Today is the day. Today will tell what we are made of. We have far to go, but a milestone will be met today, regardless of the outcome. Today, we make a pledge, that we will not live under tyrants, we will not live under the yoke of a Republican romanticized fantasy. With every vote we cast, our dreams are realized. With every vote, our intent is clear, a personal declaration of allegiance to our principles.
Do not falter, do not be turned away, do not go quietly into the dark night, we will overcome this. We know the stakes. Our personal sovereignty. Our children's future. If we fail, they may force us one day to eat at the trough of the oppressed, to live in chains, mental or otherwise, to cut down our inalienable rights, as wheat for harvest.
Our votes are daggers, our spears, this revolution is with ballots, and though they try to alienate us, try to discourage us with every rhetorical shot they can, we must go forward. This is our battle. This is our day.
Walt Whitman saw the pressure and ugliness that reared it's during the campaigns for presidency in 1884, Grover Cleveland, winning narrowly, and only after much mudslinging, a political climate we can identify with.
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Today think of the life you cherish, and give your rights wings. The knot in your stomache is the trepidation of the world who is looking to us.
Below, two poems for election day.
ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884 Walt Whitman
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara-nor you, ye limitless prairies-nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite-nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones-nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes-nor Mississippi's stream:
-This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name-the still small voice vibrating-America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen-the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd-sea-board and inland-Texas to Maine-the Prairie States-Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West-the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling-(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity-welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
-Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify-while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.
The Poor Voter on Election Day
by John Greenleaf Whittier (1852)
The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
While there's a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon's vilest dust, --
While there's a right to need my vote
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man's a man to-day!
The Poor Voter on Election Day-by John Greenleaf Whittier (1852)
The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
While there's a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon's vilest dust, --
While there's a right to need my vote
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man's a man to-day!