WHY VOTE THIS NOVEMBER?
Our very democracy is at stake in the coming election.
In fact, the radical right has already shown us that they intend to substitute their will for our Constitution. Before you vote, take some time to think about it.
We watched with horror as violent insurrectionists invaded the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, in response to Donald Trump’s calls to keep him in power despite his election loss. Equally horrifying, Republican enablers in Congress, including seven from North Carolina (Bishop, Budd, Cawthorn, Fox, Hudson, Murphy, & Rouzer), voted to overturn the presidential election.
We watched as Senate Republicans refused to consider a Supreme Court justice nominated by President Obama in 2016, because there were only ten months until a new president would take office. Then they changed their script and installed a radical right justice with only three months before Biden assumed the presidency.
We watched as these Republican justices threw precedent to the wind and denied women control over their own bodies, a right guaranteed in the Supreme Court’s fifty year-old Roe decision and re-affirmed in 1992. Instead, the Republican majority on the Court gave control over women’s bodies to each state to do with as they wish.
We watched as states with Republicans in control restored old laws prohibiting abortion or devised new laws further limiting it. Several of these states even passed new draconian laws that inflict cruel and unusual punishment on women and girls who are the victims of rape or incest or whose lives are in danger, by forcing them to continue the pregnancy.
We watched as Republican legislatures carved up electoral districts, diluted the power of African Americans and urban voters and denied or ignored climate change. In NC, Republicans demonstrated their support for big business and the rich with large tax cuts but refused to address the critical need to improve education and health care.
It’s time to stop watching and come together to resist Republican efforts to erode our democracy and abolish our rights. The Republican goal is to return to a mythical 1950’s America when the roles of men and women were more rigidly defined, when those who did not conform to those roles had to hide or deny who they were. These Republicans want to return to a time when our natural resources were ours for the taking, when it looked like America would always have enough clean water, when industries were not hampered by OSHA oversight, and when affirmative action did not exist.
The most fundamental act of resistance is to vote and, more specifically to vote a straight Democratic ticket. Only a strong Democratic presence in the NC General Assembly and in our courts can support our Democratic governor and preserve our individual rights.
If you or anyone you know has not registered or has moved since a previous registration, please go to the early voting sites in your county, open between October 20 and November 5, and register and vote at the same time. Be sure to take proof of residency with you. Election Day is November 8.
Vote For Democratic Candidates! Your Democracy Depends On It!