Natural 20

1. What makes you feel POWERFUL?

2. What leaves you feeling POWERLESS?

I’ve published my call to action, now I’m gonna tell you where I’m starting.

Ready to fight with me? Here’s a good first step:

I’m writing the Electoral Voters in my state to ask them to split their votes. I live in Texas which, in this election, had a 43/53% split for Clinton/Trump, respectively. While this seems to suggest my state is diverse and in need of diverse representation, all 38 of our Electoral Votes will be going to President-elect Donald Trump. It is not too late to change this, as the Electoral College is not meeting to solidify their votes until December. Currently, everything is just “projected”. You can read more about this here: http://choncegiving.tumblr.com/post/152984394352/notmypresident

After spending my day familiarizing myself with the ins and outs of the Electoral College (the link above is all accurate information, read it all!), I’ve decided my first action will be to write the Electoral Voters in my state. Truthfully, I don’t have much hope that a campaign like this could actually change anything. But what if? What if a single Electoral Vote delivers their vote for the 43% of Texan Americans who are, currently, going to be ignored entirely?

If you’re from Texas, here are the 38 people who will be voting in December for Trump:

TEXAS (38 Electors): Marty Rhymes, Thomas Moon, Carol Sewell, John Harper, Sherrill Lenz, Nicholas Ciggelakis, Will Hickman, Landon Estay, Rex Lamb, Rosemary Edwards, Matt Stringer, Shellie Surles, Melissa Kalka, Sandra Cararas, David Thackston, Robert Bruce, Margie Forster, Scott Mann, Marian K. Stanko, Tina Gibson, Ken Muenzter, Alexander Kim, Virginia Abel, John Dillard, Tom Knight, Marian Knowlton, Rex Teter, Stephen Suprun Jr., Jon Jewett, Susan Fischer, Lauren Byers, William Greene, Mary Lou Erben, Arthur Sisneros

Write every single one of them.

Here is an awesome video on some ways to make a letter campaign more effective from the very wonderful and impressively involved, Hank Green (@edwardspoonhands):

https://youtu.be/mp4h-3vQafk

I will also be sending letters to some of the newly elected or re-elected officials from my state to ask them to encourage our Electoral Voters to represent the constituency of the great state of Texas with all the variety and complexity it deserves.

Sorkin Girls,

Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from. That’s a terrible feeling for a father. I won’t sugarcoat it—this is truly horrible. It’s hardly the first time my candidate didn’t win (in fact it’s the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.

And it wasn’t just Donald Trump who won last night—it was his supporters too. The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate. Men who have no right to call themselves that and who think that women who aspire to more than looking hot are shrill, ugly, and otherwise worthy of our scorn rather than our admiration struck a blow for misogynistic shitheads everywhere. Hate was given hope. Abject dumbness was glamorized as being “the fresh voice of an outsider” who’s going to “shake things up.” (Did anyone bother to ask how? Is he going to re-arrange the chairs in the Roosevelt Room?) For the next four years, the President of the United States, the same office held by Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, F.D.R., J.F.K. and Barack Obama, will be held by a man-boy who’ll spend his hours exacting Twitter vengeance against all who criticize him (and those numbers will be legion). We’ve embarrassed ourselves in front of our children and the world.

And the world took no time to react. The Dow futures dropped 700 points overnight. Economists are predicting a deep and prolonged recession. Our NATO allies are in a state of legitimate fear. And speaking of fear, Muslim-Americans, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans are shaking in their shoes. And we’d be right to note that many of Donald Trump’s fans are not fans of Jews. On the other hand, there is a party going on at ISIS headquarters. What wouldn’t we give to trade this small fraction of a man for Richard Nixon right now?

So what do we do?

First of all, we remember that we’re not alone. A hundred million people in America and a billion more around the world feel exactly the same way we do.

Second, we get out of bed. The Trumpsters want to see people like us (Jewish, “coastal elites,” educated, socially progressive, Hollywood…) sobbing and wailing and talking about moving to Canada. I won’t give them that and neither will you. Here’s what we’ll do…

…we’ll fucking fight. (Roxy, there’s a time for this kind of language and it’s now.) We’re not powerless and we’re not voiceless. We don’t have majorities in the House or Senate but we do have representatives there. It’s also good to remember that most members of Trump’s own party feel exactly the same way about him that we do. We make sure that the people we sent to Washington—including Kamala Harris—take our strength with them and never take a day off.

We get involved. We do what we can to fight injustice anywhere we see it—whether it’s writing a check or rolling up our sleeves. Our family is fairly insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency so we fight for the families that aren’t. We fight for a woman to keep her right to choose. We fight for the First Amendment and we fight mostly for equality—not for a guarantee of equal outcomes but for equal opportunities. We stand up.

America didn’t stop being America last night and we didn’t stop being Americans and here’s the thing about Americans: Our darkest days have always—always—been followed by our finest hours.

Roxy, I know my predictions have let you down in the past, but personally, I don’t think this guy can make it a year without committing an impeachable crime. If he does manage to be a douche nozzle without breaking the law for four years, we’ll make it through those four years. And three years from now we’ll fight like hell for our candidate and we’ll win and they’ll lose and this time they’ll lose for good. Honey, it’ll be your first vote.

The battle isn’t over, it’s just begun. Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I’ll never go to sleep on you again.

Love,

Dad

Choose passion instead of anger. Choose action instead of fear. Choose to surge forward instead of shutting down. Choose to search out the light instead of despairing at the darkness. Choose to add to the songs of the the fighters, rather than the din of the mourners.

To do anything less is to join forces with a rhetoric that would see you destroyed. To do anything less would be looking into the eyes of your enemy and begging for mercy.

Now he’s trying to overcome his own prejudices and is raising the wyrmling to be judicious and humble.

Except, oops, the Bard thought it was a bad idea to raise a dragon and tossed a gold coin at him to ignite his insatiable greed so...