Register and Vote.

If you aren’t registered to vote: Go to vote.gov and register.

The entire system in the United States, established after we broke away from England in the Revolutionary War, depends on electors—that’s us citizens of age these days—voting.

A lot of people don’t bother, and it shows. We are worse for it. People like Donald John Trump get elected because of it. Voting isn’t free. It takes some time. You probably need an ID. There are hoops. And it means making choices between lousy options. But it is worth it. We are better off having the lousy choice than having no choice.

If more people voted, it would mean the candidates would court those extra voters. They would shift on some of their worse policies in hopes of enticing those extra people to swing their way. That’s no different than the media shifting its coverage to try to win a bigger audience. And they do that, we see that: The New York Times and others are doing more video content in hopes of pulling in a younger audience.

There is too much money in politics. But if you register to vote, you’re one more vote that the corporations have to worry about. You’re a civil and upstanding threat to the corrupt when you register and vote against them. If you’ve ever been mad at the way rich people treat the majority, you can tell them off every few years by voting against their corrupt agendas.

But you have to register. You have to spend a little time every election figuring out who and what is on your ballot. And you have to go and make your choices. Usually twice: once in a primary, and once in the general election. Voting in the primary is even more important, because even fewer people do it, and you have more choices at that early stage. It’s at that primary stage that the corporations try to get their favorite in. At least make them settle for second-favorite!

There are also the state constitutional amendments or ballot initiatives, depending where you live. In those cases you get to vote on actual changes to law, directly. It’s how a lot of the states got medicinal marijuana and recreational marijuana. Or in some states you might vote on lottery or on changing the voting system to ranked-choice. Your vote might help women keep their rights or protect workers from bad bosses who don’t want them to unionize.

Voting good values is heroic. It is redemption of your soul as an American to cast your lot for the lesser evil, in hopes that over time you can one day vote for outright good.

So go on. What are you waiting for? Do you really want the government to get worse and worse? Vote against having your face eaten! Vote against the slimeballs and Christofascists who want to force you to get face tattoos! Go to Vote.gov today, register, and this November you can pick your representative in Congress. You can vote on the primary for that. Come on! You can do it!