Okay, either we have a democracy or we don’t either we like democracy, or we do not either we uphold the values of the Constitution or we just say, well let Trump get rid of it, as he indicated he would if you give them power again, which one is it? Let me give you a contrast here.

Biden’s son, President Biden’s son gets convicted. All right.

President Biden, in violation of the rules from the, from the press, he gets posed a question about his son’s conviction.

And he says he’s satisfied. And he also will not pardon his son.

This is what I will call institutional democracy is kind of old school. Right? It says my values actually important to me. And this is how we operate in a democracy. Do you think Donald Trump would have made the same decision? Do you think Donald Trump would have not put his hand on the scale in order to wait, this for his benefit, or the benefit of his clan, of course, he would have involved himself, of course, he would have put his thumb on the scale, of course, he would have attempted to wheel and deal negotiate do back in deals. Of course, he would have done those things that we consider to be adversarial to democracy antithetical to America. He did a while he was president of the United States attempting to recruit a foreign head of state to investigate his political opponent.

We are dealing with two very different realities in the United States of America. I would like to say that I can wax poetic about all of the policies that are on the ballot, this presidential cycle, but I can’t, not in good faith, because I understand the biggest policy that’s actually on the ballot. And if you really search your heart, you realize I’m telling the truth. The biggest policy on the ballot is democracy itself, is democracy itself. You see it in a democracy. I tell my college students this often in a democracy, there is no finality, you said you get an opportunity to get it right. Again, if your person doesn’t win this election cycle, you get another opportunity to hopefully elect somebody who embodies the values that you believe in. And these values should be echoed by the leaders you elect. But what’s happening, we are now choosing personalities over policy. Donald Trump changes his policy, like the wind changes by the day, Donald Trump says one thing and then contradicts himself in the same interview. Often, Republicans are afraid to actually say anything policy wise because they don’t know what Donald Trump is going to later say about that particular policy, so they stay away from it, they have all D evolved into this ooze of name calling rudeness race to the bottom. See, this is bad for the country is bad for what we understand as unity. It is bad for an opportunity, a good faith debate. None of that happens when there’s so much gaslighting going down. But the most dreadful reality is that it erodes not only public trust, but the institutions that are in place in order to uphold the public trust. Now you can ask me or any other black person who has been saying for decades, the criminal justice system needs to be reformed. It’s amazing to me that the same individuals who said that you must just comply with the officer or you, you got what you deserved, or you shouldn’t break the law. Those same individuals are now saying that the criminal justice system needs to be reformed, but instead of understanding it in the context of the macrocosm, they understand it in the context of the microcosm being one man Donald Trump.

See, that’s a cult like.

There are people who would accept behavior from Trump they would not accept from their own children.

So the fundamental question that’s on the ballot, this election cycle, the primary policy that’s on the ballot, this election cycle, may not be higher education, it may not be taxation, it may not be jobs, but it may be democracy, itself.