REGISTER TO VOTE
› The deadline to register to vote for the Nov. 6 election is Oct. 9. There is an option to register online at https://ovr.govote.tn.gov/› For more information, email Vote@hamiltontn.gov or call 423-493-5100.
Tuesday was National Voter Registration Day. Are you registered? You should be.
If you missed it, you wouldn't be alone. After all, it also was National Lobster Day, National One-Hit Wonder Day (think "Puttin' on the Ritz" by Taco), National Comic Book Day, National Tune-Up Day and National Research Administrators Day. And it fell in the middle of Active Aging Week, National Deaf Dog Week, National Fall Foliage Week, National Wild Rice Week and National Chimney Safety Week. And they are celebrated in the midst of, among other things, National Italian Cheese Month, National Blueberry Popsicle Month and National Papaya Month.
Although the designated days, weeks and months of the year celebrations have become beyond ridiculous, voting is no laughing matter.
In fact - yes, we hear this every two years - the November national mid-term election could be one of the most important of our lifetimes. Well, at least the most important in two years.
Consider what happened two years ago. It was a foregone conclusion, said the national media, pundits, polls and prognosticators, that Hillary Clinton would be elected president of the United States. It wouldn't even be close. Many of the same soothsayers said she'd sweep the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in with her. It would be all Democrats, all the time.
But enough voters in the right states - nearly 63 million of them - voted instead for Donald Trump, giving him an electoral, if not a popular, vote majority. Those voters had eight years of having a government-run health care system forced down their throats, eight years of a president who said slow economic growth was the new norm, eight years of an administration that insisted on pushing social change few wanted, eight years of a foreign policy that said the U.S. would only be a bystander, thank you.
The result of that vote has been a two-year temper tantrum by the side that did not get its way in the election. So, the public that voted for a Republican House in 2010, Republican Senate in 2014 and Republican president in 2016 has been obstructed in Congress, lambasted by the national media, trashed by Hollywood, and berated by protesters and ordinary citizens because they had the temerity to believe that through their votes they might achieve a desired end.
Just this week, a third Republican, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, was driven from a restaurant, where he wanted to have a quiet meal with his wife, by hecklers who prefer not to have constitutionalist nominee for the United States Supreme Court confirmed.
Earlier this year, the same thing had happened to White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Have these people no decency, no sense of decorum, respectability, civility, consideration, tact, thoughtfulness?
But this is why people who do have those attributes need to register to vote, if they are not registered. Because the other side's on the case. The left doesn't care whether you're informed, just that you vote - for their candidates.
Tennesseans aren't likely to help shift control of the state legislature or the U.S. House this November, but they can have a profound effect on which party controls the U.S. Senate and which party governs the state.
Volunteer State residents may think it won't make a difference, but look what a difference 2016 made. Imagine if the woman who called half the population a "basket of deplorables" was in the White House?
Fortunately, state voters can now register online (if they have a Tennessee driver's license or Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security ID). Or they can register by mail or in person at the Election Commission on Amnicola Highway. They must only be United States citizens, legal residents of the county in which they register, 18 years old by Election Day, and not have been convicted of a felony (or have had their voting rights restored).
This county, this state and this country need voters, but, more importantly, they need informed voters. We urge those who are not registered, but are tired of the vicious, malignant, rancorous, bitter behavior they've seen perpetrated on those who would dare to want better for their country, to take that step.
Forget for a moment that it's National Wild Rice Week and register. Nothing less than your country depends on it.