We live in an era when major Democratic politicians, such as Minnesota’s Tim Walz, Wisconsin’s Tony Evers, and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer win elections by promising to fix the roads. Then they fix the roads. And they win re-election by doing so.

Meanwhile, Republican politicians try to win elections by promising political chaos and alluding to Civil War. They deny election results, they demagogue on social issues like LGBTQ+ rights, and they vote to repeal much needed legislation on women’s reproductive freedom, border security and immigration, simply to keep America a country that Republicans can claim is broken.

Unlike their Republican counterparts, Democrats are not in the mood to “burn down” the greatest democracy in the world.  Democrats agree with Republicans that America has problems, but they are interested in finding effective tools that can solve those problems.  Democrats want to bring us together so we can be secure and prosperous.  Republicans want to divide us so they can gain political power, as former President Trump made perfectly clear recently when he convinced Congress to take no action on the border. 

While political Civil War and “burning down” American institutions are fashionable with a set of lost Republican politicians, their chaos is less awe-inspiring up close. Witness the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol and murder of officer Brian Sicknick; the overrunning of the Montana state capitol and its police force by armed far-right protestors in 2021; the current surge in harassment of local government officials across our great nation. These examples show what a world of “everyday” political violence might look like: a world where your friends or family in the local police or local national guard may one day face off with extremists, armed citizens who spent too much time in the delusion of political civil war chatrooms.

We all seek a sense of belonging, but how we belong, and what we believe in, matters.

Being a Democratic voter means electing capable, sincere, family-oriented Minnesotans who hold themselves accountable to voters and lend their patriotic hearts equally to the greatest and smallest of political tasks, who are willing to wade through thousands of pages of complex legislation to construct a better future, and who make a better future real for the people they serve.

Be a Democratic voter this year. Be a voter who believes in hope and compromise. Be a voter who fixes America. Be a voter whose vote provides the political safety and security that can keep America great. This year, be a Democratic voter.