Last week Tuesday, the College Democrats of UW-Madison held a political rally in support of Tammy Baldwin continuing in her position on the U.S. Senate. The rally also supported other Democratic nominees, such as Representative Mark Pocan, Josh Kaul running for Attorney General, Sarah Godlewski for State Treasurer, and Tony Evers for governor with his Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes. While Obama may have visited Milwaukee in late-October, UW-Madison got a special guest of their own too. What really made this rally special was the attendance of Former Vice President Joe Biden to give his support for Wisconsin’s 2018 Democratic candidates.
All the candidates touched on the importance of voting this election cycle, stressing early voting in order to make sure you find the time to get to the polls. Tomorrow is the big day, and it’s so important everyone gets out and votes.
While the rally was labeled a Democratic Party rally, Biden wanted it to be clear that his hope is not that only Democrats get to the polls on November 6. According to Biden, the leadership that is heading our country isn’t the Republican party that he knows and loves. “This is not your father’s Republican party,” said Biden. The leader of our country is leading with hate and fear, said Biden, and those are not the core components of what makes Republicans, Republican.
Instead, Biden stressed that decent people need to go out and vote for decent people. We aren’t lacking Democrats in the White House, we aren’t lacking Republicans in the White House, we are lacking human decency in the White House. Now more than ever, it’s time to bring decency back to American politics.
Our country is powerful, there’s no denying that our actions shape the way the rest of the world works too. We cannot abuse this power. Separating children from families, making brave women public enemies, supporting white supremacy, over 1,000 innocent children and individuals of non-Christian faiths murdered for no reason — this is not America. It can’t be. We must do something to change the image of America we are currently portraying to the rest of the world.
What do we do? We vote!
We vote for humanity. We vote for equality. We vote for fairness. We vote for decency.
While Biden was there to advocate for Baldwin and Evers and commended them for their value of human life and selflessness in their public work, he pointed out that there are decent humans on both parties. However, there is no decency left in the decisions of our president. Our nation’s leader is no longer remembering that every human is worthy of equal, human rights. It is up to us, the people of America, to show our leaders that we are not okay with the hate and violence that is spreading across our country, seeping from our nation’s capital.
It’s time to make a difference. Vote for decency.