I have found, at the lowest points in my life, that there is relief in naming the thing that afflicts me.
Being able to take all of my lowest points and look at them and say, “ah, that's depression” helped me immeasurably. Looking at my most irrational, sometimes exuberant, sometimes impossibly sluggish tendencies and realizing, “oh, that's ADHD” helped me understand what I was dealing with. A thing unnamed is an enemy unknown, mysterious and shifty, impossible to beat because you never really know what it is. Once it is named, you can start to understand it, and to know what success can look like.
We are in a liminal state, here in the United States. It is unsettling to stand in the maw of history, to know that we are deep enough in that there is no returning the way we came in, and the only way out is through. There are some who believe there is only one path from here on out; I am not one of them. There are many ways to go through this.
I will do my best to try and give a name to what we are looking at. I do not mean the clear and obvious name of “fascism”--that is correct, but I think it is insufficient.
We are no longer living in a constitutional republic. Our first amendment right to protest, to organize, to speak, and to redress the government is not only being denied, it is being held up as proof that we deserve killing or jail. Our fourth amendment right to be secure in our homes is being shattered by warrantless searches and seizures conducted without consent. The right to due process has been shattered. Constitutional amendments guaranteeing equal protection and US citizenship are being actively sneered at. The president of this country acts without Congressional approval on the budget, on the military, and without even the barest pretense at legal trappings. That is, I think, the clearest assessment of where we are that I can give at this time.
The institutions cannot save themselves. They certainly will not save us.
Historically speaking, there are ways in which our constitutional republic has been failing since the moment it started; there are ways in which has failed to achieve justice consistently, and there are ways in which it has sometimes veered off course sharply and painfully. Everything that we are facing now, we have faced before in this country.
All of that being said, I do not believe we have ever faced them all at once, or to this degree.
I consider myself a patriot. I am not a “bombs bursting in air” kind of patriot or an eagle-screech kind of patriot. (In point of fact, eagles do not screech. The sound you hear when someone plays a so-called eagle screech is the call of a red-tailed hawk. The actual noise bald eagles make is
an incredibly derpy high pitched squawk. Using a fake call from a different bird is the most American thing ever.)
I am a “sea to shining sea” kind of patriot.
So I will me further name where we are. What is happening in the Twin Cities right now is horrific. I have cried a lot in the last week. I have seen people speak about being pulled out of their cars repeatedly by masked, unidentified paramilitary forces, being manhandled simply for looking like they are not “from here.” I have seen multiple videos of brave people being viciously assaulted simply because they exercised their constitutional right. People are being threatened in their homes, their workplaces, their cars.
And yet, from sea to shining sea, we are not backing down. We are standing up, even knowing with painful clarity that they will use deadly force. We are standing our ground with nothing but love in our hearts and phones and whistles in our hand. We have nothing but the words on our lips, but by god, we will not stop using them.
What is happening in the Twin Cities is an awful, evil tragedy, painfully echoing another murder we saw there not so long ago.
In response, ICE has called every spare troop from Chicago and Louisiana. I feel for the people of the Twin Cities. It is horrific to watch everything break down. But here is the thing: they are mustering everything they have, and it is not enough. They cannot quell the defiance, because they are the fire they are trying to quench. The more they rage, the more people stand up.
If you learn something in this moment, I hope it is this: they may have destroyed many things we hold dear, but they have no path to victory.
They cannot recruit enough soldiers. There is no amount of murder and rights-violation that will make people give up and settle into the model, submissive population they need to sweep away the rights they think they can take away from us simply because they've smashed every institution to bits. And while they are doing this, they think they can threaten other sovereign countries? When they can't even keep the peace here?
We will not let this happen. We are the constitution that this administration has abandoned. We will do our best to keep us safe when every other failsafe has shattered.
We stand in the crossroads of history, and we are standing together.
Stand with Minnesota, and also look at where you are, and choose to be brave in as many ways as you can.
It is easy to see threats from this administration and think that maybe silence will serve you best. I make it a point to talk openly about protesting this government: to tell my neighbors and people in the community what I am doing, because they might wish it to be illegal to protest the government, but I refuse to act as if it is. I insist on normalizing bravery, because they will try to lead us into evil and war if we let them have their way in silence. These bastards will find no foothold for their hate or fear.
From sea to shining sea, we keep us safe.
