Listen to the late Georgia Congressman and American Hero John Lewis, who I had the privilege of meeting oh-so-briefly at DragonCon in Atlanta (where he was cosplaying as himself from the era chronicled in March!) a few years back, and exercise your right and responsibility to vote today!

I post something like this pretty much every year, and I will continue to do so as long as I’m able to put fingers to keyboard, because it is one of the most important things you can do as a citizen; one of the most important, in fact. It’s you having your say on how the this country moves forward, and frankly, right now, there’s some real danger that this “grand experiment” in democracy might run into some trouble.

In every precinct in all fifty states, your congressional representative is on the ballot; that vote plays a *huge* role in what the next two years look like. Additionally, in states where I have potential readers like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, and North Carolina, there are hugely important Senate races, which may play an even bigger role. The balance of power in both houses of Congress is delicate right now, and depending on how things go, we could get more cool stuff like the infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, and student debt relief (a hell of a lot to accomplish with such narrow majorities), or we could get nothing but gridlock, tax cuts for the rich, and attempts to impeach President Biden over bullshit.

Also, I shouldn’t have to remind you of what happened this summer regarding Roe v. Wade, and the impact of having Republicans in charge of the legislature on that.

There, I went ahead and made it explicitly partisan this year; I usually try to remain agnostic and just encourage folks to vote, but I’m not going to do that this time. Vote Blue, because the Democratic party’s got plans to lift all the boats, restore people’s rights, and improve people’s lives.

And yeah, make sure you take a look at your local races as well; remember, Critical Race Theory and kids shitting in litter boxes is all bullshit to distract you from what’s important. Also, there’s likely other less sexy things like the bond initiative that was on my ballot, which is all about improving infrastructure, libraries, and parks in my county, which will lead to immediate, tangible improvements in my community. There’s probably something like that for you as well.

But, yeah, if you haven’t already (like I did), go vote. It’s the least you can do.