I bristle a bit when people urge me to vote, partly because I don’t like being told what to do, and also because it is a personal decision, and people’s personal decisions ought to be respected, in my mind, not ignored. We need a constitutional amendment prohibiting people from telling other people what to do without their permission.

There were times in my life when I didn’t vote, and I had some good reasons, I thought so at the time, I believe that still.

I was already planning to vote today, but that decision was enthusiastically reinforced when I saw a video of  trash rocker Ted Nugent opening a Trump rally in Grand Rapids Michigan last night. Nugent is a hate singer, he is the recent author of a number racist and anti-semitic rants. His latest video accuses Jews of conspiring to take people’s guns from them.

It’s one thing for Nugent to play in road houses in Texas, another for a candidate for President Of The United States to invite him to open one of his rallies, or to tolerate his presence. Hate does kill sometimes, I never want to surrender to it or wallow in it or pretend it doesn’t exist. I honestly don’t know how people can look away from that.

It was Daniel Moynihan who said that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. I believe in facts, and Nugent’s anti-semitism is a fact, not a talk show arguing point.

I suppose any of us can rationalize almost anything we wish, and are free to do so, but the election is not a grey area for me.  I can’t rationalize that video.

The hard-working, left behind, and ignored Trump supporters around me – and there are many – deserve so much better than this. I hope they find a leader who truly cares about them and actually has ideas for helping them. I live in Trump country, so many of my friends are voting for him, and one day we will sit down and talk about it. Not for awhile.

They are good people, and I love having them in my life, and want to keep them there. I think they feel the same way. For now, that is good enough.

I have seen their strong values over and over again, and I am sure they have reasons for what they do and who to vote for, as I have good reasons for my decisions.

Idealists, especially liberal ones,  tend to romanticize democracy, they think of the people as noble peasants filled with mystical wisdom. Not so simple.  And Jefferson’s wise and noble elites have gotten greedy and arrogant almost beyond imagination. The war between the elites and the people is one of the oldest in the world, followed closely by the world’s biggest and oldest continuing story, as Jesus of Nazareth recognized: the rich screwing the poor.

It is very rare for the poor to win these struggles, and if they do, it isn’t for long. If any system is rigged, that’s the one.

I was excited to go vote this morning in the tiny Jackson Town Hall/Justice Court. The parking lot was jammed, the building was mobbed, it took a whole 10 minutes for us to vote. Maria was excited, she was proud to be casting her ballot for the first woman President of the U.S.

We all said hello in the parking lot, careful not to talk politics, sort of odd on a beautiful election day. One man muttered that thieves and hackers were stealing the election, that was all over the Internet, he said darkly, and looked eagerly at me for a nod or some shared outrage. I don’t do outrage.

Have a beautiful day, I said, and we walked to the car. Too nice a day, too short a life,  for that stuff.

Maria asked me if I was excited, and I said I was. Maybe one day, some eccentric old Jew will get elected President, I think it almost happened this year. The country is truly changing. I voted for a compassionate world, or I hope I did.

It was good to vote.

We are not made of crystal, time for a national shower, for some cooling vapors. The election will be over tonight, the Republic will be standing tomorrow and for some time to com.

We can handle Donald Trump and we can handle Hillary Clinton. I was reading the other night about Thomas Jefferson’s rants about John Adams, he called him a fool and a bald old cripple.  At times, American politicians have made Donald Trump look like Pope Francis.

We are all  still here. We did not break.

A friend e-mailed me and told me she was terrified to go to the polls for fear intimidators and extremists would attack her and beat her and others up. I have little patience, for this, I confess. You are not that fragile, I said,  if you want to vote, get your ass over to the town hall and do it.

Otherwise, I don’t want to hear about it. And I don’t.

Tonight, I hope to talk Maria into going to see Dr. Strange, and if she doesn’t want to, I’ll be happy to go myself. A mystical spiritualist with superpowers, that is a hero story for me.

I’ll skip the coverage tonight, I’ll go to bed early, In the morning, I’ll wake up to a new President. It is, for me, by far the best system there is;