The right that makes all other struggles possible

Need a little inspiration to get you through the remaining 38 days until Election Day? I can't promise it will be all over November 3, but we all can feel that getting there will be a slog. We need all the uplift we can find. And I sure hope you are doing all you can now to save your democracy now.

In the meantime, from Amazon, I want to recommend All In: The Fight for Democracy streaming on Amazon Prime.

You already know the plot: COVID denier Brian Kemp steals the 2018 governor's race from Stacey Abrams by suppressing the votes of Black people, Latinx people, Asian-origin people, young people, and poor people. It should be just a bummer. But the film embeds Stacey's story in the much longer and wider history of oppressed citizens struggling for their right to be heard. And that's not sad at all -- we who believe in freedom just keep coming back again and again.

Some choice quotes from the movie: 

Stacey Abrams: The fundamental power in a democracy lies in the right to vote. And if you protect that right, you provide possibilities for everything else.

Historian Carol Anderson: The reason the vote is contested is because the vote matters.

Stacey Abrams: When elected officials feel they may not have the power anymore, they have two choices. They can either be more responsive to the people they lead or they can eliminate the people they have to answer to.

Alejandra Gomez from the community organization Lucha in Phoenix: the most important part of voter registration is human connection and being able to understand why that person does not trust.

Carol Anderson: Barack Obama scared the be-jeebers out of them ... He brought 15 million new voters to the polls.

Stacey Abrams: stoicism is a luxury and silence is a weapon for those who would quiet the voices of the people.

Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice: It's not going to be the courts that save us. It's not going to be the justices in their robes. It's got to be the people.

Terence Floyd, father of murdered George Floyd: Let's stop thinking that our voice don't matter. And vote! Educate yourself and know who you are voting for. Because there's a lot of us. There's a lot of us. There's a lot of us.

Yes, there are a lot of us.