I will remember what I watched unfold in Lafayette Park as long as live: a US President ordered police to brutally beat down a peaceful crowd and teargas them because he *wanted a photo op* where he awkwardly brandished a bible to use God to justify his authoritarian antics.

It was utterly terrifying to me.

We have a Republic because of centuries of despotic rule by monarchs and other petty tyrants.

We have religious freedom here because of the lesson of hundred-year wars.

We have never been perfect; far from it on many occasions.

But we also fought fascism in the 20th century and ground it under foot.

We outlasted authoritarian communism and a system which had every citizen spying over every other citizen in a police state and watched their wall crumble.

Our system cured diseases. It pushed science forward. It put people on the moon, forwarded engineering revolutions from 20th century physics.

An entire disenfranchised race was given the vote. An entire gender was after that.

In my lifetime, gay Americans can marry.

I am well aware of the terrible things we've done under our flag, but I am equally aware of the places we have improved and the good we have done for the world.

Joe Biden was not my first choice. Neither was Kamala Harris!

It doesn't matter.

The President we have now is an authoritarian. In his heart, he dreams he is our master -- able to tell whatever lie he wants, to control how the media makes us see him, and that our government exists to enrich him and feed his frail ego.

He is busy destroying norms and institutions which for centuries have safeguarded rights and our way of life.

He torches the hard won alliances that kept authoritarianism in check in the last century.

If re-elected, he will do more and worse, and he will do it with a sneer.

A vote for Biden and Harris are a vote to stop the rising tide of right wing authoritarianism here in the US.

No, they are not perfect, but I don't think Joe Biden believes the US government exists to give him the rights to build more golf courses.

I don't think Harris believes we should pick Supreme Court justices who stand credibly accused of rape.

I don't think either of them would ignore the CDC and the best experts on science when faced with a once in a century pandemic.

So the answer to the question of "are you voting for Biden?" is not just yes, it is HELL YES.

The idea that our government can protect us from tyranny rather than enabling it is a radical one.

There was not and is not an end to history.

Fascism and the constellation of ills around it are a pox on the body politic of every human government today.

It will need to be fought, and fought again.

It can be embodied by kings, chairmen, prime minsters, or (as we should know) Presidents.

Tyranny and fascism can happen whenever people are afraid.

They can happen when people are taught that our country is such a brilliant example of a city on the hill that we fail to see the long shadow of our actions across the world and history.

They can happen when good people stand idle while petit authoritarians wallow in the sleep of reason.

Vote. Vote like your Republic depends on it.

Because it *always does*.