Yesterday, in the middle of the most consequential election of our times, Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice and took the seat vacated by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Millions of Americans are out of work, hurting and asking for help, but Republicans could not be bothered to pass the relief Americans so urgently need. Instead, the Senate chose to force through a nomination before rushing back home to ask Americans to reelect them to the offices they have disgraced. This moment makes clear the Republican party’s priorities for America.

It also marks the end of a rushed confirmation process for a judge who holds extreme views that violate the values of the majority of American people. With this confirmation, five of the nine justices on the court have been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. The senators who voted against Barret represent 13.5 million more people than the 52 senators who voted for her. Democracy is intended to create a governing majority, but America has evolved into minority rule that ignores the voices of women, young people and people of color while the Republican party does everything it can to ensure minority rule endures. As a result, healthcare, civil rights and perhaps the outcome of the election itself are in jeopardy.

Like most problems in America today, this is solvable. We do not have to accept a court that rules against the best interests of a majority of Americans or a Senate that ignores their needs. We do not have to accept government leaders who hold lavish Rose Garden parties while legislation to help millions of Americans struggling to pay for food languishes on the desk of Mitch McConnell. We do not have to accept a country where leaders shrug their shoulders at a deadly disease that has killed more than 230,000 Americans and is worsening by the day. We do not have to accept government officials who use cruelty and demagoguery, cloaked in the virtues of the flag, to foment hatred and violence.

These solutions are complex, but the first step is simple: vote. Vote, in record numbers, to elect leaders who will fight for every American and for the democracy that we could be. We have eight days left to make history with the biggest coalition of young people and people of color in history, and we intend to do it.