The backlash against former President Donald Trump’s comment to a Christian group last Friday that if he’s reelected, “you don’t have to vote again” in four years was swift and predictable.

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris quickly saw the comment as a promise of future authoritarian rule and a possible end to democracy. After all, Trump has supported those jailed for the Jan. 6 attack to overturn the 2020 election results, has more recently speculated on how he would be a “dictator” on the first day back in office and predicted a “bloodbath” if he does not win.

The “politics of hate, chaos and fear” is how the Harris for President campaign described Trump’s speech in West Palm Beach, Florida.

But let’s say Trump didn’t mean for his comment to be taken in that context. Let’s say that, as a Trump spokesman later tried to explain, the Republican nominee was talking about uniting the country so that all Americans would then be happy (and perhaps so pleased with events that a chore like voting would be seen as optional).

It’s entirely possible that the 78-year-old convicted felon who often sees the world mostly in the context of “what’s in it for me” would view this as the ultimate reassurance. Hey, vote me in, and your worries will be over. It wasn’t a promise to overthrow the government so much as a pledge to deliver what he assumed must be the goal of everyone at the Believers Summit (and beyond): A reprieve from uncertainty and angst.

The bottom line? That isn’t much better. It might be worse because some voters may buy into it.

In a democratic republic, voting is our sacred duty. Not just in presidential elections but local elections, too. We have freedom of speech and of the press, we can protest and assemble, we can petition the government for redress of grievances but voting tops them all.

How dare someone running for the highest office for the land take voting so lightly — whether as a threat or a reassurance. Our ancestors died so we might have this right. And we ought to be doing everything we can to prevent obstacles and barriers to voting. The poll taxes and literacy tests of the past have been replaced by voter ID schemes, gerrymandering and race-based voter suppression efforts, efforts strengthened as the U.S. Supreme Court has weakened the Voting Rights Act.

Americans can’t afford to take elections off. That should never be anyone’s goal no matter their political party or personal interests. And shame on Trump for articulating such a ruinous, and dare we say, un-American, proposition.

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