It’s tempting to feel like our voices don’t matter, like our votes don’t matter. Maybe it feels like powerful politicians can simply ignore us, as if we are too small to matter.

That’s the lie.

The truth is in the actions of Republican candidates for Lieutenant Governor—House Speaker Scott Bedke and Rep. Priscilla Giddings.

The truth is that Speaker Bedke’s House–with Rep. Giddings’ complicity–tried to make it harder for us to vote. They voted to silence librarians. They voted to allow a rapist’s family to punish the rapist’s victim. Speaker Bedke’s House voted to harm businesses, to control the judiciary, and to stop teachers from teaching history and science.

The truth is that these politicians would not work so hard to abridge our freedom if we were powerless.

Dr. Edward Everett Hale, an American thought-leader in the early 1900s, described personal power this way:

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

The primary election is just around the corner, May 17.

The extremists in Idaho are no longer just a threat. They have taken over the Idaho House and have set their sights on the offices of the Governor, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the Lieutenant Governor. Extremism is on the rise because, in past elections, they showed up—one at a time—and it turned them into many.

The truth is that we are powerful. Alone, we are powerful. Together, we are mighty. 

Vote.