We are less than 48 hours removed from not just another consequential election, but perhaps the most consequential election in our 248 year American experiment with self government.

A clear majority of those citizens who chose to care enough to exercise their most sacred societal duty have decided, whether they know it or not, to send a message back in time to our founding generation that they are not concerned about checks and balances, moral decency, logical reasonings, or those pesky things called facts.

As President Lincoln so aptly put it– “If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and reassert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.” 

Our nation was born in the Age of Reason, but we now live in the Age of Emotion.  So what do we do, those of us who will not abandon logic to embrace lies, who will not trade facts for fear, who will not sell our honor to service hate?

We will do what we have always done.  We will take time to process the loss, gather ourselves, dust ourselves off, and continue our efforts to be the change we wish to see.  For the battle between darkness and light will be with us for as long as humans walk this earth, and while defeats will happen, we shall never surrender.  

Yesterday I mourned and grieved as if there was a death in the family, and there was.  The America I thought I knew had perished.  Maybe it never existed outside of my heart and my mind.  Maybe it never will exist in my lifetime. But I want it to. I need it to.

I do not yet know what the final shape or form will be of my efforts on behalf of the cause over the next 4 years, but I do know what we need:  

We need everyone to not lose heart, to not lose faith

We need empathy, even for those we disagree with

We need resolve, to never forget that our cause is just

We need to trust, that while the arc of the moral universe is long, that it bends towards justice

We need people of good will towards all to keep running for elective offices from sea to shining sea, even if they lose, because our kids are watching

We need to continue our efforts to educate and inform our fellow citizens about the many nonpartisan reforms that will get us all better candidates, and that the sooner we pass them, the faster all of the issues we all might care about can be truly fixed and addressed.  

That is the opportunity before us all. 

I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, toil, and tears.