GO VOTE, AND TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK

The day of mid-term reckoning is upon us, and it’s time to get serious.

There’s a lot at stake.

In the large view, Congress and our democracy are on the line. In the slightly more myopic view, leadership in Tennessee and Georgia is key.

Sadly, our president has made this 2018 election all about him: A vote for Republicans is a vote for me, he’s said. And since the GOP-turned-Trump party can’t find its conscience to counter any of the division and chaos he sows, he may be right.

But don’t be fooled.

If you don’t want insurance companies to reject your claims because you have pre-existing conditions, vote for a Democrat on Tuesday.

If you want to see criminal justice reform and real action on our opioid crisis, vote for a Democrat.

If you want to see sweeping changes to future campaign and ethics laws, requiring the disclosure of shadowy political donors; if you want to see the gerrymandering of congressional districts end; if you want key enforcement provisions restored to the Voting Rights Act, vote for a Democrat because all we’ve seen from Republicans on those issues is exactly the opposite.

If you want to see infrastructure investment, vote for a Democrat.

All of this is especially true in Tennessee’s U.S. Senate and House of Representatives races.

That’s why it is so important that you vote for former two-term Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who is running for U.S. Senate against Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn — as well as Dr. Danielle Mitchell, who is vying to replace Rep. Chuck Fleischmann.

You may be seeing ads now from Republican Congress members — including Blackburn and Fleischmann — claiming they worked to preserve your health care.

That’s not what their voting records show.

When a majority of the House of Representatives — including Reps. Blackburn, Fleischmann, Phil Roe, John Duncan Jr., Scott DesJarlais, Diane Black and David Kustoff — voted for and passed the so-called “American Health Care Act,” or AHCA, known as the “partial” repeal and replace Obamacare bill, it would have cut coverage, increased costs and eliminated pre-existing condition protections for hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans. The GOP bill would have imposed an “age tax,” letting insurers charge people over 50 five times more for coverage, and put the health of one in five Americans on Medicaid in jeopardy, including seniors, children, and people with disabilities. While Tennesseans would have lost out, the wealthy and insurance and drug companies would have gotten $600 billion in new tax breaks. (Yes, this is the same legislation that later in the Senate was tweaked and renamed and given a thumbs-down by Sen. John McCain.)

The opioid crisis is another excellent reason to vote for Bredesen. It was his opponent, Blackburn, who in Congress successfully pushed a bill making it harder for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate suspicious opioid shipments from major U.S. pharmaceutical companies — some of the same companies that contributed hundreds of thousands to her campaigns. Bredesen said reversing that mistake would be one of his first priorities.

On the other hand, if you want to see more tax cuts for the rich, vote Republican.

Likewise, if you’re OK with Social Security cuts and Medicare cuts to bandage the treasury’s hemorrhage from those tax breaks for the rich, vote down the Trumpite side of the ballot for Republicans who have either averted their eyes or endorsed Trump’s selfish whims.

Vote Democratic if you want to stymie the gridlock Republican majorities have chained around gun safety legislation, a Dreamers’ path to citizenship, and the Equality Act to extend legal protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

Tennessee and Georgia governorships, too, are on the line — as are state House and Senate seats.

Vote Democratic if you want to stop the crazy Tennessee and Georgia bathroom bills, the you-can-haul-your-gun-anywhere bills, the endless efforts to decide a woman’s right to control her own body, and the absurd reinvention every election cycle of what a person has to have and show in order to vote at their ever-diminishing polling places.

In Tennessee, Democrat and gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean has been a public defender and a successful, two-term Nashville mayor who steered the city through the national recession and a catastrophic flood. He also oversaw Nashville’s amazing return and boom. You don’t have success like that without leadership skills. Dean’s GOP opponent, Bill Lee, has no government experience.

Georgia’s best candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams is the former Democratic minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, a Yale Law School grad and the first African-American woman to be nominated by a major party for a governorship. She also has led efforts to mobilize new voters in a state undergoing rapid demographic changes, even while her Trumpite GOP opponent, Brian Kemp, used his current office as Secretary of State to discourage minority and Democratic voters. He’s a dog whistle a minute.

For too many years, our country and our southern states have let themselves be held back by so-called conservative leaders. We have little to show for it, other than rancor.

Vote. And vote Democratic.