In a time when the horrors being perpetrated on our population are being delivered by a grossly incompetent regime, when our news cycles have become a mixture of misery and buffoonery, it can feel like we’re living amidst a real-life Monty Python or Mel Brooks film. The problem is that, while laughable, it is not funny at all; as we bear witness to a fascist, theocratic, authoritarian government being installed atop the unsettled ruins of a once great democracy.
In this time of constitutional crisis, rampant human rights abuses, and government overreach, we, the citizens of these United States have a duty to live up to the oath we hold immigrant citizens to, the oath in which our leaders swear to support and defend the Constitution, the United States, and its people from all enemies both foreign and domestic. An oath that was broken from day one of their administration, an oath that they never intended to keep.
What are we to do, when nearly half the country is willing to sit back and watch while morally bankrupt, white supremacists tear down the human rights protections, the economic and social safeguards, and public unity we have fought hard to build, while simultaneously destroying the most respected alliances in the world? We stand up and step out in unprecedented numbers, numbers that cannot be ignored.
Americans have spent 250 years working tirelessly to build a nation that can withstand hardship, a place where all people are equal, where all people are free to express themselves openly, a nation that looks after not only our vulnerable and marginalized communities but also reaches out to other nations with humanitarian assistance in their times of need. Because, if we learned one lesson from our past mistakes it is that when we lift up others, we rise together.
…and rise we will.
~ elr
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