Ta-Nehisi Coates said this thing on Ezra Klein’s podcast back in June that I haven’t stopped thinking about as it relates to the 2020 election:

I say this as somebody who’s been very openly critical of Biden. We have this idea of elections as this kind of sacred ritual that one is undertaking, that you should be inspired and in love with the candidate.

But I often think people need to think about it more like taking out the trash. It’s a thing that you should do. Brushing your teeth is hygiene.

So when I think of who to vote for, the question isn’t how much of my own personal politics do I see in this person so much as how much do I think this person can actually be influenced by my politics or the politics of the people around me. So I can loudly say all the things Joe Biden was wrong on and not feel guilt about voting for him. Me casting a presidential vote is not the totality of my political action within a society.

I’m not sure how the “sacred ritual” emerged. You could argue it got its start in the idolatry of the Kennedy era then inflamed by the rough-and-tumble politics of 1968 when what should have been a boring matter of intra-party business became a literal Democratic street fight.

Perhaps it was borne from the way media coverage of presidential campaigns evolved since 1984. Start with a base of What It Takes hero worship; add in Gary Hart’s Monkey Business for a little spice; mix in the hope, optimism, and outsize personalities of 2008 then turn up the heat on a 24/7, Twitter-fueled news cycle and the primaries become a breathless, countdown-driven, American Idol-esque spectacle.

Either way, here we are. Politics as the art of the inexhaustible instead of the art of the possible.

Look, I love civic life. In sixth grade, I petitioned and spoke to my local library board about expanded access to resources. One of these days I’m going to find the time to figure out how the mosquito abatement district works. I’m fascinated by the inner workings of government. I want other people to be interested in it, too.

It is not, however, meant to be an Aaron Sorkin production. Most days, there is no “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” speech to be heard. It should be boring in the way your refrigerator should be boring: no scary noises; no rotted food; just a quiet, dependable hum in the background. It’s not inspiring, but it provides comfort, care, and calm.

Are you inspired by brushing your teeth? No, but you do it. Because otherwise a very meaningful part of your life will decay, rot, and die. We have to normalize thinking about voting as brushing our teeth even if we’re not inspired by our toothbrush.

I was plenty inspired by another candidate – inspired enough to knock doors and send texts. It didn’t work out. I was sad about that for a while. But I moved on because there was work to do.

Should we want inspiration? Yes, because it leads to aspiration. Primaries should be about who we are and what we stand for today. It’s about creating stretch goals and moving us forward. It’s about making sure the person who emerges at the end bears our standards, not merely their own.

I’d argue this year’s primary was that for all the reasons Coates cites above. Now it’s time to get to work.

We have to stop thinking of voting as a self-centered act and think of it as a society-centered act.

Once the general election rolls around – and this is true for the presidential election through all the down-ballot races – we have to look for our inspiration from the issues, not the candidate.

If you need inspiration in the presidential election, seek it in the issues that affect the daily lives of people:

• The person with a pre-existing condition who needs the Affordable Care Act to live
• A rural woman for whom Planned Parenthood is a medical need and who needs it to avoid a descent into poverty due to crippling health care costs
• Those targeted by white supremacists due to skin color, a family name, or the comfort of a faith tradition
• Black people who shouldn’t have to endure a president who took out a full page ad in the New York Times wishing people who looked like them would be put to death when they were falsely accused of a crime – and refuses to apologize for it 30 years later
• Your gay friend watching Alito and Thomas “take a legal baseball bat to the court’s 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges” and wondering if long-fought-for civil rights are in jeopardy
• An immigrant family watching forced hysterectomies at the border and wondering if it’s a trial balloon for the future

This is a year when voter suppression is active in a way it hasn’t been since the 1960s. It’s more important than ever to vote if you’re mobile, white, healthy, or can generally move through the world unencumbered. If you lack inspiration, consider that it is your job is to protect the rights of those whose rights are most under threat. Your job is to reduce harm. If it helps, consider yourself a super hero whose wields the ballot the way Captain America and Wonder Woman wields a sword and a shield.

Voting isn’t about idealism, it’s about pragmatism. If you want idealism, consider activism. With activism, the real work of inspirational politics doesn’t happen in the voting booth. It happens long before that. And on this point, here’s noted moderate pushover and compromiser* Noam Chomsky on 2020:

Well, there is a traditional left position, which has been pretty much forgotten, unfortunately, but it’s the one I think we should adhere to. That’s the position that real politics is constant activism. It’s quite different from the establishment position, which says politics means focus, laser-like, on the quadrennial extravaganza, then go home and let your superiors take over.

The left position has always been: You’re working all the time, and every once in a while there’s an event called an election. This should take you away from real politics for 10 or 15 minutes. Then you go back to work.

At this moment, the difference between the candidates is a chasm. There has never been a greater difference. It should be obvious to anyone who’s not living under a rock. So the traditional left position says, “Take the 15 minutes, push the lever, go back to work.”

Now, the activist left has not been making the choice that you mentioned. It’s been doing both.

Take Biden’s campaign positions. Farther to the left than any Democratic candidate in memory on things like climate. It’s far better than anything that preceded it. Not because Biden had a personal conversion or the DNC had some great insight, but because they’re being hammered on by activists coming out of the Sanders movement and others. The climate program, a $2 trillion commitment to dealing with the extreme threat of environmental catastrophe, was largely written by the Sunrise Movement and strongly endorsed by the leading activists on climate change, the ones who managed to get the Green New Deal on the legislative agenda. That’s real politics.

I sure didn’t expect to ever be quoting Noam Chomsky, but here we are.

Vote. Then get back to work.

* In case it’s not obvious, my tongue is buried six layers deep in my cheek here.

Image: “2008 Presidential election early Voting Lines, Charlotte” by James Willamor is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0