As few days ago I heard Jon Meacham, imminent historian and author of numerous history books, the most recent about Representative John Lewis, one of the lions of the Civil Rights Movement. Meacham said something on a news show that shook me. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to locate the exact quote, but here is a close approximation:

“This election will determine if we are the citizens of the country of Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass or of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee? Are we the country of Martin Luther King and LBJ or Bull Connor and George Wallace?”

I know which side I want to be on.

I understand that we should “bind up the wounds”, but I confess it is hard to contemplate when some forty-two-million, of my fellow citizens voted for Donald Trump — a man without honor, honesty, dignity, ability, morality or intelligence.

Maybe in 2016 I could be a bit forgiving and say, “Okay, you didn’t like the pantsuit lady who had been vilified by Republicans for 30 years, so you decided to take a flyer on the guy you saw on TV” Of course it wasn’t as if all you Trump voters hadn’t heard about his multiple bankruptcies and infidelities, and how he cheated workers, etc., but maybe The Apprentice blinded you and you were all too busy to actually look behind the curtain and see that he was a gigantic fraud and con man.

But now? In 2020? No excuse. We are at a hinge point of history. You vote for him you own every disgusting thing that he represents — the racism, the cruelty, the incipit fascism, the ignorance, the incompetence, the lying. This isn’t a Chinese menu where you get to pick one from column A and one from column B. You say you like the tax cuts or the cuts to regulations (which by the way are mostly designed to protect workers and the environment), but that also means you are down with the racism, the caging of children, the gassing and abuse of peaceful protestors, threatening our allies and giving aid and comfort to dictators — to name only a few.

No, you vote for Trump then you own it all and I can only conclude that you are also racist, would prefer fascism to democracy.

What these past four years have given me is an understanding of how brothers could fight brothers during the Civil War. Because when something like slavery is so vile, so evil and so egregious it must be confronted and destroyed you are able to put aside the bonds of blood and affection in service of a higher goal, and a moral good.

While the crises we face in these final ten days of the 2020 presidential election is not as crucial as the issue of slavery it carries many echoes of the same moral obligation. Trump and Trumpism are an existential threat not only to our very democracy but to every person of color in this country, every LGBTQ person, every woman who wants autonomy over her own body, every American with a pre-existing condition and those without health coverage, every American who worships a different god and those who hold no religious beliefs.

Which is why I can’t just shrug when I learn that someone in my circle is going to vote for Trump and put it off to a difference of opinion. Just as elections have consequences so to do the choices made by individuals. I’m afraid for me a vote for Trump and the current Republican party earns a shunning. If someone I know, perhaps even someone I love chooses to support Trump and all that he represents I cannot forgive or forget and go on as normal. Because I know what they are hiding in their heart, and I’ll always wonder when that ugliness will be targeted against the vulnerable in our society or against me.

Such are my melancholy thoughts but also a decision I make without regret on this election day 2020.