DO NOT BE SILENT AT THIS HOUR

Speak up. Be loud. Be brave.

Photo by Mokee81

We’ve gone past the point of fascism “looming,” and the numbers of people who realize this are legion. Mad King George and his cabal of cohorts are rolling over our federal government like army tanks, leaving chaos, shredded freedoms and fear in their wake. Their aim - barely disguised, often shrugged off with a “Yeah, so what of it?” - is to nullify the U.S. Constitution and establish a “post-Constitutional era.”

Without the Constitution, we are no longer even the semblance of a free society.

There are so many things that could have and should have been done to prevent this. The corruption of our politics, our own distractedness, the arrogance of our intellectual elite, spinelessness of our media, and about fifteen other reasons all coalesced to create the calamity that is this political moment. But this isn’t the time to dissect the past. It’s time to ask ourselves, “What do we do now?”

What we most need at this moment is for Congress to assert its independence. Trump’s objective is to crush the power of the two co-equal branches of government, collapsing the protections rendered by a system of checks and balances. It remains to be seen whether the judiciary will hold, but there are very brave people at every level who are trying. And I do mean brave.

In Congress, it’s stupefying to see Republicans willingly surrender their authority and eagerly assign to Trump near dictatorial power. Many who run our government are indisputably there to dismantle it, believing it has become the instrument of godless forces that can only be vanquished through the auspices of our President’s ever-expanding authority. They call this the “unitary executive theory,” when in fact it’s a sledgehammer taken to the Constitutional principle of three co-equal branches of government. The Founders established that system in order to prevent such crises as the one we are experiencing. The Constitution was written expressly to block the possibility of a leader exerting absolute power; no wonder the crowd now doing so much damage to our country essentially wants to rip it up.

Yet there are signs of hope. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has stood up to the Musk machine. Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna from Florida has broken the mold of subservience to the Speaker. And four Republican Senators have voted against Trump on tariffs. We need to show Republican Congresspeople all over the country how many Americans want them to stop the totalitarian juggernaut now rushing towards us.

Many Republican Congresspeople have been so politically cowed by President Trump that they’re willing to break their oaths to the Constitution in order to give him what he wants. We need to make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that their bigger political risk lies in surrendering their authority, their conscience, and their soul to him. In fact - I kid you not - many of them think the convicted sexual predator and withholder of aid to the sick and the poor is some Grand Protector of Christian values.

That’s why the protests on April 19th are so important. Millions of people showed up on April 5th in over 1,500 protests all over the country. On April 19th there need to be many millions more. If you were there at the first one, go again. And this time, bring someone who didn’t go before. For the sake of your country, take this very seriously. We have diminishing options for resistance at this point, and it’s important we pour everything into the ones we’ve got.

Follow the news, not so much that you damage your emotional wellbeing but enough to know what’s going on. Call your Congressperson and both Senators about everything (the Capitol Switchboard is 202 224 3121) - from opposition to the Save Act, to opposition to the obvious human rights and due process violations involving the ICE raids and mass deportations. The case of Andry Hernandez is particularly heartbreaking. Whether your passion centers around threats to Social Security or Medicaid; rewriting history at museums, schools and libraries; the takeover of U.S. universities; the dismantling of humanitarian aid; our National Parks; Musk’s data raids; gutting health protections or anything else, do not be quiet. Speak up. Be loud. Be brave.

More than anything, we must not cower. To see prestigious law firms and universities obeying in advance is truly sickening, but we must not follow their cowardly lead. The leader you are looking for is within you.

When hatred speaks loudly, it’s not enough for love to whisper. Historic examples of rising totalitarianism prove that the behavior of the populace at an exact moment as this is the determinant of whether freedom rises or falls: will the people ourselves acquiesce, remain silent, and give in? The message could not be clearer: let us not be silent at this perilous hour.

Forces are working behind the scenes; some of them with ill intent, to be sure, but many of them for good. People are doing incredible, heroic things, all around the country and in ways both large and small. Some of them we’ll know about and some of them we never will. What’s critical is that you and I be among them. The important thing is that each of us, in whatever way possible, shows up for this moment and does our ancestors proud.

Some people I’ve spoken to are already concluding that things have gone too far. But for those of us who believe in miracles, that’s silly. So much can happen in the space of an instant, when enough of us rise up with the fierce intention to save our democracy from those who would demolish it. Foreign adversaries have assumed that if this moment came it would be easy to defeat us, that as a people we had grown too soft and gutless to resist. In many ways they were correct; we have been, but let us not be now.

The problem is big and as people we must be too. Ultimately, that is the gift as well as the challenge of this moment. It is calling us to rise. Every mountain, every river, every memory of just and brave Americans who triumphed over evil: they are calling us to rise.