This is the most important election of our lifetimes. Again. What are you doing about it?

Americans defeated white nationalism and Christian supremacism in 2020, but like every horror-movie villain, it’s come back for one more try. The good news is, we have every chance to beat them for good. We can deal these fascists an overwhelming defeat in 2024, consigning them once and for all to the trash heap of history. But that will only happen if good people stand up and fight. I want to do my part to make that happen, and you should too.

Reasons for, not just against

Unlike Republicans, we have more to run on than just fear and hatred of the other side. Progressives can point to a long and impressive list of wins we’ve gotten in the last four years from the Biden-Harris administration.

Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act, far and away the most transformative climate law in American history, as well as a massive infrastructure bill. He’s the most pro-union president we’ve ever had.

He ended forced arbitration in sexual-harassment cases. He’s taken steps to legalize cannabis, made Juneteenth a federal holiday, bolstered the IRS to catch tax cheats, ended the occupation of Afghanistan, won Medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices, capped insulin costs, and brokered an interstate agreement to conserve the Colorado River, among many other underpublicized progressive wins.

And he’d have done more if he could. Most notably, we could have had full student-loan forgiveness and prosecution of Donald Trump for his many crimes, if both of those hadn’t been stymied by wacko far-right judges. But that isn’t Democrats’ fault. If anything, it shows the vital necessity of winning more elections so we can appoint the next few Supreme Court justices.

I’m not satisfied yet. I want to defend all these wins, and I want more of them. I have every confidence that Kamala Harris will extend the winning streak of the Biden administration, on top of the historic nature of her own candidacy. I’ll proudly cast my vote for her to be our next president this November.

Oh yeah, but what about Israel?

Progressives are often hampered by our own sense of morality and nuance. We argue, we agonize, we second-guess our decisions. Too many of us withhold our votes as protest, waiting for a perfect candidate who will never materialize.

Meanwhile, religious conservatives have no such reservations. They worship their golden calf with cultish devotion, they ignore every one of his lies and outrages, and they don’t care what harm he might inflict on themselves, the country or the world. Too often, this means that thoughtful people of conscience lose, while the worst side wins.

I’m not saying we need to take lessons from the right in how to be more mindlessly obedient. But I am saying this is a perverse dynamic that leftists should be able to step back and appreciate. Too often, we let the perfect become the enemy of the good. We end up actively hurting our interests for the sake of ideological purity, rather than taking our wins where we can get them.

It’s okay to support Democrats even if you still have disagreements with them. Voting isn’t a religious pledge of eternal loyalty, it’s a utilitarian exercise in harm reduction. It’s simply an answer to this question: given the choices available to me, which is the best one? Which one most pushes the world in the direction I want it to go?

I wish I could cast a vote in this election to end the latest round of Middle East wars, but I can’t. But I can cast a vote to protect future generations from even worse climate change; to protect immigrants from white supremacy and mass deportation; to protect women’s reproductive rights from anti-choice attacks and abortion bans; to preserve Obamacare, Social Security and other safety net programs from plutocracy; to protect and advance unions; to do something about gun violence in America; to defend science against aggressive anti-intellectualism; and to help the people of Ukraine resist the invasion of a tyrannical aggressor. My vote can’t stop every evil in the world, but I’m not going to let that dissuade me from doing the good I can do.

So, with that in mind, here’s what I’m doing in 2024 in addition to voting:

• I’m writing postcards to voters in swing-state races all around the country. I’ve signed up with Postcards to Voters and Activate America. You choose a campaign and how many postcards you want to send, and they e-mail you a list of addresses and an approved message to write.

I’ve been writing ten postcards per week, and I plan to do more as the election draws near. This is my favorite method of outreach because it’s easy and flexible. You can write whenever you have a spare moment, and send out as many or as few as you’re capable of doing.

I also think it’s less intrusive and less annoying than other methods of contacting voters, which makes it more likely to be effective. A friendly, handwritten postcard is a good reminder to vote that people can keep and stick on their fridge.

• I’m donating money, as my budget allows. I dream of a post-capitalist world where money is no longer a factor in elections, but that world doesn’t exist yet. Where possible, I try to donate to local and overlooked races, rather than big national campaigns that get the lion’s share of funding.

• I volunteered to canvass for two competitive races in my backyard, one for the New York state senate and one for the House. I wanted to travel further afield, maybe to Pennsylvania, but unfortunately my son’s school schedule and my wife’s work schedule just made it unworkable. If you can travel to volunteer, you should consider doing so.

• As Election Day draws nearer, I also want to sign up for text banking. I’ve done phone banking before, and I’m not a huge fan – I find I have to make calls for an hour or more to reach just one real person, which doesn’t seem like a great return on investment for my time. But text banking seems like an acceptable compromise.

• Last but not least, I have this hat:

I don’t know what’s going to happen in November. There are reasons to be anxious, but there are also many reasons for hope and optimism. Unlike the frequently-wrong-but-never-in-doubt Christian prophets, I don’t claim to be able to see the future.

But, win or lose, I want to be able to say I did my part. It takes millions of people working together to shift the course of democracy, and I want to be one of the people who helped push it in a better direction. I imagine that one day, when he’s an adult, my son will ask me about this election. I want to honestly tell him that I did everything I could, for his sake and for the sake of the world he’s going to grow up into.