Still voting? I'm heading to the polls today. There's a certain tinge of danger. Maybe ANTIFA will show up and threaten my dog. Maybe a bunch of "militia" will make an appearance. The possibilities are endless save in one regard: forget the civic pride and joy of yore. Politics is more than a full contact sport these days, it's downright violent! If it was a holiday it would incorporate all of the worst aspects of the existing lineup of celebrations. The annoying familiarity of Thanksgiving where we're forced to pretend to like people we really can't wait to get away from. The irksome ritual of thanking people for tacky Christmas sweaters you will never wear ever, not even one single time before it hits the Goodwill donation box. The lurid and oversexualized parade of teenage vampire vixens Halloween has turned into. The logical anomaly that is Easter where we somehow conflate bunnies, chicken eggs and the reanimation of a 2000+ year old prophet who was tortured to death in a foreign land. Instead this time around we're potentially treated to a live stream of our nation's cities go up in flames. That's if we even make it back alive from the polling stations. And we're assured of misery no matter what the result. Roughly 50% of the public is guaranteed to be driven to malevolent utterances, considerations of extreme action, oaths and threats of abandonment. "If Mr. X wins I'm moving to Canada." Poor Canada. Like the children of a particularly nasty divorce, we're an unwelcome burden on the neighbors. A duty born but not exactly celebrated. Low expectations are the only way to avoid a judgement of failure. Neither side likes their candidate, the ostensible parents in this conflict that casts us as the disillusioned teenagers that have decided that playing favorites among hostile parties is useless: both sides lie, both break promises, both are subsumed with some kind of historically vindicating judgement in a time and place as yet undefined. The only certain result is continued conflict. If this is all too much at an hour best devoted to a second cup of coffee, take heart. This is not the end. The sound you hear is not The Fat Lady warming up her most glass-shattering falsetto, the gal hasn't even got out of bed yet. 2021 is gonna make 2020 look like the appetizer to a long and overbaked dinner. From way up here in beautiful Juniper Woods Ranch in Ash Fork, our efforts to maintain the roles of observers and not participants may not be practical. At a certain point we'll probably be opening our gates to relocatees. Also take note. All of us old activists see one thing clearly. A groundswell unlike anything we have ever seen before. In generations, there has been no moment like this. A massive pot is boiling. I see new challenges. I see new leaders rising. They won't be empowered by ballots. Happy voting day!