The + Friday + Five | on the Election

Your Friday Five: 10.18.24

I am not sure if you know this, but we are in election season :-)

There is no shortage of opinions about who you should vote for, especially regarding the Harris/Walz ticket, protest votes, and third-party candidates.

To be clear, I will not tell you who you should vote for president. This election cycle, I am also choosing not to reveal how I intend to vote.

With all of the "who you should vote for" shaming, dismissiveness, condescension, judgment, contempt, fear-mongering, racism, ageism, and the disrespectful questioning of morality, intellect, and commitment to issues of justice — all I hope for is that you vote your conscience. I hope you vote in a way that honors who God has made you today and in a way that moves all of us toward God’s greatest hopes and intentions for tomorrow. Elections can feel overwhelmingly like an empire activity, but they are also a concrete expression of our faith and hope in and for our civic life together.

Here are a few folks who appear in my newsfeed as I engage in my discernment process. I do not always agree with them, but they are voices worth listening to.

is thoughtfully but forcefully walking that space between supporting Harris/Walz while calling out their ongoing support of Isreal’s assault on Palestine, Lebanon, etc. You should make sure to follow her on Instagram where she is most active and take a read of: Bearing Witness at the DNC: With the vote, all things are possible in 2025. Without it, nothing is.

is writing a bunch on and is all in on Harris/Walz. He seems to be primarily focused on reaching post-evangelicals, those looking for reasons not to vote for Trump, and challenging anti-Harris messaging. Not my social media cup of tea, he active on Threads and White Evangelicals Must Lose in November and This is Why I’m Voting are both worthy reads.

If your newsfeed is filled with “both sides”, “stop critiquing Harris” or “genocide is a single issue” read every single post from The Leftist Lawyer on Threads and on Substack. Not only do I respect what she does in the world, but I have also appreciated how she has been clear about her perspectives on the election and nuanced explanations of supporting or not supporting Harris.

Many you probably already follow here on Subtack via , but you shold also follow her on Instgram and on Threads for her unapologetic and deeply moving election insights about activism, engagement, and the soul.

Finally, read the election multi-post series Tell Me How to Vote!: Nope. But I will accompany you as you discern from on her susbtack, . She poses some good questions for discernment and reflection.

Again, this year, I will not publicly post my presidential voting plans. You can read some of my thoughts about it all as I respond to the friends, colleagues, and strangers dragging me for not immediately jumping on the public Harris/Walz supporter train — The Grief, Disappointment, and Inevitability of Losing Acquaintances and Colleagues.

I will say that no matter how you vote in the presidential elections, local elections are not driven by the electoral college, so your vote matters differently — I hope you will exercise it to the best of your ability.

Keep breathing and I’ll see you soon.

From the Camera Roll: I just spent a week with a Clergy and Leadership of Color gathering at Zephyr Point Conference Center in Lake Tahoe and captured this shot on our last day. Yes, the only bombs I would like to see up close or from a distance are of the rainbow variety.

*The Original Friday Five was a weekly-ish post from my 2010s SF Gate’s City Brights blog. If you stumble across anything that you think would fit, please feel free to drop me a note.