wanted to convince her to rent a place inland—I’m afraid it’s not only depressing but demoralizing— that she’ll start feeling like this is just the way things are and lose her will to keep going.
I was completely wrong. “It’s so good to be back in my own home,” she wrote. “We have comfort stations two minutes away that have hot showers. Also ones with washers and dryers and lots of bathrooms. The Baptist Church and the Salvation Army and other charities are providing three meals a day. Often if you don’t go to pick a meal up someone will come in a golf cart to give you some.”
“There are tons of cleaning supplies, shovels, rakes, mold spray, bleach, vinegar, toilet paper, laundry detergent. Even dog food, diapers and formula…almost anything you could use or need. They came in today with huge boats to do marine cleanup.”
FEMA has assessed her needs and given her money to get by on until they can do more. A wonderful volunteer has helped my handicapped brother with everything, including finding someone to donate a new hot water heater to replace his. She is a ray of sunshine, a fountain of great ideas, and she listens, and has become a friend.
In fact, the camaraderie, the sense of togetherness in this little town has flourished as they help each other and FEMA and others help them. There’s a long hard road ahead, but they are walking it together and that solidarity, of needing each other and being needed, is giving them hope and strength.
Contrast that with the ‘militias’ who have threatened FEMA workers in other storm-wrecked places. That’s the Republican way, the Trump way. Encourage suspicion and hate, empower violence, stir it up, set it on your enemies. On January 6, 2021, they went to war against the people we have ELECTED to represent us.
There’s been much talk about what makes this group so angry, how we need to feel their pain. Well, forget it. No group has better reason for anger than Black Americans, and again and again and again they have managed, somehow, to forbear and forgive. The parents of children killed in school shootings aren’t forming militias to attack the Capitol. Women pregnant by rape don’t throw molotov cocktails through John Roberts’ windows.
We don’t shoot, we vote. We pass the truth hand to hand. There are many thousands of us at work right now, going door to door, texting to be sure voters get registered in time, that they know the right polling place, and remember to bring their own water.
Yes, our struggle is worthy of a mighty hymn. We’re trampling out the damned vineyard where the grapes of wrath are stored. We’re voting to make men, and women, free.