As I plan to vote early this coming week, I came across this dispatch from E.B. White that seems apt for us today:
ONE OF OUR OVERSEAS READERS has dropped us a line to inform us about the qualifications for voting in England. He got into a discussion with somebody in London about the matter, and they called the reference library of the House of Commons and received the following pronouncement: “In Great Britain any adult twenty-one years of age or over may register and vote except peers and lunatics. The latter, if they have a moment of lucidity, may register and vote.” Our reader passed this on to us in the hope that it might sustain us through the difficult weeks ahead. The American political scene has seldom put such a strain on the sanity of the electorate, and we have an idea that when we step up to the polls next November we will feel like one of those British voters—daft as a coot, but praying, as we draw the curtain behind us, for a moment of lucidity.
– White, E. B.. Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976 (p. 58). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
I'm praying for lucidity this election season.