On taking an "I voted" selfie outside a 7-Eleven

And attempting to smile.

Deuteronomy 7:11

Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

Voting is sacred in our civic religion. Today is not a federal holiday, for voter suppression purposes, but it is nonetheless a holy day. By voting, we affirm that we care about, that we identify with, people we will never meet, and a nation we will never fully understand.

Job 7:11

Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

But I had to climb down and back up such a steep hill to vote! There’s a voting place at the top of the hill, but thanks to gerrymandering I had to shlep past it twice to get to my own.

Also, I live in New York. My vote contributes to the popular vote margin, which could be important if there’s a protracted fight over the results. But in direct electoral terms, I’ve never had the opportunity to cast a meaningful vote for President. We should probably take a look at refactoring the electoral college, even if we don’t ditch it altogether.

Proverbs 7:11

She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house:

If Harris outperforms her polls today, it may be because women are, this year, more likely to push past these petty inconveniences to cast their votes. Women have leaned more Democratic for a while now, but this year they’re voting for reproductive rights and against a man who, according to quite a few women, his own taped conversations, and now our legal system, is a lifelong casual rapist.

I’m not a woman, but on my way back home a baby on their father’s back looked over at me, with my long hair, and said “mama!” So I’ll consider myself inducted as an honorary woman for the day.

Song of Solomon 7:11

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.

My voting place is in a building called the Village Hall, because I guess “Town” would sound too fancy, let alone “City.” As usual, the person in charge of looking up your name in the voter registry was grumpy and everyone else was cheerful. We were doing the thing!

Isaiah 7:11

Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

Most of the yard signs I passed were for Harris and other Democrats. We all know around here that New York is not a swing state, so they weren’t really trying to persuade. “Harris/Walz Obviously” is a popular slogan. One house, though, had giant photos of Donald Trump glowering, with the slogan “Take America Back.”

2 Samuel 7:11

And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house.

Down-ballot races continue to be very important in many places! Vote for judges and a House that will defend your freedom!

Ecclesiastes 7:11

Wisdom is good with an inheritance: and by it there is profit to them that see the sun.

There's more than one kind of inheritance. I voted this morning for the daughter of a scientist who's helped people beat breast cancer and an economist who helped Jamaica beat a recession. I voted for the granddaughter of a man who, despite growing up in a conservative Indian family, helped his daughter to become a scientist, and spent his career as a civil servant helping refugees. If Kamala Harris is even half as cool as her family, she's going to do a great job.

Obadiah 7:11

All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding in him.

In 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the “Twenty Slave Law,” exempting everyone who owned at least twenty people from the draft. Some working-class Confederate soldiers, then, realized that they’d been tricked into fighting a war so that the rich people could stay rich. A fair number deserted. Most of them didn’t.

In 2024, working-class people in red states are being told that the best way for them to get higher wages is to deport the competition. This occasionally works temporarily, but in the medium term you’re just making everyone poorer. As a programmer, it wouldn’t be in my interest to vote for an “everyone better at programming than me is banned” law. Sure, it’d be easier to get a job for a year or too, but after that, the damage to the industry would make me worse off.

The correct answer to getting higher wages is the same as the correct answer in the Civil War. Unionize.

Micah 7:11

In the day that thy walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed.

Trump’s signature campaign promise was that he’d build a wall on the Mexican border to keep people out. Despite his party controlling all of Congress, at the beginning of his term, he obviously was not effective at this, since he’s still running on a “too many people are crossing the border” platform eight years later. Indeed, building a very tall wall in the middle of the desert is a classic example of security theater—no matter how tall you make it, people are just going to go around.

Biden was more effective at building walls and policing the border than Trump was. Trump is just not very good at the job.

Joshua 7:11

And they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.

Donald Trump does not keep promises. He does not tell the truth except by accident. I think he figures out what it would be most advantageous for him to believe, then starts sincerely believing that thing. He’s like a regular politician, but more so.

And, in the end, he’s mostly just in it for himself.

Genesis 7:11

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

No matter how it looks tomorrow morning, this is probably not the apocalypse, or even the fall of the republic. Trump is doing lasting damage, but he’s just not effective enough to be the one who ends democracy. Probably.

There’s a chance—I wouldn’t call it at all likely, but there’s a chance—that we should be stockpiling contraceptives, and/or necessities for surviving a temporary disruption of infrastructure if things turn violent. In most of the worst case scenarios, consider coming to New York. We’ve got lots of stuff. Also, as the line in Casablanca goes, there are certain areas of New York fascists would be ill-advised to invade. We’re a kind people, but we’re not always nice.

Exodus 7:11

Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.

Anybody can quote scripture. Whether you’re right or wrong has little bearing on whether you can make it seem like scripture is agreeing with you. I’ve done my little magician’s trick here, taking the same chapter and verse from many books and turning it into commentary on today, because it’s fun, and it breaks me a little bit out of my normal patterns. It doesn’t make me holy, and it doesn’t make me right.

So today, Election Day, let us above all else resolve to think critically and make up our own minds.