Take a Sick Day on Tuesday

This is not a drill. With democracy on the line, stop wringing hands and start ringing phones and doorbells.

It’s clear that Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and the fringe candidates aren’t the only ones on the ballot. We are, too. This is an election about who we are as Americans. Are we good and decent people who revere our founding ideals?

To prove that we are, we have to do more than vote. That means focusing less on the horse race. With all the polls within the margin of error, obsessing about them is a colossal waste of time — when time is of the essence. Same goes for the confusing early voting data. Anyone who tells you for sure that they know what’s going to happen is full of shit. No one knows.

And don’t get hung up on the shortcomings of the press. Even if “the media” — a cacophony of both good and lousy work — started doing a better job covering the stakes, those horse race habits will not go away before the election.

So it’s all get-out-the-vote now. While it’s fair to say that Harris may have an edge on the ground, it’s impossible to know if it’s decisive. My nephew describes himself as “nauseously optimistic.” One day I wake up feeling that way; the next day, just nauseous. When it’s the latter, I try to push through it. The worst thing to do right now is to let dread paralyze you.

When I was a kid, as I briefly recount in my new book, my parents let me skip school every Election Day. Starting at age eleven in the late 1960s, I would work a precinct near home, which usually meant “pulling plus voters”— ringing the doorbells of reform Democrats on the North Side of Chicago to make sure they voted. During other parts of the day, I would pass out leaflets, always careful to stay at least 100 feet from the polling place as required by law.

When the Daley Machine’s precinct captains would give me the side-eye (as Judge Juan Merchan described the outrageous behavior of Trump’s sole witness in the hush money trial), I kind of liked it. And if things looked a little squirrelly, I could always go to a pay phone and call a watchdog non-profit with lawyers ready to swoop in. Any of you who are attorneys should definitely be volunteering your services this year.

In the decades since I left Chicago, I’ve worked as a journalist, so I can’t canvass, call voters, or give money. But everyone else can, here, and it’s perfectly fine (as an opinion journalist) for me to urge you to do so. Many of you are already working extremely hard to win this election. Others need a reminder: Instead of wringing your hands, ring doorbells — in battleground states or competitive House and Senate races in your area or with the help of call tools that make it easy to get out the vote from the comfort of your home.

I have over 25,000 Old Goats subscribers. If each of you worked this weekend and took a sick day on Tuesday, our small community could make the difference between autocracy and democracy. That sounds crazy, but it’s true. In 2024, Arizona and Georgia were each decided by around 10,000 votes, and the other battleground states — despite Joe Biden’s seven million vote win in the popular vote — were relatively close, too. If 25,000 of you convinced just two people to get off the couch and vote for Harris, you could change history. And if people with many more subscribers and followers than I have did the same, Harris could get close to the one million Election Day volunteers that Barack Obama had in 2008.

This is the hard truth of what it will take. Everything else is commentary.

Please consider ordering my new book American Reckoning: Inside Trump's Trial - And My Own.

PRAISE FOR “AMERICAN RECKONING”

“I have been deeply indebted to Jonathan Alter for his political wisdom and journalistic experience these last 20 years, and I’m grateful for this gripping guidebook through a bizarre chapter in the life of our strangest president.”—Stephen Colbert

“No cameras in the courtroom, but Jonathan Alter’s brilliant book is the next best thing or better. Alter was the best writer there, and he delivers the historic drama as no one else could.”—Lawrence O’Donnell

“Jonathan Alter’s American Reckoning is a wonderful hybrid—a memoir of an extraordinary career in journalism, a political history of our recent past, and above all, an insightful account of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York. It’s also a cry for decency and democracy at a critical moment.”—Jeffrey Toobin, author of Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Rightwing Extremism

“Because the trial wasn’t televised, the country couldn’t experience it. Alter’s lively account brings home the drama, the twists and turns, the moments of real accountability—with broader thoughts about his own life experience and essential constitutional values. First-rate.”—Harry Litman, former federal prosecutor

“A must-read for anyone who truly cares about the majesty of the rule of law during these perilous times.”—Retired New York Judge George Grasso

“I loved reading about Jonathan’s formative years and the powerhouse women who influenced him. Now I know why he’s such an original thinker! This is a great read.”—Susie Essman, actress on Curb Your Enthusiasm

“The book delivers page after page of historical fact, brilliant narrative, and penetrating observation, chronicling what will likely be titled the “trial of the 21st century.”—James D. Zirin, The Washington Monthly

“A clear-eyed paean to equality under the law.”—Kirkus Reviews