Each generation has an assignment. One that in failure will plague the following generation or in victory will open the door to more freedom. Up to this point, those seminal challenges have been met with the zeal of service over self, either on the front lines or in picket lines, and in turn those challenges have been overcome.
I’ve thought a lot about what that assignment is for all of us here in 2026, and what I keep coming back to is the preservation of good over evil that our lifetime record reveals in the win column. Not a perfect history, but one that has routinely defied the odds and sent the antithesis of the American ideal packing when it crept onto our shorelines or those of others.
Now halfway through Trump’s wreckage of a second term in office, we are confronted with the following task at hand: Will we uphold the legacy of those who came before us and took down the threats to our politics, our rights, and our allies which are now making a return? Or will we decide that’s too difficult and let our foundation in principle slip away?
I keep wondering what the Americans who drove out the Nazis, accomplished sweeping civil rights, and took on the Soviet Union during the Cold War would make of a U.S. Senate candidate whose family pushes neo-Nazi propaganda, a country that is making it harder to vote, and a country that has turned its back on its allies.
I think they would be furious. And I think we have an opportunity to assuage their objections by stepping up in this moment.
The Ones Who Answered
Every generation of Americans gets handed a hard fight, and every one of them had good reasons to sit it out.
The Greatest Generation crossed the English Channel on June 6, 1944, many of them barely old enough to shave, and walked directly into gunfire on the beaches of Normandy. Fear was the sane response. They went anyway, and the Nazis lost.
Then came those who fought for civil rights. On March 7, 1965, John Lewis helped lead hundreds of people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where state troopers beat them in the road for the “crime” of asking to register to vote. Lewis’s skull was fractured. Five months later, the Voting Rights Act became law.
Then came the long Cold War and the generation that refused to blink. For decades, Americans lived under the threat of Soviet missiles and still decided that Eastern Europe deserved to be free. In 1987, Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and told Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Two years later, the wall came down.
Every one of those fights came with a perfectly good reason to stay home, and every time, enough Americans went anyway.
None of them were fearless. They were scared, they had jobs and kids, and plenty of friends told them to wait for a better moment. They showed up because they understood that freedom is a promise each generation makes to the next. And paying the price of losing it is far worse than facing the fear of preserving it.
The Return of the Battle for Principle
Now look at the calendar.
On October 9 in the year 2026, President Trump announced a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian diesel, weeks after signing a law authorizing tariffs on certain countries that buy Russian crude oil or natural gas. Days later, he said Ukraine needs a new leader. Reuters reported that the White House directed Starshield, the military satellite system Ukrainian defense depends on, to be slowed down. Zelensky said last week that the speed limits are still choking his drone operations.
In the week he announced the deal, Russian strikes killed more than 100 Ukrainian civilians and wounded at least 429. Ukraine is fighting an invader the way earlier generations of Europeans and Americans did, and Washington is turning down the dial on the tools it uses to do it.
Think about what the generation that stared down Moscow for forty years would say about that.
Then look at the ballot box itself. In April, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act now covers only proven intentional discrimination. The law those marchers bled for is narrower than it was a year ago. Several southern states redrew their maps in the weeks and months that followed.
Trump also signed an executive order directing the federal government to compile state-specific citizenship lists and seek new restrictions on mail-ballot procedures. Courts have blocked key mail-in voting restrictions, while the citizenship list provisions have faced separate legal challenges.
And as for this third point, I am still in shock. Earlier this month, a candidate for the United States Senate stood on a debate stage in Atlanta and was asked to make a simple promise: no more neo-Nazi propaganda from his house before Election Day.
Congressman Mike Collins would not make it.
CNN reported in July that Collins’ son-in-law, David Scheer II, used a large online following to promote white nationalist ideology, share antisemitic conspiracy theories, and circulate Nazi imagery. Senator Jon Ossoff says that material has been produced from Collins’ own home. Collins told the moderator he condemns hate of any kind. Then Ossoff asked him to commit to ending it for the last three weeks of the campaign, and Collins said he was a little tired of the question.
The Greatest Generation beat the Nazis. The marchers made the ballot real. The Cold War generation made the Kremlin blink. Fast forward, and all three of those victories are being tested this year.
And Tuesday is the chance to show whether we will honor the sacrifices of our forefathers and push back on encroachment against our democracy, or sit idly by and let those safeguards slip away.
Don’t Hang Up, Don’t Give Up Hope
We are being asked to do something far simpler than what was asked of our predecessors, who laid their lives on the line for the hope of today which we now have the comfort to enjoy. We are being asked to call out the ills of hate, to challenge those who make it harder to vote, and to set a standard for defending allies. We are being called on to demand that we expect better of our elected leaders and to get out and vote.
We have continuously made our predecessors a promise, the same one every generation makes to the one before it: that what they won would still be here when it was our turn to pass the baton to the next generation.
Right now, we are in danger of breaking that promise.
“Every one of those fights came with a perfectly good reason to stay home, and every time, enough Americans went anyway.”
- Adam Kinzinger, former Republican Congressman
If you are old enough to remember any of this, I am talking to you.
You watched the wall come down on television. You marched, or you knew someone who did. You or your parents wore a uniform. You know what it costs to defend a free country, and you know the bill gets paid in ordinary ways: a ride to the polls, a phone call to a friend, or an hour in line.
So pick up the phone. Call your old Army buddy, your sister, your church friends, and the guy you have bowled with for thirty years. Ask whether they have voted yet. Offer to drive. If you have a grandchild who cannot be bothered, take them along and tell them where you were in 1965, or 1944, or 1989.
The phone is ringing. The generations of Americans who defeated the British, defended our Union, and ran evil out of Europe are on the line. They’re asking you to continue their fight for our institutions, our democracy, and our way of life.
Do not hang up. Answer the call. Election Day is Tuesday.
— Adam
The MOST important thing each of us can do is VOTE! There is NO excuse. We MUST save the nation. Too many have given their lives and suffered internally for us to be lazy.
Adam, your article is "outstanding". A master's class in history!!