What this is really about.

“What does it matter to you if Trump wins? You’re a white, straight, cis man. You’ll be fine either way.”

I’ve had this both said and intimated to me several times in the last few weeks. While true in some ways, it kind of misses the point.

It’s not about me.

It’s never been about me.

It’s about my wife, and my daughter, and my sisters, and all of the Double X folks I love who deserve to live in a country where they get the final say on what happens to their own bodies, with no questions asked.

It’s about my son, who has big emotions and loves the color pink, and deserves to grow up in a country that will allow him to be who he is without judgement, eye rolls, or condemnation.

It’s about the lesbian, gay, trans, queer, nonbinary, and gender diverse folks in my life who deserve to live in a country where their freedoms, livelihoods, and basic needs are not constantly under threat.

It’s about the people of color in my life living in a country where they are not constantly threatened with suspicion, discomfort, and violence.

It’s about my parents, who deserve the Social Security they worked their asses off for.

It’s about my students, who deserve to live in a country that is trying to actually be better, to rise above the darkness of our collective past instead of embracing that darkness because it’s more convenient.

It’s about being able to live in a country where working class people are paid a fair wage, and to thrive without having to sacrifice everything while their bosses and CEOs eat off of their backs.

It’s about being able to live in a country where elections can’t be bought by nihilistic autocrats with delusions of grandeur and more money than God.

It’s about being able to live in a country where people don’t die in debt because they needed a procedure to save their life, or wanted an education.

It’s about being able to live in a country that does not look away from the slaughter it enables all over the world.

It’s not about me.

It’s not about you, either.

Yes, Kamala is not a perfect candidate. She won’t be a perfect president. But she is, for all intents and purposes, a good person. And Tim Walz even more so. She may not succeed in lifting all of us up together, but I can say with relatively certainty that she will, at the very least, try.

Just like Joe Biden did.

From the very beginning, Donald Trump and JD Vance have pledged only to work for the benefit themselves and their own. And everyone who is not with them is “the enemy within.” They are, at the very least, being honest about that fact this time. We need to believe them.

We live in a broken system. No country should ever only be given two leadership choices. But that is where we find ourselves. Maybe, one day, we can change the system to be more equitable and representative of wider swaths of people and beliefs.

But first, we need to make sure that people who actually BELIEVE in change are elected, and those who despise it are not.

The math here is not hard.

Unity means sacrifice.

It means not getting everything we want.

Because it’s not about you.

And it’s not about me.

It’s about us.

ALL of us.

It’s not about right choices and wrong choices.

It’s about selfish choices and selfless choices.

And if you can’t see that by now, then this “last great experiment” has truly failed.