I am in the middle of reorganizing my place, going through boxes and clutter that I have accumulated since I moved in. As though on cue, one of the things I found yesterday was a sign from the 2008 Democratic National Convention that reads:

READY FOR JOE.

It was a fun riff on the call-and-response of the Obama campaign: “Fired up? Ready to Go!” I put the sign in my window last night, 24 hours before tonight’s debate. Finally, officially, publicly, I’m ready for Joe.

I’ve been ready for anyone to end Trump for a long time. I remain ready for something far more radical than Biden’s record suggests we’ll get. But as ever, the Presidential race is not about idealism or perfection. We could slice the electorate into a thousand factions for a thousand candidates and there would still be imperfections to parse in the candidate nearest my beliefs.

Ready means let’s rally behind this guy and get him across the finish line. There is too much at stake to pretend there is an alternative.

I am thinking of the sign in the window as an antidote to the 50% time Trump will be speaking during the debate. I’ve avoided listening to Trump live for the past four years at every opportunity. But, these next four weeks, we’ll have to look at him in real time in order to more effectively kick him out.