the candidate (2024)
My fellow Americans: I come here to ask you for your vote, but not only for your vote.
We face many challenges ahead. The future is uncertain.
I alone, cannot fix it.
That is why I ask for more than your vote. I am asking for your help, your solidarity, your understanding, and your optimism.
I am not just asking you to help me. I am asking you to help us. And us includes you, and me, and our fellow country folk. All of us.
So, for all our sake, I ask you to do something to help. It could be small, like picking up litter in your neighborhood. It can be what you are able to do. And you can do it a little, as long as you do it a little more than you use to. You could just be kind when it seems like someone else is having a hard time. It could be extending a helping hand to a fellow human to aid them in surviving another day. It could be helping animals. It could be volunteering to help or coach kids. It could be planting native plants. It could be volunteering to brighten someone’s day. It could be voting for people who want to help us. All of us.
You can recognize your vulnerability and the possibility that you may one day need help or may make a mistake. And by realizing that could happen to any of us, we feel a sense of cohesion with our fellows. We look out for each other. Feel that sense of solidarity. It is standing together. It could be voting for people who will stand with us. All of us.
You can be mindful that that we all make mistakes, we all get things wrong and that we will do these things to each other sometimes. Maybe we had a really bad day or a bad childhood. And sometimes it is hard to tell which is worse because we have all had different kinds of bad days and bad childhoods. So we try to make the next generation’s childhoods better. Together. All of us. We approach each other with the understanding that we will make mistakes as we navigate the challenges life throws at us. We forgive each other. Offer grace. The benefit of the doubt. Maybe we vote for people who treat others with understanding. Who care about the children and their childhood. Who choose not to throw the first stone or any stones at all at any of us, nor All of us.
You can believe that if we help each other, if we stand together, if we treat each other with understanding, that things will get better for us. That may be the only reason to be optimistic — to believe that we can do better. And that we can do better together. All of us.
My fellow Americans: this country was founded on important ideas that we all profess to believe: That we are all created equally, that we all have individual freedoms, that we all have equal opportunity, and that anyone can make it on their own grit.
But our history is full of counter examples, of times where we treated one group or another as unequal, restricted their freedoms, their opportunities, and thereby their chances of surviving. Because we told ourselves they are not us. But, did we really believe these ideas from the beginning?
Are we all created equally? Can we all be Beyonce? Or Simone Biles? Or Yo-Yo Ma? Or Stephen Hawking? Or Lebron James? Or Langston Hughes? Or Taylor Swift? Do we all have different gifts? But does that mean that we should be treated unequally or inequitably? Because we are different. All of us?
Do we all have individual freedoms? Or do my freedoms sometimes trample on yours or yours sometimes trample mine? And then do we call for laws to restrict the trampler’s individual freedoms? We all do it, because we all know what it feels like to have our rights trampled and also restricted. But is it the gamble we make to try to live together in what we call a society? Is it how we try to get along? Together? All of us?
Do we have equal opportunities? Have we ever? Originally, only land-owning white men could vote in our country. Only they had the opportunity to have a say in our society. Access to education has varied across the country and sometimes across a few blocks. Access to dignified and reliable work opportunities has varied across race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, immigration status. So has access to healthcare and housing. But could we all be denied opportunities? If the opportunities overlooked us because we weren’t considered “us” for one reason or another? Could it happen to us? All of us?
Do we believe that facing these challenges we should be able to just rely on our own grit to survive? Because we have designed our society so that no one has anything else to rely on but their own grit? That’s all we have is grit? All of us?
I don’t know if we actually believe those things or just pretend to. And we all know what it feels like to not be included in an “us.” It will happen to us at some point. All of us.
But if all of us are included in “us,” then we will be able to make things better. For all of us.
I believe in the promise of this country and its ideas. That we can aspire to treat each other equally, to respect each other’s rights, to share and extend opportunities, to help each other survive not just by our own grit. All of us.
If you believe, join me. Join us. All of us.
So, my fellow Americans, indeed, I am asking for your vote. And your help, solidarity, understanding, and optimism for you, me, and our fellow country folk. For all of us. And I am asking you to vote for other candidates who have us all at heart. Candidates who will share their help, solidarity, understanding, and optimism with us. With all of us. For all of us.
I believe that is the only way we can do better. By all doing better together. All of us.
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