Tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 23) early voting begins for the all-important U.S. midterm elections. Almost two years in from the January 6, 2021 coup attempt on our nation’s capital, we as a nation are continuing to stand at the precipice of one of the greatest failures in human history, the loss of this nation’s great experiment in democracy. Serial criminal Donald Trump remains at large, even as slow-moving instruments of justice are cautiously closing in on indictments.

But Trump has American wrapped around his little finger now, with so few seeming willing to truly take him on. He scoffs at every new attempt to soil his reputation, as if being a criminal of the state is any kind of problem for him. Short of his being arrested and held without bond, all the many investigations add up to just so much publicity for him. He eats it up and his fascist movement, now resorting to Nazi-like behavior at his rallies, only feeds on it, too. That’s what’s missing in our understanding of this problem: this is a criminal operation, and millions of Americans have signed onto it. Are they evil? Maybe, maybe not. But that is an irrelevant question. They need to be stopped, period.

In the scintillating dialogue on this subject between historian Jon Meacham and funny man commentator Bill Maher last weekend on HBO, the two engaged on the subject in a lengthy repartee, one of the more poignant exchanges we’ve seen on TV in awhile. Maher revisited his oft-asserted prediction in 2020 that Trump was not going to relinquish the White House after the 2020 election, no matter who won. It’s true now that the very same problem that prevented most pundits from seeing that one coming remain.

No matter how it goes this November, over 100 dyed in the wool Trumpians are going to win elections at all levels in a couple of months, and that is going to foment a period of exacerbated chaos and violence in the U.S. like nothing we’ve seen before. That is, unless a lot of people get very, very motivated to stop it.

For one thing, in Virginia there are three critical races for control of the U.S. House of Representatives right on our block. Democratic incumbents Abigail Spanberger, Jennifer Wexton and Elaine Luria absolutely must be re-elected in less than two months from now, or the House goes over to the Republicans, who are now nothing more than auxiliary elements of the Trump fascist movement.   

Dear voters and lovers of democracy, we need to deploy ourselves like now there is no tomorrow. Please volunteer to make phone calls, to walk door to door, to hand out literature, and donate money. Let your fellow citizens see that you really care. In the end, that will matter more than your ability to articulate a policy position or not. If enough of us care we can win. If not, we simply won’t.