President Barack Obama tonight spoke, in the most stark, pressing, and persuasive way I've ever heard from him, of The Choice we face as a nation in this election: between an America where we all come together and one in which we're on our own; between an America that believes in keeping our jobs here and one in which we send jobs to other countries; between an America that believes in the fundamental right for people to live free from fear of ill health or of insurmountable college loans and one in which we have to give up our rights just so that a few can be given even bigger tax breaks; between an America that affirms its commitment to truth and science and one in which we shun the facts of our ailing planet and our impact on it; between an America filled with daughters who advance just as far as sons and one in which that reality never gets realized; between an America in which young immigrant children who've arrived without a choice can pursue the full extent of choices we as citizens should all be able to and one in which those same young boys and girls spend their lives reigned in by unfulfilled potential vitiated by the threat of deportation; between an America that is filled with hope for a brighter future and one in which we live within the shadows of the past.

But The Choice is also about something far weightier, something far longer-term than our economic prosperity or the American Comeback or of freedoms to love and marry who you want or pursue whatever dreams you have regardless of your background or your fortunes.  It's something far outside the boundaries of this election alone: it's a choice between the kind of world in which hope is codified into our laws and values as a nation, and one in which the seeds of division, exclusion, and anger triumph over the greater good—wherein the fabric of society is allowed to erode at the vestigial hands of hate.