What if time travel were real but the only day you could go back to is today?

And as a brief aside: what does time travel have to do with running for office?

May 24, 2025

Remember, “we can't go back, we can only go forward?” But what if we actually could go back? What if, when you woke up this morning, it was today's date you traveled back in time to? What if you — right now — are getting a do-over? For today? In one year, or five years, or ten years, will you wish you could go back to today and make different choices? Or are you listening to your future self right now, urging you to realize how really and truly lucky you are to have today — the whole rest of today — unlived? That you are back?

With this fresh outlook, I think we ought to ask ourselves, What action can we take today to prevent future regret?

May I suggest:

Objecting to abuse of power by authority, i.e. literally calling/writing elected officials, and using very specific language in order to catch their attention: “If you don’t ____ [or do ____], I will vote for your opponent on Election Day.”
Protesting injustice by literally running for office, winning, and then subsequently holding the decision-making authority as an elected official in order to consistently use one’s weighted House or Senate vote to protest a variety of injustices and then take action to prevent future injustice of the same nature.

I look at the 535 members of Congress and think, we need new people. Decent sane people who prioritize policies before personalities. We don’t even need a hundred Thomas Massies or a hundred Bernies or fifty Rand Pauls or twenty Tulsi Gabbards. We need ten Mrs. Vermalends, people like my beloved elementary school librarian who was motivated only by her desire to help kids begin to love reading, love holding books in their hands, and (learn to eventually) love knowing how and where to find the specific book that would hold the hidden answers to secret questions. We need ten Auntie Pams (rest in peace) who tell stories of earning $15 an hour in 1978 and see the importance of good union jobs. We need ten Uncle Pats (rest in peace) who went to the very first Earth Day celebration on the University of Minnesota campus in 1970 and then witnessed that movement almost immediately get co-opted by forces who wanted to divide Americans, not unite them. And we could get by with just one or two Mr. Barbeaux, American history teachers who urge their students to remember the regret of the Vietnam War and hang the famous “First They Came” poem above the doorway so that those wise words of caution are the last thing each student sees as she leaves class every day.

I suggest that we resolve to refuse demoralization in an organized way. How? First, we call our members of congress in the style mentioned above. Then, we find and ask sane people to run for local, state, and federal office on a platform of non-insanity. Healing — collectively — from the “hate your neighbor” mind-virus we’ve been infected with will take time, but again, if we think of today as the day we have travelled back to, then it becomes clear how lucky we are that there is still time!

And some of us might consider running for Congress ourselves. If I make it to age 50 (stay alive until then), and I stay sober that entire time, then I will run for Congress. On my 50th bday, which will be on 12/16/2030, I’ll have just over 8 years of sobriety — one day at at time, God willing.

Let’s normalize decent sane Americans running for Congress. Policies over personalities.

Accidental Philosophy

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