Bring Compassion.

As imperfect as they were, repubs under the likes of Reagan and George W. Bush had some compassion. (PEPFAR started under George W. Bush, for example.) Donald John Trump and modern repubs have no compassion. They are cold. They don’t promote international relations, they promote strong-arming our allies. They don’t promote domestic prosperity, they promote tax cuts and cutting healthcare and food assistance. They gut regulations to protect the air and water. They drive up prices on energy and food.

That’s pretty sad. You look at someone like Zohan Mamdani, who is definitely the most obviously compassionate national political figure today, and you appreciate what he’s trying to do, how he’s trying to do it, even if you disagree with him. Nobody, not even his supporters, thinks Trump is going about things in a reasonable way.

A lot of the criticism for dems comes from the idea they aren’t compassionate enough toward rural white voters. I’m sure there is some lack in some instances. And some is confusion and conflation. When dems are denouncing racism, for example, that’s not something they can be very compassionate with. The underlying causes of racism, sure, but not the racism itself.

The media, of course, is often cold, turning deep moral issues into horse-racing. The repubs have led this disenfranchisement campaign of gerrymandering, but it’s just sports to the media. Even when it’s gone from mere partisan gerrymandering (and without any sympathy by the media) to racist gerrymandering, the media at-large has shrugged.

I think it’s terrible. It’s terrible when a district gets drawn in California to block repubs from picking someone. It’s terrible in Memphis, Tennessee, when it’s done to block Black voters. The repubs on the Supreme Court shrugged. Not their problem. Who cares if people get their say in a government built on people getting their say? Most of us care. Not our judicial leaders, not our congressional leaders, and not our executive leaders. But most folks think we should pick our leaders, not have our leaders play silly games with maps.

I don’t think the dems are wrong to fight back with their own gerrymanders, but I do think they should be yelling that they want to put a stop to it. That if they have the numbers they will. Sign a Norquist-style pledge. Put the stamp of that pledge on the end of your ads, when you say you approved the message. A stamp. A little square that says “I’ll vote to end gerrymandering.”

Show your compassion like that. Show it by continuing (as many dems do, as I’ve seldom seen a repub do) to say you will represent everyone. You’ll listen. You care. It’s the biggest contrast between Donald John Trump and humanity, and it’s the truest one too. Show that you care. We know he does not.

It’s vital to a society to know that we care for one another. Most repubs cling to Donald John Trump because they perceive power in his movement. But the repub voters know—have seen first-hand or second-hand—that the movement doesn’t care. They know now that they made a mistake.

As always, it’s a good idea to get registered: vote.gov. Please vote.