A little while back, after I wrote an article about abuses by ICE, The Violence Comes From ICE, and It’s Increasingly Deadly, a friend asked me, “Who will be the one to help stop this nightmare?” My answer was then, and remains now, uncomfortable but inescapable:
Only we can stop the nightmare.
I’ll explain. The real power in American politics doesn’t sit in the Oval Office, the Capitol, or any governor’s mansion. It sits with us.
That is the fundamental design of our system. American citizens, together, hold extraordinary power, if we choose to use it. The most important expression of that power is simple, quiet, and easily taken for granted: the right to vote in free, fair, and inclusive elections.
In our system, the people decide who governs. We choose who sits in the White House and in Congress, who runs our statehouses, who serves on school boards and city councils, and in many cases, who wears the judge’s robe. That’s an immense power. It means that, in theory and in law, elected officials work for us.
We delegate authority to them, but we don’t surrender control to them. We can tell them what we want, and what we emphatically don’t want, in terms of policy. We can organize, call, write, protest, and make clear how we expect them to vote.
And if they ignore us, if they forget who employs them, we have a nonviolent but devastating remedy: we can vote them out of office.
Our system even anticipates something darker: the possibility that some will behave immorally, unethically, or illegally. Impeachment, recalls, criminal prosecutions, ethics investigations, and internal disciplinary processes exist.
And if those mechanisms stall or fail, we still have one more lever: public pressure. Organized citizens can be relentless. Institutions that hesitate to act can be forced to do their duty when the public makes their inaction unbearable.
All of this, our ability to hire, direct, and fire our representatives, rests on one foundation: the vote.
The Vote as the Cornerstone
I believe the right to vote in fair, all-inclusive elections is the cornerstone of our democracy.
Our founders did not create a perfect democracy; they sharply limited who was allowed to vote, and much of the expansion of the franchise has come from generations of struggle after them. But they did understand that consent of the governed had to mean something concrete. That “something” is the ballot.
The system, however, is only as strong as the people who use it.
Today, we face a concerted effort to strip that power from us through policies, procedures, and propaganda aimed directly at our elections. If they succeed, we lose the ability to force accountability and that nightmare my friend spoke of will never end.
We have a president who already tried to subvert our votes and our will. He failed only because enough officials, judges, and ordinary people refused to go along. He still publicly refuses to accept that outcome, continuing to claim that the 2020 election was “stolen.” That lie is not just about the past; it’s the groundwork for the future. It’s the justification for a more organized effort to disrupt and corrupt the midterm elections.
You’ve seen the media reporting, so you’re aware that Trump’s efforts to impede the midterms include:
- Pushing measures like the so‑called SAVE Act, framed as “election security” but used to justify new barriers to registration and voting.
- Confiscating or attempting to seize voting materials and machines, as we have seen in places like Georgia and Puerto Rico, actions that sow distrust and open the door to manipulation.
- Calling for increased federal control over elections, not to guarantee broader participation, but to centralize power in ways that can be exploited.
- Issuing an executive order (later blocked by federal courts before it could take effect) to require burdensome proof of citizenship to register, even where such requirements are unnecessary and function mainly to deter eligible voters.
- Vowing to ban counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, even when they are lawfully cast and postmarked on time.
- Threatening to end or severely restrict mail‑in voting and the use of voting machines, despite the lack of evidence that these methods are inherently insecure.
There are, no doubt, measures under discussion or already underway, subtle changes to polling locations and reduced early-voting periods, for example. Aggressive purging of voter rolls in some states is already occurring. The pattern is unmistakable: make it harder to vote, discredit the outcome in advance, and destabilize the system just enough that raw power can slip loose from democratic constraints.
Our most potent tool is the Ballot
Protests, demonstrations, or other forms of organized resistance should never be abandoned. Those actions are vital. They raise awareness, change narratives, and stiffen the spines of wavering officials.
But our most potent tool is still the simplest one: the ballot. When we vote in massive numbers, when we protect access to the polls for every eligible citizen, when we support candidates who are committed to free and fair elections, and punish those who are not, we exercise the basic power that defines us as a self-governing people.
I was born with the right to vote. I have exercised that right throughout my life. I do not intend to stop. And I refuse to accept that a would-be authoritarian, or any coalition of opportunists and sycophants, can quietly take that right away from me, my friends, neighbors and community, without a fight.
The Responsibility That Comes with Power
If we mean what we say about American democracy, we have to act like it. That means:
- Registering and voting in every election, not just presidential races. The outcome in any election can be extremely significant.
- Defending inclusive voting rights, even for those we may disagree with politically.
- Paying attention to election rules and legislation, and speaking out when those rules are manipulated to entrench power rather than reflect our will, the will of the people.
- Holding our representatives accountable, at every level, for how they talk about elections, and how they act on our behalf.
Our system does not guarantee good leaders, just outcomes, or moral courage. It only guarantees us an opportunity: the chance to choose, to correct, to remove, and to begin again.
That opportunity is our power. And as long as we insist on using it, together, no president, past, present, or future, can truly take it away.
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