Election Day will be here in a bit more than a month. Voting by mail and drop box will begin even sooner. Considering the ballots we will soon be casting, it is timely to remember an observation attributed to, among others, Thomas Jefferson: “The government you elect is the government you deserve.
” What sort of government will we voters prove ourselves to deserve? Jim Paloucek Will we elect candidates who campaign on little other than disparagement of their opponents and undeliverable promises aimed only at getting elected? Or will we cast votes for office seekers who explain plans for thoughtfully addressing real issues and genuinely seeking progress? Many voters seem easily persuaded by those who insist that our country is failing miserably and can only find salvation by electing, you guessed it, the candidate proclaiming the rotten status of the United States of America. The country’s circumstance is unlikely to be significantly altered in any concrete fashion by electing politicians who insist that the nation has deteriorated to near extinction but, if elected, will immediately claim that it is now great again. Voters persuaded by such sloganeering no doubt will believe what they are told regardless of facts, but what will we deserve if that is the outcome? Some seek votes by dividing us.
Any old division will do. They claim that those of the other party, those of a different race, those who are of another religion — whatever distinction that may apply — will, i.
