The bombing of Iran, the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, the ICE invasion of Minneapolis, the threats to Greenland and Cuba. The news is unrelenting. It shouldn’t, however, keep people from looking at things from a broader perspective and thinking about the future. The key takeaway: The importance of voting has never been greater. It can help us save democracy.

Though we may go on some tangents and down some rabbit holes, the primary goal of Vote This Time is to emphasize the importance of voting to those who never vote or only do so sporadically. The unique and radical nature of the Trump administration, elected by roughly half the eligible voters, drives the point home that voting is vital to a healthy democracy.

So many norms and traditions have been broken that it is fair to say that things will never be the same. Whoever the next president is–be he or she a Democrat or Republican–won’t be able to go back to the way it used to be. Those days are over. We need to think about what comes next.

That process begins now. The Allies planned for a post war world before the Germans and Japanese surrendered. Lincoln and the North did the same think in 1864 and early 1865. For us, the process starts with special elections and the midterms in November vital. We must do two deeply related things: Curb the excesses of the current administration and begin shaping what comes next.

The next administration will be moving into an ethical wasteland. Today, citizens are being kidnapped and treated cruelly. Economic warfare is conducted against our allies. International treaties are ignored. Business leaders, jurists and journalists must grovel. Opponents are brought to court on ludicrous charges. The Emoluments Clause is meaningless.

The next administration will be operating in the shadow of all this immoral precedent busting. It will in a sense be nation building. Reestablishing norms is a tremendous responsibility and an extraordinarily difficult task.

Is it Up to Us to Save Democracy

This goes far beyond the simple Democrat/Republican dynamic for a couple of reasons.

The first is that the next administration must reestablish our national morality both to ourselves and to the rest of the world. Never-Trumpers such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are as legitimate potential leaders as anyone on the left side of the spectrum.

Cheney, Kinzinger and the other never-Trumpers walked the walk. They left the winning team for ethical reasons before the decadent nature of the second Trump regime was fully clear. The never-Trumpers clearly have the right to be among those who gain power when that happens.

Of course, the past year has been horrific, and 2026 shows no sign of being any better. However, the opportunity to fundamentally rebuild society is a damn good silver lining. (Is the slogan “Build Back Better” available?)

A lot of the way we were governed and the way society operated before Trump was deeply unfair to much of the electorate. Bernie Sanders, AOC and others were pointing that out before Trump. Indeed, MAGA gained traction in the first place partly because the system was slow, unresponsive and set up to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. At that point we had a business-as-usual attitude. The one gift Trump gave us was wiping that away. Voting this year is the first manifestation of this new awareness.

The Importance of Voting is Growing

The second reason voting is particularly important this year is far more tactical: We need to elect people with the brains and guts to confront the dangerous dying embers of Trumpism.  The journey back to the real America–the one to which children pledge allegiance every morning (and I do with them twice each week)–will be far faster if we have patriots in Congress, no matter what their party.

The importance of voting has never been greater. If possible, it is even more so in 2026. Please vote whenever you can this year.