Are you afraid for the Republic? Pay attention to what thoughts you let your mind think.

“Memory produces hope in the same way that amnesia produces despair,” the theologian Walter Brueggeman noted. It’s an extraordinary statement, one that reminds us that though hope is about the future, grounds for hope lie in the records and recollections of the past.

Solnit, Rebecca. Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities . Haymarket Books. Kindle Edition.

These are dark times in America. Not the first of dark times. If it was, then Paine would not have been compelled to open his December 1776 essay on The American Crisis with "These are the times that try men's souls..."

... the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

If you've been feeding on the history of the several dark times in our nation's more than two centuries, and how each time, no matter how dark the era had been, or how scandalous the government, whether it be the chief executive or the various legislatures, resolution arrived and the nation survived.Then you've got a better chance to stay hopeful and focused on the work at hand over the next two months.

Fear and despair. What is the source of such a mindset nowadays? If all you feed your mind, and your soul is the cacophony spewed from the mouth of the orange menace, you may be afraid for the future of the Republic. The Union. The United States of America.

Just six months after the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed, the new nation faced the first of such dark times in our history. The Revolutionary Army was barely able to muster the logistics to keep a meager army fed and clothed in the cold winter.

Rather than allow newly christened citizens (former subjects of King George) to despair, Paine redirected their attention and inspired steadfast focus.

That's what you and I must do with the 2020 election, so overwhelmingly pivotal, so close in time, so seeming to many as a lost cause.Yet we know that despite the crescendo of chaos Trump will increasingly foment between now and November, the victory is OURS my fellow Americans. So long as we remain focused, navigate the obstacles and ensure the largest election turnout ever.