The Time is Now
Your fear is justified. Stand up now, it's our best chance.
Worst week ever. Even the week my husband died pales in comparison to this one, with its examples of state sponsored cruelty and portents of misery to come. First, they came for the immigrants….you know the rest.
I’ve felt mostly rage, a poisonous fury at everyone who allowed this to happen, from The New York Times with its declaration that democracy was just another election issue to be covered from both sides, to the nameless sea of people who didn’t bother to vote. Every drop of news fuels it: Colombia, which has accepted "repatriation” flights freely through the last four years, drew the line at two military planes Trump sent— full of people handcuffed and manacled.
“A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity a human being deserves,” Colombia’s President Petro said.1
Over this—treating human beings with dignity—Trump started a trade war, willing to do anything (including raising prices in the US) to break Colombia’s resolve. The resolve that all people should be treated gently, rather than thrown into military transport planes in restraints. Biden deported many migrants as Trump is— he just did it more gently and more economically. 2 The show of cruelty is important enough to Trump that he’s willing to spend more of his constituents’ money on it.
Cruelty is the hill Trump will die on, the main intent of Project 2025, which he is following point by point. Cruelty is the quickest way to break people, even whole populations of people. Hitler knew that, Pol Pot knew it, Trump does too. When Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde asked him in her National Cathedral sermon to show compassion and mercy to those who are living in fear, he insulted her and demanded an apology. She has since been receiving death threats from his followers.
A government that starts a trade war over its right to cruelty, and demands an apology when a Bishop pleads for mercy, is a dangerous government.
We have to trust our instincts now and stand up to it every time we see the chance.
Funding for the National Institute of Health was cut off. Cancer research stopped, some cancer treatments ended abruptly, universities found themselves without funding. All communications from the Department of Health and Human Services were cut dead (including the CDC, as Avian Flu spreads throughout the country). “Employees also received a memo instructing them to report any colleagues who’ve used “coded or imprecise language” to “disguise” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts—or face ‘adverse consequences.’” “It really concerns all of us that science is going to be rewritten. We’re all just very demoralized and concerned,” said a researched at the NIH.3
Please hear that—there is a concern at the National Institutes of Health that science is going to be rewritten.
The signals are clear, and the right wing is hearing them. Some judges in red states are refusing bond hearings to all Latinos, “in case ICE wants them”. Yes, this is illegal but appeals could take months, and meanwhile people accused of jaywalking (yes, in some states some [mostly brown] people are arrested for jaywalking) will be in prison. The state of Indiana grabbed the opportunity to cut all state funding to their one Black college. 4
Let us respond to these signals with the same energy. We are not alone. Bishop Budde isn’t the only one standing up. The Investigators General have refused to leave their positions. Colombian President Petro’s stirring letter should be an arrow in Trump’s heart5. Blue state AG’s have reminded law enforcement that their job is to enforce state laws, not unconstitutional Federal decrees. 6
Racism, misogyny and greed are the foundations of the Trump/Project 2025 administration. Cruelty and fear are the mechanisms intended to subdue us, to make it work. For years we have been told our fears of fascism were alarmist. For every day the population remains patient more people are hurt. We’ve seen pregnant women and their doctors menaced by vague, cruel laws based in fantasies rather than facts. Now it’s Latino and Haitian immigrants, health workers, cancer patients, anyone at risk of communicable disease. That is all of us, my friends.
Why did I mention my husband’s death? Because he was surrounded by compassion and mercy through his last days. Our daughter and I were living in his memory care room with him, holding his hand, giving him morphine. Death happens to all of us. Kindness, gentleness, should be as universal.
Onward, now, to work with both hands for a government that understands this and acts on it. The Immigration Advocates Network has a free national Community Defender Training zoom on Wednesday evening, but Indivisible and the ACLU and so many organizations will also welcome your interest. (Put suggestions in comments, please!)
‘’ Colombia is the heart of the world, and you didn't understand that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels like Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last.”