Not since the summer/autumn of 1864 have these United States seen such an election season as this one.

The Civil War was raging. The Union had finally turned the tide of the war on the horrors of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Still, Lincoln feared defeat. But he won. Slavery was abolished. The Union was saved.

Today, there’s the same tension, nasty smell of fear in evil-doers, same taste of disgust in the flesh peddlers, bomb merchants and purveyors of hate.

Countered by a movement forged as people across America stood in her streets defying tyranny, the traitor and his cult and his private fascist street thugs, ICE, masked to hide the blame when they kill and maim, beat, mace, kick, dehumanize and kill Trump’s opposition in the streets of the USA.

The West Virginia Republican Party has bet the farm on being able to jam data centers down our throats to poison our water and raise electric bills for the greed of the high-tech elite out yonder in California. Somehow the GOP Governor Pat Morrisey thinks we’re too dumb to see what he’s doing.

Unlike the Civil War split on slavery, the issue of data centers is bringing folks together in opposition to them. 

I’ve been happily surprised at how angry and discouraged rural West Virginians are at the data centers. As a result Gov. Morrisey is so unpopular that GOP Sen. Jim Justice is threatening to run against him for governor in the next election.

But the issue that will break the back of the Republicans is economic justice, the real economy, the kitchen table economy as folks try to make a budget work.

America is done with trump, maga, hatred of women, people of color and gay folks. We all now know that trump’s policies are punishing the working class.

Even our children see it. One of my best friends is a teacher in Martinsburg WV. He teaches leadership. Derek Gallagher talked to me about how teenagers see our growing economic crisis:

”When I graduate how will I do all this?” they ask. ” They feel frustrated and sold out.” “I’ll never have $400,000 for a family home. I’ll never afford a new car or truck.”

In other words, Trump has so driven up the costs of consumer goods with his idiotic war for Israel in Iran and the insane and ridiculous tariffs that our country is too expensive for our kids to live in, much less thrive in.

Forty-five years of stagnant wages has shrunk the middle class and sunk the American Dream for too many working class kids.

The Republicans don’t believe in a strong, deep, wide, sustainable middle class. Republicans believe in a hungry, weak and docile working class. That GOP strategy is gonna crash on the beach broken by the coming Blue Wave.

The Democratic Party isn’t perfect, but it believes in working class power, working families and our unions.

Our future must be rooted in a democracy that expands to include everyone, tax corporations and their owners for all they get from us, raises wages by encouraging unions, outlawing employer opposition from workers unionizing, forcing government work to be done with family sustaining wages, invest in America.

We are done with foreign wars for oil, for Trump’s financial empire, for old men’s egos and dead dreams of glory.

Time to cut the budget for killing here, there and yon. Raise the budget for caring and building and saving and honoring creation by preserving the work of creator.

If capitalism insists on a race to the bottom for workers, it has failed.

Democratic victory must mean worker power and security for working families. We must honor our allies and be a strong global advocate for human rights, for peace and an end to empire building and colonialism.

We must create policy and social expectations that families will be supported.

We will push policies to end inflation and cut costs for our families by ending the war in Iran immediately and ending destructive and inflationary tariffs.

All of us must put our shoulders to the wheel against prejudice, bigotry and unfair treatment of human being amongst us. Trump would never have been elected again except for racism and misogyny.

The defeat of trumpism in the midterms will break Maga.

The amazing pop-up resistance movement called Indivisible will have GET OUT THE VOTE events across our country on October 17. I’m speaking at the Hagerstown Indivisible Rally across the Potomac. I will exhort folks to vote for fundamental human rights and values–love and compassion, justice and mercy, peace and understanding, unions and collective bargaining, family-sustaining wages, decent and dignified retirement and the freedom to live as we are and were created.

Make a plan to vote as early as possible.

Liberty is on the line.

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This piece originally ran in the Spirit of Jefferson