We Are The Resistance

These are the times we live in: a powerful autocratic movement is taking hold of America.

Remember a decade ago when it was just the nutty John Birchers or the Alex Jones fools who said things like that? They were actually agents of change, seizing power through cultural division and conditioning a fearful faction of us to accept fewer freedoms as the price of security.

The loss of a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions–the essence of Roe v. Wade’s abortion rights–was as consequential as it was heartbreaking. Now, other freedoms are falling more easily, more quickly.

I suspect the politically-stacked U.S.Supreme Court will soon outlaw marriage equality. By doing so, the Court will decree that a person has fewer rights because of who that person loves. By doing so, the Court rewards the religious zealots who tell you they love you and revile you in the same breath–What reasonable person cannot hear the nonsense in that?

Understand this: Just because “they” are rising doesn’t mean we cannot stop them.

But we who love freedom, we who fight tyranny, we must see our enemy with clear eyes. We must not seek false comfort in platitudes and delusions because reality is too ugly for us to look in the face. 

I promise this: they see us clearly.

So what is a “clear-eyed” view of Reality? Here’s a short list that I find frightening:

• The Trump Regime rewards wealthy people who support them and punishes opponents. 

• A vast network of rightwing communication channels churns out lies to a loyal base.

• They “other” people with less power, starting with people of color.

• They built an anonymous federal police force that abducts citizens. 

• They established concentration camps in the U.S. and abroad.

• They tested American tolerance for the military policing citizens in California.

• Federal agents with military backing are taking over Washington, D.C., the seat of our nation’s power.

As this goes on: Republicans understand it and are fully complicit–they chose this. Democrats are too divided, scared, or paralyzed to mount an effective opposition–at the moment. A toxic brand of Christianity provides the fiercest human fuel for the Trump Regime’s work.

So, my eyes are clear. This is what I have mustered my courage and compassion to oppose. Without me, without you, without us, there is no resistance.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.