In the United States, tomorrow is Election Day. If you’re in the US, get out there and vote. Like a Rebel. Like the Resistance. Like a Jedi.
In Star Wars, systems are often flawed. The Republic is stodgy and bogged down with procedure. The Jedi can be doctrinaire, distant, rigid. But the Republic and the Jedi, for all their failings, are immeasurably better than the evil that is meant to replace and fix them. The villains of Star Wars encourage people to lose faith and then use that nihilism to secure their power. Palpatine didn’t overthrow the Republic with force, he convinced people to give up the slow, imperfect process of representative government and replace it with an oppressive Empire.
This happens. This happens all over the world. This can happen in the US. This is, in fact, in the process of happening here. It’s our responsibility to stop it.
And, yes, I am asking you to vote for Democrats. Vote Jedi Blue not Sith Red.
There was a time when there were liberals and conservatives in the US, but that’s just not reality right now. Right now, one side supports political violence and denies free and fair elections. That side is not conservative, it is radical. Maybe someday the Republican Party will free itself of the crazy authoritarian impulse that has overtaken it, but as of now, it hasn’t. Not this year, not right now.
So vote. Bring a friend to vote. Be a pain in the ass about it, like I’m being right now. It matters. Because, as Queen Jamilla says in Attack of the Clones:
“The day we stop believing democracy can work, is the day we lose it.”