For Tom

This week, my high school community lost one of our most beloved members to gun violence. Tom was stopped at a traffic light on his way home from volunteering at a food bank when a stray bullet hit him. He passed away shortly after.

The pain and loss that vibrated through our network of families and friends has been deeply affecting and a poignant reminder of what communities around the country feel each time a loved one falls victim to gun violence.

This morning, I woke up to the latest in a seemingly never-ending cascade of mass shootings. While some details are still uncertain, it is clear that a man targeted a Jewish place of worship killing and wounding multiple people including at least 3 police officers responding to the shooting.

The response from the President and many GOP leaders has been a similar refrain — we need more guns in more places. Thoughts and prayers.

I became interested and passionate about politics because it filled me with a sense of hope. That we as a collective can shape our government to improve people’s lives, create opportunity, fight injustices and achieve an equitable society.

As we approach the midterms, I find myself filled with a profound sense of frustration and anger. While I can trace these feelings back to a number of different political origins, the one I return to most is this:

One of our two major political parties has abandoned some of the most fundamental principles that have laid the foundations for progress in modern society. Namely, the GOP has not only abdicated its commitment to truth, science, and data in pursuit of a legislative agenda that does not serve the best interests of our country, today’s GOP is waging an all-out assault on these principles.

We know that effective gun control laws will result in less gun related deaths. We know because such laws have been implemented, worked, and there is hard data to back up their effectiveness. Yet the GOP and its leaders refuse to back common sense legislation. Instead, they continue to extend thoughts and prayers and occasionally push for solutions that benefit the powerful gun manufacturing special interests represented by the NRA.

We know that climate change exists. We know because over 90 of the top climate scientists recently came together to issue a report commissioned by the UN informing us that we must take bold and swift action to prevent irreversible damage to our planet and our ability to live here. Yet the Republican Party remains the only major political party in the world to deny the scientific reality of climate change.

We know that Republican leaders do not support protections for preexisting conditions and the Affordable Care Act. We know because they are in court at this very moment fighting to gut those protections. We know because they have actively sabotaged key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, triggering a rise in healthcare costs. Yet Republicans across the country and in the White House have been routinely lying about their position on the issue in tweets, ads, and debates.

We know that the GOP tax cuts exploded the deficit and were structured to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations. We know because, at a time of record wealth inequality, arithmetic shows us that 83% of the benefits in the bill went to the top 1% of Americans. We also know that our deficit has shot up 17% this year, driven in large part by a sharp decline in corporate tax revenues.

We know that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are vital to the health and financial security of millions of Americans. Yet Republicans on the campaign trail continue to openly lie about their intentions to cut these programs should they retain control of Congress. We know because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently said that the only way to lower the record-high federal deficit caused by his party’s tax cuts is to cut entitlement programs.

We know that separating children from their parents is inhumane and traumatizing. We know because we can see the effects of that trauma in gut-wrenching reunification videos. We know because child psychologists tell us about the often irreversible trauma separation can cause young children. Yet the Trump administration continues to separate young children from their parents while lying repeatedly about doing so. They do so lacking any evidence that such a policy deters immigrants from coming to our country, which is the stated rationale for committing these human rights abuses.

We know that the thousands of migrants seeking refuge are not an immediate national security emergency. We know because reporters are on the ground with the caravan are telling us the reality — such caravans are common and are a way to provide safety for those fleeing persecution and violence.

Yet during a week in which white nationalists assaulted people in New York, assassination attempts were made against more than a dozen high profile political leaders, and an active shooter killed innocent Americans in a Synoguage, the Secretary of Homeland Security has spent the entire week fear-mongering about a humanitarian crisis thousands of miles from the United States border, as the President and his administration stoke those same fears using outright lies and xenophobic rhetoric.

Meanwhile, in the wake of one of the largest political assassination attempts in U.S. history, carried out by a radicalized Trump supporter, the President took no responsibility for his violent rhetoric. Leaders within the Republican Party continue to push the conspiracy that the bombs sent to Democratic officials were a political ploy orchestrated by liberals and the President continued to attack the media and his political opponents, labeling them enemies of the people.

We know that, while transgender people have been marginalized and discriminated against throughout history, they have existed throughout history. Yet the current administration is moving to roll back protections for 1.4 million transgender Americans, possibly legally invalidating their existence by narrowly defining gender as based on sex assignment at birth.

We know that a healthy and functioning democracy is dependent on the right to vote. Yet the Republican Party has systematically disenfranchised millions of Americans through disingenuous voting laws. While it has been ongoing for years, the frequency and shamelessness of these practices have been particularly noteworthy in the lead-up to this midterm election in places like Georgia and Kansas.

We know that abstinence-only education does not lower teen pregnancy and, in fact, has the opposite effect. We know because there are data and past experience to inform us. And yet the President and his party have announced they will shift federal funding from teen pregnancy prevention to abstinence programs.

We know that there are no riots in sanctuary cities in California, no middle-class tax cut in Congress, no members of ISIS in the caravan of migrants. Yet Trump and GOP leaders continue to advance these lies — even while some openly admit to them — with the intent to drive the base of their party to the polls by encouraging and fuelling fear.

As I watch our current leaders roll back the achievements and progress made by generations of mass social movements, I come back to the same thought: There is no cavalry coming. We are it.

Our country’s storyline has never been in lock step with the values outlined in our founding documents. But after the periods in which we deviate from our commitment to those values, we have always managed to put ourselves back on track.

But getting back on track does happen because of any individual effort or leader. It happens because the citizens in our country demanded it. When Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery he said plainly that he could not have done so without the abolitionist movement. Lyndon Johnson could not have passed the civil rights act and voting rights act without the civil rights movement and the people it inspired. The 19th amendment would not have been passed without the woman’s suffrage movement. President Obama could not have expanded LGBTQ rights without the LGBTQ movement.

What frightens me most of all is that we have lost our collective will to remain engaged. It is easy to get lost in Trump’s constant antics and provocations. It is often overwhelming. Apathy is far easier than engagement.

But lost in all the chaos and hectic news cycles is the simplicity of our democracy — we can change our politics and all it takes is an afternoon of your time on November 6th.

Tom’s death cut through the daily punditry and polls of the midterm season. His death is a reminder that politics and policy have consequences — these issues matter.

Gun safety laws matter.

Climate change matters.

Healthcare matters.

Income inequality matters.

Human rights matter.

LGBTQ rights matter.

Voting rights matter.

Truth matters.

If we wake up on November 7th to a Republican-controlled Congress, it will be seen as a stamp of approval for Trump and the GOP. These trends towards lying and corruption will accelerate and we will be left without a check on their power for at least another two years.

I don’t expect my friends and family to be as interested or engaged in politics as I am. I don’t expect my friends and family to adhere to my worldview or identify with the Democratic Party. It will deeply offend me, however, if you claim to care about any of these issues and do not vote this cycle. Elections matter.

Note: As I went to upload this piece to Medium, I noticed I had two unread notifications. I clicked on the icon and got chills — they were both from Tom. I cried. Rest in peace, you are so loved.