Plan, Participate, have Patience

I don't usually take my cues from the national security establishment. But these gents have a message that I was happy to hear. 

It amounts to this: yes, there are foreign adversaries who are trying to mess with our election. (They diplomatically don't say who.) But they are using the formidable resources of the U.S. government to protect the integrity of our vote.

Clockwise from the upper left they are Christopher Wray, FBI director; General Paul M. Nakasone, chief of the National Security Agency; Bill Evanina, head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center; and Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security.

Krebs' presentation is the most concrete and therefore convincing. He promises that at least 90 percent of ballots nowadays create paper backups, so votes can be audited, a massive security update. He urges voters to do their part for election security through his 3 Ps: 

• make a voting Plan, 
• Participate by voting and volunteering to work the polls; 
• and have Patience if the election can't be called on the night of November 3 because mail ballots are still being counted. 

Hey, this guy sounds like what we're telling voters at the doors and on the phones.

Of course, since they work for the Federal government, they can't very well call out elephant in the room: the loudest enemy of election integrity is their boss, backed by his more thuggish fans and their Republican enablers. These are the domestic enemies of democracy.

Trump has already threatened to fire Chris Wray -- like James Comey before him, the FBI director shows signs of having loyalties that do not bend to this President's interests. 

This video is a reminder of the resistance lesson that is outlined by historian Timothy Snyder: standards of professional responsibility, of professional ethics, even of self-respect, can impede an aspiring autocrats' plans. Alongside an aroused people, there's power in this.