The United States of America. Say it out loud: "The UNITED STATES of AMERICA." We are not the red states of America or the blue states of America. We are the sum total of all Americans – from those that have lived here for generations to the new immigrant who just raised her right hand and took the oath of citizenship. 

The American ledger has never fully balanced, but for many years, the abiding of idea of the Declaration of Independence: "That all men are created equal, with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," has been the goal of many. We the People agreed on Jefferson's formulation – that, despite our global successes and shameful failures, that there is a common, optimistic, fundamental good that runs through American life.

The last quarter century of political life, however, has frayed the binds that tie us. And now we are at a clear crossroads for our democracy.

What lays before us now is a binary choice: We may take the opportunity to right the wrongs of our past and bend the arc of history toward justice, or we may sit back while those who would dismantle our democratic traditions and guardrails do so in plain sight and with impunity.

We're six years into the Donald Trump experiment in this country. Truth is, it's been building longer than that. We left the door open to the lab and a mad scientist strolled in and began playing with dynamite. Too many of us stood in the window and watched, unsure of what to do. Just as many cheered as he did so. 

What started as a terrible idea has escaped containment. The defeat of Trump in 2020 closed one small door, but opened up many, larger cracks for cynical elites for whom power, money and self-aggrandizement are the root of their ambition. 

Why do we fight? Because it's never been clearer the lengths to which Republican leaders will go to maintain their control. Conservative leaders like Tucker Carlson and Fox News encourage their viewers to stay unvaccinated. Tennessee Governor Bil Lee fired his state health official for telling the truth about how dangerous Covid-19 still is. In Texas, Greg Abbott threatened to arrest Democratic members of the state legislature who refuse to participate in a further erosion of voting rights in the Lone Star State. 

These are not the actions of people who care about our country. 

Nor are they the deeds of people who should be in positions of public trust. Their mantra of freedom is a smokescreen to obscure their true ambition: To end of American democracy as we know it and replace it with a top-down, authoritarian system that places their power over all else. 

The Constitution, the rule of law and human decency are not the framework for their ideology, they're obstacles to further concentrating their power and influence over our lives, our government and our economy. They want to control what we say, what we do, how and where we live our lives, and they want us to quietly go along with it. 

We will not. 

The fight before us is no longer about Republicans versus Democrats. That is a fight of the past, and if we’re successful, of the future. The fight today is about democracy versus authoritarianism. It is a struggle whose outcome is not yet known. These battles – cultural and political – will be won and lost on the margins. It is those small numbers – hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters in individual races and states across the country, that will make the difference next year. Joe Biden won by less than 80,000 votes in three key states. You remember how close Georgia was. Democrats won the Senate by a hair's breadth.

All of the work we do together, all of the ads we make, all of the words we write and events we’ll do, come down to this one thing: Will we be able to bring enough friends, family, and neighbors to join this fight? That's the way we win this. Guarding and restoring our democracy is no longer someone else's responsibility. It is ours.

We will be able to count on you to recruit that friend or family member to lock arms with us and march forward toward a democratic and free America?

Or will we fail to convince you and our fellow citizens? We will watch as the greatest Republic humanity has ever known takes its place in the history books alongside Athens and Rome? This is our opportunity, our challenge and our duty: To place the United States of America back on a path to a more healthy, free and equitable existence and to once again take our place on Earth as that beacon of humanity and hope.

The choice is ours. It’s a simple choice.

It's why we fight. We hope you’ll fight alongside us.

-Reed Galen