I’m sure I’m not the only one who has entertained such thoughts.

This country is such a mess. A brain-addled, compulsive liar and wannabee dictator is battling things out with a positive thinking, intelligent and empathetic woman for the highest office in the land. It shouldn’t be so close.

As entertainer, Keb Mo first suggested several years ago, it is time to “Put a Woman in Charge.” For some unclear reasons, the US has been slow to embrace female political leadership. Of the sixty UN members, thirty-one percent has had a female head of state at some point. But not the First of First World countries.

Voters are often asked whether they are better off now than they were four years ago. Unfortunately, the extent to which they contemplate this is limited to the price of a loaf of bread.

I don’t think that I have been living in an alternate universe, but while some can refer to specific career positions they held or privileges they might have enjoyed…

I seem to recall that in 2020, the country, and the world, was ordering meals to be delivered, many people vulnerable to the COVID infection had to die alone, professional sports teams played in empty arenas, and the country, under Trump, offshored  200,000 jobs (as cited in Public Citizen.)

We were also encouraged to believe in alternate facts and not to trust each other.

This might be the hardest reality to deal with. If anybody has lived through rocky periods in a marriage or suffered abuse perpetrated by a family member, TRUST may be the hardest thing to re-build.

During the last few years, it seems politicians stopped trying to solve real problems through effort and compromise. Prevailing, by making other points of view wrong or groups of people with different views invisible became ”normal.”

We lost touch of what we share.

But people from around the world still want to come to the US.   Why do people still want to come here when we’re no longer that “shining city on the hill.”

Last week, I dragged myself to a neighborhood park’s activities center where things had been re-arranged for early voting. About fifteen standing booths occupied a large tiled meeting room in the basement.

There was a line. It took me just over an hour to vote. I came prepared.

I checked out websites for candidate positions and reviewed Injustice Watch’s web site, a Chicago-based not-for-profit, to get the skinny on judges to retain.

I felt gratitude for the poll workers, performing a wide range of tasks. Research has indicated that despite the wide divide on allegiances, most people had faith that their neighbors, as poll workers, would do their job with fairness and dedication.

According to USA Today, there has been a spike in voter registration, especially among Generation Z. Indivisible, postcardstovote.org and Activate America, among other organizations, made writing postcards to voters encouraging them to cast ballots a popular thing to do.

And I was amazed and encouraged by the ballot initiatives I saw when I reviewed my options in the basement of the Welles Park activities building. Per Ballotpedia.org, on November 5th,  146 issues will appear on the ballot in forty-one states, including topics related to abortion, citizenship and voting eligibility, same-sex marriage, and medical marijuana.

Keeping my focus on the direct involvement of voters has helped me retain hope as I entertain the impact of money on elections. I’m also concerned that some people seem to prefer hearing lies that reflect their gripes than do research on what policies will actually be more likely to help them buy that loaf of bread.

I loved how little bits of camaraderie bubbled up over the course of my early voting experience. When one of the site managers made a big deal out of someone voting for the first time, the rest of us in line put our cell phones down and applauded.

Voting for the first time is no small thing.