The fascist playbook includes wearing you down with a firehouse of lies and misinformation so that you are so overwhelmed with confusion and despair that you retreat into your personal lives. You then begin to feel that all politics is corrupt and meaningless and may decide to not even vote.
Why bother?
All politicians are corrupt and the system is rigged. And that is exactly where the fascists want you so they take the power of democracy from you for themselves.
So let me try to give you some inspiration here in PA-01 where you have seen the fascist playbook performed so expertly by Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick. He wants to cling to power so desperately in a midterm election where the people are finally getting wise to the corruption and incompetence of the authoritarian president Brian has not only done nothing to constrain, but has greatly enabled for ten long years.
In his campaign this year, Brian has spent huge amounts of PAC money in a character assasination of his opponent based on dissembling and misinformation. He broke the norm of not putting out road and lawn signs between the primary and October 1. He flooded the county with sign messages insinuating Bob Harvie’s alleged corruption. Then the billboards and TV ads bombarded us daily with the same misinformation. Still behind in the polls, just a few days ago, he played another card in the MAGA playbook: if I win, the election is fair; if I lose, the election is foul and rigged. He filed a last minute lawsuit against County Commissioner Diane Marseglia implying because she is a Democrat with election integrity in her job description that she must be removed from her position immediately. How absurd. In his last five wins there were both Democratic and Republican County Commissioners and no need whatsoever for a lawsuit. But by filing such a bogus lawsuit, he tries to cast doubt into the minds of voters about the integrity of our election system.
So why bother to vote? All politicians are corrupt and the system is rigged. Well, I’ll tell you why.
Over 20 years ago I attended a leadership conference at Gettysburg College where I first heard the parable of the starfish thrower. Originally conceived by Loren Eiseley who was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the story reveals and glorifies the power that one individual can have in making a difference to another.
Here is one version of that story:
“An old man had a habit of early morning walks on the beach. One day, after a storm, he saw a human figure in the distance moving like a dancer. As he came closer he saw that it was a young woman and she was not dancing but was reaching down to the sand, picking up a starfish and very gently throwing them into the ocean.
“Young lady,” he asked, “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”
“The sun is up, and the tide is going out, and if I do not throw them in they will die.”
“But young lady, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You cannot possibly make a difference.”
The young woman listened politely, paused and then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves, saying: “It made a difference for that one.”
The old man looked at the young woman inquisitively and thought about what she had done. Inspired, he joined her in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.”
Here in Bucks County, we have had elections that were decided by less than 100 votes and some by less than 10 votes. Cynical voters often ask ”What difference would my vote make?” as they decide not to vote and selfishly busy themselves with personal matters, foolishly foregoing the power our democracy bestows upon them.
But in November 2024, imagine that these cynics became in a sense starfish throwers by voting, and the foolish old man currently occupying the White House now had been sent instead to wander powerlessly in his Florida mansion like the old man in Citizen Kane.
Then Renee Good and Alex Pretti would be alive today. Innocent immigrants killed by ICE would be alive as well. There would be no cuts in funding to USAID which by independent estimates have already caused around 700,000 deaths worldwide. Innocent Americans and Iranians who died because of a pointless war by choice would be alive today as well.
At our Gettysburg class, our instructor one day took us to a field of Union and Confederate gravestones. He told us that one wise and empathetic leader who occupied the White House in 1978 brought two leaders to that same site in the hope that a peace between their two warring nations could be brokered. When they saw the rows and rows of the dead brothers of our nation who killed each other during a time of our country’s great polarization and hatred, the two leaders may have been inspired in some sense to become starfish throwers to save their people, for a while at least, from many sad and pointless deaths. By electing a president who sought not war but peace, good Americans chose Jimmy Carter to be our president whose leadership led to Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel winning the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for the peace deal brokered at Camp David after their visit to Gettysburg.
Electing wise leaders matters. A good leader can have a profound difference on the lives of so many and on the fate of nations. You, your family and friends have that power on Nov. 3 to make a difference. You too, in a sense, can cast a starfish into the life-giving sea by casting your vote for leaders who will work, not to enrich themselves or to wage pointless wars, but to strive with wisdom and love for peace and prosperity for all humanity.
Use the power of your democracy to save a starfish and our country: Vote on Nov. 3.
