You're no patriot if you support the people openly attempting to subvert and destroy democracy. You have no right to fly the flag that has wrapped the corpses of men and women who gave their lives to preserve our flawed republic. Even if all the lying right-wing pundits were somehow right about democrats putting litter boxes in classrooms or intentionally raising the price of gas for some reason, it still wouldn't justify supporting the very party that is telling us all, right out in the open, that it won't accept the democratic process anymore, and that its people will use violence should they lose to the will of the American people at the polls.
I'm not a dyed in the wool Democrat. In fact, I'm not even a registered Democrat. Most of the time, the Democratic Party and the policies they enact suck. The party is full of hypocrites who would gladly hide war crimes and immigrant abuses behind a veneer of progressive platitudes. I truly wish that there were Greens or Libertarians or even Republicans that could put up an actual challenge to a party that isn't nearly as radically pro-freedom and anti-authoritarian as Republican pundits pretend to be. At the end of the day, we have to make grown up decisions and disregard purity tests and perfectionism, and I tend to support politicians, sometimes albeit begrudgingly, that I know will at the very least get out of office if I vote her out the next go round, over a frothing at the mouth lunatic who thinks one of the biggest political disasters in American history is secretly leading the fight against a nefarious cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles.
The small handful of Republicans who are loyal to their oaths, the ones who have courageously stood up to the insanity of their own party, have been forced out. If you're a staunch Republican, and you want to see your grand old party return to normal, then your absolute best hope is to show the lunatics currently in charge that you won't support these QAnon troglodytes, that you will choose your nation and your community over your party, that you will defy, deny and denounce the violent, careening clown car that the GOP has become.
Today is the day we vote at the ballot box. I won't mince words. We have to absolutely crush the red menace here, because, quite simply, if we don't, they've already made it clear that the only other thing they'll heed is the cartridge box.
Vote. Don't make excuses and don't sit this one out. It's your duty - to yourself, to your children, to your loved ones and to all those marginalized and under threat in your community and others. Hell, it's your duty to your nation.
Vote, and remember that democracy is a convenient fiction we tell ourselves; a set of rules that we are all supposed to follow to avoid the terrifying possibility of bloodshed at the hands of a mob following a despotic madman. Vote, and remember that, when one side realizes it can't possibly win playing by the rules, its only alternative is violence.
