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Editorial | Don’t boo. Vote.

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Pro Trump rally on Whitestone Bridge shut down traffic going into the Bronx Sunday afternoon.
Photo by C.S. Muncy

Real Americans don’t win elections by riding in flag-waving caravans and blocking traffic on bridges and highways.

Real Americans don’t win elections by attempting to drive an opponent’s vehicle off the road.

Real Americans don’t win elections by intimidating voters with guns — or stopping people from voting — or using the courts to disqualify ballots without serious merit.

Real Americans win elections by one thing — voting.

Ours is a democratic republic. Here, the people rule. Here, the voters decide who gets to lead them the next four years.

We don’t believe in divine right in America, that a power higher than us somehow anointed one man as our leader. We also don’t believe in demagogues who work themselves into dictators.

In fact, that is the reason how our country was created 244 years ago — because we refused to allow a king an ocean away to profit from our toil and rule us absolutely.

Yet that is the choice facing us today as we head to the polls to decide whether to embrace change and normalcy with Joe Biden — or continue Donald Trump’s perilous reign over our country.

The decision rests with us, in the end, regardless of what anyone says or tweets. You get to decide what kind of government you want, and what you’re willing to tolerate. That’s the fragile beauty of our democracy.

If you’re as fed up as the rest of us over the last four years of Trump’s rule over this country — his division, his incompetence, his corruption, his lies — then you know exactly what to do. Hundreds of thousands of you have already done it through early voting.

As for those of you who continue to support and embrace Trump, but who haven’t voted just yet, we ask you to please think of what you’re doing — and how far you’re willing to let him go.

Over the last four years, more than any other president before him, Trump has badly damaged 244 years of political norms and law.

Trump’s America isn’t “great”; it is a divisive, sick, poor, fractured dystopia that’s completely unrecognizable to the previous American experience. In seeking “America first,” he’s left the American people last.

This must end. And it can only end with your vote.

If you’ve had it with Trump, follow the wise words of President Barack Obama: “Don’t boo. Vote.”