We Have a Sacred Duty – All of Us
Rivera Sun
(11/9) On Election Night in my small town, I sat around a folding table with four election clerks, sworn in by the election warden and doing my civic duty to count every vote. The polls had closed. Darkness pressed heavy against the windows, as it does this time of year in Northern Maine. Rain hushed down on the empty parking lot, the playground, and the bandstand.
It was sacred. Secular, yes, but sacred. It is through the ballot, not the bullet, that we choose our leaders. We came so close to losing our right to democratic transitions four years ago; the threat still looms over us today, each side claiming a different concern about the elections and aftermath.
My fellow election clerks and I came from different political perspectives, but we shared a common respect for the democratic process. We checked our opinions at the door that night; they had no place in the room. We were there to serve our country in a role that should be as honored as our soldiers and veterans. We had been entrusted to count with absolute fairness and unfaltering accuracy - and that’s what we did. The head of one of the political parties bore witness, silently sitting to the side as we recorded the results of each candidate, write-ins, and referendum choices.
I counted with profound care, not rushing even as the night wore on. I held in my hands the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of my community. There are fewer than 500 people in our small town; 231 of them came out to vote. People cared deeply about this election and what it meant for them, their families, and our nation.
Their vote for Trump broke my heart.
When the majority vote for Trump and all the other results were tallied and recorded, I took a deep breath, bid goodnight to the other clerks, and walked out into the somber darkness of that rainy night. No longer bound by my sworn oath or my sense of duty to uphold nonpartisanship, I wept in shuddering breaths. As a citizen, as a human, as a woman, the choice of my neighbors to vote for this man shattered my trust in them.
It is difficult to admit this. My neighbors are good people, decent people. I’ve known them since I was a teenager. Our small town is noteworthy for the way it cares for people and community life. We hold senior lunches once a week in the old elementary school. When a young farmer was in a car accident or our local carpenter had a heart attack, we packed the cafeteria for pasta fundraisers to help with medical costs. We hold bonfires at the ballpark, a bottle drive for 4th of July fireworks, and organize welcome wagons for new residents. It’s a place where you’ll never hear a swear word in public and people of all genders hold the door for elders at the post office.
How can such decent people vote for a sexist, women-groping, threat-making, hate-spewing person like Trump? He hinted at not leaving office when his term ends. He threatened journalists. He is guilty of 34 felonies for paying hush money to his sex worker. He incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol Building. This is not merely my opinion. It is fact. It is documented. It is inexcusable.
His behavior reflects poorly on my neighbors. As does their choice to condone it with a vote.
I want to say to my community: I look at you differently. Your reputation for decency no longer holds in my eyes. I look at your faces and see bigotry behind your smile. When we chat about the weather at the post office, I hear your leader’s abject denialism of the climate crisis. When I walk past you, I know you supported a man who routinely demeans and disrespects women. When I see your yard signs for Trump, I add you to my mental map of places where minorities and marginalized groups are no longer safe.
Your reputation is crumbling because of Trump’s actions … and it will continue to do so for four years, for each day that you silently or actively support this man. When you nod along at his discriminatory policies, when you look away from the way he dismantles the institutions that serve this country, when you do nothing as he flouts the law and breaks the rules and undermines democracy at every turn, when you fail to apply critical thinking to the lies and stereotypes he churns out so fast we can cover city blocks with them ... you erode the respect with which you hope others see you.
You cannot claim to be good, decent people and continue to support Trump. You cannot have both. Your values of respect, caring, and decency are not represented in him. And you should not let his actions represent you.
If you voted for Trump ‘for economic reasons’ but do not support his discriminatory behaviors or policies, you need to take a public, visible, and tangible stand against them. Many of us, left and right, spend an election year making excuses for certain behaviors and policies, promising ourselves that we will push our candidate to change once they’re in office. It is time to do so. Now, not on Jan 6, 2025. Now, before the politics of hate become emblematic of how people perceive you.
Your stand for common decency and basic respect needs to be loud and visible. Simply making statements in the comfort of your home is not enough. When your hunting buddy repeats jokes about assaulting women, you need to tell him to stop it, not laugh awkwardly along. When someone rolls their eyes about youth questioning sexuality or gender, you need to say you love your niece/nephew/cousin however they are … and that you’re okay with all the people like them. Even better, put a Pride flag in your front yard and tell our community that you don’t hold with cruel and heartless discrimination. If you see the Border Patrol harassing the ‘nice farmworkers from Jamaica’ who live across the street, go out and stand alongside those ‘nice’ people. When Trump says he won’t leave office at the end of his term, tell your local party to condemn that statement as hints of dictatorship. (That’s what it is, in case you’re wondering.)
If you want to reclaim your reputation, you need to take these kinds of actions – and many more. Contribute to the movements protecting vulnerable people. Join your fellow party members who are brave enough to criticize Trump. Denounce the ways your party treats women. Make a clean break away from racism, discrimination, threats, harassment, hate crimes, and all the documented actions that have caused concern for nearly a decade.
Right now, 66 million Americans are mourning what you have become, what this nation has become, and what you just voted for. When I spoke with people across the country on November 6th, many people wept like I did. We were not weeping simply because Kamala Harris lost. We wept because your choices made our country lose something sacred: the vision and aspiration that we could one day become a place where everyone is welcome, where everyone is treated with respect, where everyone is worthy, where everyone is treated with decency.
On Election Night, I did my civic duty and held it sacred. Now, I’m asking you to do your civic duty and hold it sacred. Stand up for your fellow citizens and human beings. Reject the politics of hate and policies of discrimination. Join us in reclaiming that profound and sacred aspiration of being a country of respect and decency. It’s not just the fate of our nation at stake. Your reputation is also on the line.
Author/Activist Rivera Sun is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection
and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance, and a nationally known
movement trainer in strategic nonviolence.
Read other articles by River Sun
