Republished with permission from D. Earl Stephens

We are now officially into home stretch of the most consequential political race in the United States of America since the Civil War.

With but 31 days to go, things seem inconceivably close despite the glaring differences in the two candidates running for our nation’s highest office.

One, Kamala Harris, has been a lifetime public servant, who spent a large portion of her stellar career prosecuting criminals. The other, Donald Trump is a criminal, who has spent his lifetime serving only himself.

Despite this crystal-clear distinction, we are sadly fooling ourselves if we don’t think this election will be a helluva lot closer than it should be. As regular readers know, I believe our failing corporate media has had a lot to do with this by normalizing the ghastly Trump, and not giving his revolting party’s brazen attack on our democracy the weight and attention it deserves.

As a career journalist, I argue it is the most important story in American history, yet it barely gets a mention in most of our meandering and endless news cycles.

I also believe our Justice Department has failed us mightily. It remains incomprehensible to me that not ONE lawmaker is behind bars for their part in the violent attack on our country January 6, 2021, that was meant to end us for good.

Still, having typed all that, if asked for one definitive reason why our democracy is teetering on the brink of extinction, I will grudgingly point my left index finger at the white people in America, who still make up her majority. I will point both my index fingers at the cowardly white men, who eagerly wrap themselves in our flag, but haven’t the foggiest idea what it truly represents—namely freedom and human rights for all.

As I was finishing up my part of an “experts” panel focused on the race’s final 30 days that will be running in Salon.com this week, I tried to crystalize my thoughts on this.

It came down to trust.

Here is what I presented for this portion of the article:

I wish I could type here that I have the trust and confidence that enough of them (white men) will do the right damn thing, but I simply don’t. The majority of the white men in this country scare the hell out of me. They endlessly discourage me.

As we head into the homestretch of the most critical election in the history of the United States of America, I take absolutely no pride as a white man telling you very candidly that fully two-thirds of my confused, insecure herd are once again gearing up to do the worst thing possible, and vote for the worst-possible person who has ever headed the ticket of one of our two major parties.

I wish I didn’t feel this way, but I can only be true to you if I am true to myself.

Still, good people, I remain optimistic, so I’ll share something else I presented to Salon, parts of which I’ve written to you before, and believe with all my heart now:

Democrats have been winning elections at an impressive clip since the nightmare in November of 2016. There’s no reason to expect that’s suddenly going to stop with the most important election since the Civil War.

Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but when the exit polling starts coming at us on the evening of November 5th, it will sound something like this. “Americans, led by women, have voted to overwhelmingly turn the page on a decade of caustic, ugly politics. They have told us they are sick and tired of the vitriol, and clearly want a new start with a new candidate. Kamala Harris is projected to win in a landslide.”

In closing this piece and readying myself for the finishing kick, I want to thank you all for your support and friendship. Whether you back my work with your hard-earned dollars, your kind words of encouragement, or simply do me the honor of spending time with my words … you are why I do this.

By now you know we won’t agree on everything, but I’d like you to use your index finger now to point to a family who does. We stand with each other on the core issues, because we are kindred souls.

Like many of you, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. We have been asked to shoulder an enormous load the past eight years. We have taken it upon ourselves to care, when it would be so easy to just say the hell with it.

We are the true patriots in this country, and no matter how the story of America is ultimately written, our place on those pages will depict that we were on the right side of the fight.

We should all be damn proud of that.

Now let’s go win this thing.