Democracy is hard and it always has been.
Those of us lucky enough to live in one occasionally forget that, while the battle to establish a democracy is finite, the fight to maintain one it is not.
Through those struggles – by our military on actual battlefields and by our citizens around the dinner table – we evolve.
One of the best examples of this evolution is 2020’s historic voter turnout. Whatever the election’s outcome, American citizens in the midst of a pandemic found ways to cast their ballot. That determination across the board and the technological innovation that allowed greater access, advanced this nation in inspiring ways.
The positive effect of that massive voter turnout – people who cast their first votes, immigrants inspired to obtain citizenship so they could vote, sometime voters, regular voters, straight party voters, independent voters, voters who crossed party lines – will outlast this election cycle.
So, here’s to the poll workers, activists, phone bankers, canvassers, volunteer drivers, clerks, poll watchers, ballot counter and everyone else who encouraged and allowed Americans to vote.
As this election stretches into a new day, we can all take heart in this one certainty: our vote, the foundation of democracy, matters and remains the most eloquent defender of freedom.
May God bless this passionate country of ours.
