Lots of folks have been asking me how I’m feeling at this moment, as we are just days before the midterm elections end. Already, millions of votes have been cast, and tens of millions more votes will be cast.

I understand why so many people have felt despair, hopelessness, and even fear about what Donald Trump is doing to the country during his second term. For me, the feeling has generally been one of unease. But as we approach November 3, I’m upgrading my condition from uneasy to cautiously optimistic.

This week on the podcast, my guest, Anne Applebaum, was loath to predict what will happen in the midterms. I, too, am a little bit superstitious. I’m not predicting victory in both the House and the Senate for the Democrats, but I think that’s a reasonable possibility. And so, without jinxing anything, I am hopeful and cautiously optimistic that there will be a big win for Democrats. 

Perhaps even more importantly than the Democrats getting some power, a win would be a symbol of repudiation and rejection, hopefully overwhelmingly, of Trump and his tactics, his staff’s tactics, his cabinet’s tactics, and also their values.

It’s inherently dangerous to rely on polls. Polls can often be wrong, particularly in the modern era. But the fact that the Trump folks feel the need to campaign in deep, deep, deep red states like Kansas and Mississippi, I think, is a further sign that not just the polls, but the mood of the country, as Applebaum referred to it, has shifted. 

You’ve got the war in Iran that nobody wants, and that Donald Trump promised he wouldn’t start. You’ve got inflation as a result of the tariffs, which nobody wants. You’ve got the particular impact of inflation on the cost of gas and diesel, which nobody wants, and which Trump minimizes and actually mocks concern about. You have his breaking of his promise about the full release of the Epstein files.

And then you just have the natural political and human dynamic of fatigue. Whether you like him or not, I think that Donald Trump can safely be described as wearying and fatiguing, more than any other politician in modern times. He is the greatest thief of our attention that has ever been elected to the presidency. And people get not just fatigued but fed up.

On top of that, you look at his disproportionate focus on the ballroom, on the arch, and on a plane he got from Qatar. These things don’t comport with the trials and tribulations that people are feeling in this country. So I’m cautiously optimistic.

I have gone out on a limb with my cautious optimism self-description. Please justify my optimism by doing that most important thing that a citizen can do in the United States of America, and that is to vote.

If you have early voting in your state, go vote. If you haven’t voted yet, make a plan to vote. If you have friends and family members who you know are supportive of what we’re talking about, make sure they go vote. Maybe offer them a ride to the polls. 

Because the slight risk is that if people are overly optimistic—that’s why I said cautiously optimistic—they will sometimes figure their vote doesn’t matter because their candidate is expected to win and they don’t need to vote. Well, there’s no such thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy in this regard. So, no matter how optimistic you are, notwithstanding what I’m saying about optimism, act like an ultimate pessimist and make sure that you get out there to vote.

Voting at this moment, whether it’s early voting, mail voting, or in-person voting, is, more than it ever has been before, an act of patriotism and an honor of your citizenship. That’s because, as Joyce Vance and I discuss often on the Insider podcast, there has not been a time in modern American history when one side has tried so hard to suppress your vote, to denigrate your vote, to overturn your vote, to distort elections, to lie about elections, and to dilute that right you have in this country to choose your leaders.

When they are fighting hard as hell to make your vote not count, the best thing you can do to repudiate that un-American, unpatriotic, unlawful, unconstitutional behavior is to proudly go to the polls, cast your ballot, and wear your sticker.

Lastly, I just want to repeat my respect and admiration, and give thanks to the countless people who make our elections work—those who work the polls, who count the ballots, all of whom make democracy possible. And when you vote, maybe you can pat them on the back and give them a thank you, too.