This is a plea that I will repeat more than once in the next 4 months or so.  I haven’t blogged much during the Trump Administration and the current (115^th) Congress, mainly because the disappointments occur almost daily, and I cannot keep up.  Frankly, it’s too hard to put aside my outrage to try to be clever.  Instead, here is my message, blunt and simple.  I want you to circle the calendar for November 6, 2018—and VOTE.

In November 2016 Donald Trump was elected President with roughly 46 percent of the vote; Hillary Clinton received roughly 48 percent.  When matched against the overall turnout of just over 60 percent, that means Donald Trump was elected by 28% of the voting age population.  That’s right, barely a quarter of us pulled a lever for him.  But he’s there in the White House, along with his parasitic family — Large and in Charge.  And he’s gotten his way, mainly because his party majority in both houses of Congress has generally lined up behind him, notwithstanding his boorish, destructive conduct. 2018 is not a presidential year, but the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate, and innumerable local officeholders, are up for election on November 6.

Sooooooo…

• If you are repulsed by the likes of Stephen Miller and people who think every immigrant who doesn’t look exactly like them is a member of MS-13, then tell them so on November 6.  VOTE!
• If you think due process should extend to families seeking asylum in this country, then hang on to that November 6 date.  Don’t fail to VOTE!
• If you think it’s a bad idea to punish competitive American businesses such as Harley-Davidson that export to the world by starting a blunderbuss trade war and subjecting those firms to retaliatory tariffs from our best trading partners, you can say so on November 6.  VOTE!
• If you’d like to send a message to the slugs who admire Putin and disdain Trudeau, Macron, Merkel and May, then November 6 is your chance to do so.  VOTE!
• If you think it’s grotesquely wrong and dangerous for a sitting President to label a (U.S.-born) federal judge as a biased “Mexican”, you can say so on November 6.  VOTE!
• If you think a longstanding lawyer-client relationship with a bare-knuckles fixer like Mike Cohen is some indication of the client’s own ethics, then VOTE!
• If you think that Senators and Congressmembers who once championed civility, not to mention due process and free trade, are cowards for failing to speak out in favor of those concepts, and against a President who trashes those ideas, you need to remember that calendar appointment for November 6.  You need to VOTE!*
• If you think it’s wrong for 40 or 50 know-nothings to hold the entire House of Representatives (or at least the putative Republican majority) hostage until they get their way, then remember that on November 6.  VOTE!
• If you think that it’s at least possible for our elected representatives to have higher standards than blind fealty to a narcissistic, early-morning tweeter, then VOTE!
• If you think making war on the FBI by continually impugning its integrity is dangerous to the rule of law and respect for the rule of law, then VOTE!
• You don’t have to sympathize with foul-mouthed actors and media personalities to disagree with the way the Administration is running the country, but to do that effectively, you have to VOTE!

Many of us already vote, either by early voting or on the formal Election Day.  But this time, we must beg, persuade, cajole, urge, and embarrass everyone we know to get off the sofa and do the same.  And we need to start early, and encourage early voting.  Our goal should be for 2018 to have the largest turnout in history.  Otherwise we will deserve everything that happens to the country over the next two years.

*Among others in a long list of craven officeholders, I am referring to my own Senator Ted Cruz and my own Representative John Culberson of Texas, both of whom are seeking re-election this year.