Vote Today
LEE’S SUMMIT, NOVEMBER 8, 2016 – The lines in Missouri are long, the conversations in the polling places are friendly, but pointedly political. As I showed up at the polling place I’m assigned to, I noticed a line. It was 5:49AM and the line was long, finding a parking spot was difficult, and it just kept getting longer and longer till they opened the doors.
Two hours later, I had cast my ballot, got my sticker, and walked away knowing that by the same time tomorrow – The United States of America would be a completely different nation, then it was today.
In the many years, I’ve cast a ballot of my choice for President – something I hold very dear – I’ve never seen so much anguish at the ballot box. To a person, the most common comment was: “At least those damned commercials will be over.”
This is not so much a question of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. This is a question of who sets the tone for the country: Its citizens, or the political machines.
The generation’s voting today in Kansas City don’t have – for the most part – the experience with the overt political corruption of the early 20th century. If you asked most of us in the precinct we voted, if they remember Thomas Pendergast, and the Democrat Party political machine he built, most would not recognize the name, and others would say that there are no political machines now.
Sadly, the political machines have grown with the times. They have adjusted. They’ve become far more sophisticated. They have become masters of illusion. The honesty of the Pendergast Machine in Kansas City, the Daley Machine in Chicago, and those in Boston, Cleveland, New York City, Philadelphia and St. Louis are gone today.
The Great and Wonderful Wizard of Oz once said, “…pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…” and today’s political machines have heeded that warning, that challenge perhaps better said, and they have faded into the background; creating the illusion of freedom of vote and speech and the rest of those things we hold so dearly in our collective minds.
In this election, we find e-mails that shared questions with some of the candidates, but not all of them. Yet we are told, why should we believe the e-mail since it was obtained by dubious means. Yet, we – the voters – get to decide today if either of those mattered or not.
We, who wait in line to exercise the right to vote, are charged with the awesome responsibility of figuring out who best suits the image of the country we want to forge into the future, for our children and grandchildren alike.
Our country, on this November 8th of the year 2016 stands on the balance and waits for us mere and fallible mortals to cast our votes and make the ultimate decision. A decision that either wrestles away the new and far more deceitful curtain from the current political machines (also known as the Democrat Party and the Republican Party – business as usual, the plebes don’t need to know the truth), or if we convince ourselves that the emperor is wearing clothes and that it’s corrupt nakedness is not really there.
No matter which form of “-ist” you are, Globalist, Nationalist, Nativist, American-ist, Border-ist or simply tired-ist, one of the “-ists” will win today; and tomorrow we begin anew.
I pray that at the time the last ballot is cast, that each and every one of us and sleep soundly and face ourselves in the mirror tomorrow and know we did our best for the United States of America, and not just the best for ourselves.
Respectfully Submitted,
The Lee’s Summit Conservative
