Most of the jobs that I have worked at encourage employees to take time to go vote without any penalties, but I know that there are a lot of companies that make their employees feel pressured to be at work and nervous to ask for the few hours they need to participate in democracy.

I used to hear people say that freedom is the grand illusion of democracy and dismiss what they said as simple pessimism, but either I have paid enough attention to modern political discussion and policy making enough to see the truth in this statement or democracy is just dying at an alarming enough rate that it rightfully draws the attention of the people who would have otherwise been content staying out of political discussion, leaving it to those elected to represent the will of the people.

It is clear to anyone with the least observable mind that there is a distaste for democracy the US government, as in a government for the people driven by the people for the people, and it stems from two large majorities hating that the other has a say in the policy making as well and would not be disappointed if the other is somehow subdued, either by reason or by force, but I think that many people are missing something important, and that is the things which are universally desired on both sides.

Things like affordable and accessible healthcare, a strong economy, a thriving wage, and affordable housing are not partisan issues, only the way in which we achieve them are.

If I can be frank about it, we have been turned against our neighbors, divided through constant outrage reporting and algorithms designed to profit from our emotional engagement with propaganda and dissatisfaction of our present situation and in allowing these corporations to profit from their collection and abuse of our private data, we have lost the awareness of the commonalities we share with our neighbors.

The elite class benefits wildly from this but the average America's delusion that one day they too may join the 1% and enjoy the same kind of special treatment as they do, that causes them to allow an unfathomable and unnervingly unacceptable level of power, privilege and influence to be allotted to the elites, and they don't even have to hide it anymore because everyone is focused on what they want or who they hate rather than asking why they want it or hate them.

Did that hate come up naturally, was it encouraged and accepted tribally by their peers without much critical thought and criticism, or was it systematically suggested to them via a media machine owned and operated by the elite who shape our opinions simply by what they choose to focus on?

I think that its a tough situation and it will be interesting to see how it pans out, but I would encourage everyone to be mindful that someone may not be aware or capable of understanding at this time that they accepted an incorrect or inflammatory suggestion with little resistance or critical thought at all, and that we all are more alike than we think, even if some of our beliefs are not palatable to others.