If Speaking Truth to Power is Heroism in America, We're in More Trouble Than We Know.

If it's becoming brave to demand our constitutional rights, the need for resistance is NOW.

Photo by Matias Luge on Unsplash

Each of us, even those who are enjoying this, are waking up to a country where all of our democratic safeguards are lying on the ground, smashed and broken.

Our Constitution is wallowing in the mud somewhere with only the words ‘We the People” exposed, as if to mock us.

Our Declaration of Independence, that document reminding us of why we shed ourselves of the evils of tyranny and petty autocrats, is reduced to wall decor in Donald Trump’s tacky faux gold-encrusted Oval Office.

Our own Supreme Court—or at least the six who have given up on being supreme in anything but their adulation of the dread Trump—boldly go where no court, Supreme or otherwise, has gone before: they give the sitting president immunity from anything his criminal mind might come up with, no matter how harmful or bizarre it might be.

When we aren’t wondering how the hell this could have happened, we’re wondering who might come a’knocking at our door if we complain too much. The country has become a scary place—on purpose. Fear and intimidation have replaced the rule of law. Nobody, it seems, is safe anymore. And so far, nobody has been able to do anything about it.

Yet here we are, some of us, known and unknown, speaking out as if we still have the right and nobody will stop us. Are we being foolish? Are they going to come after us next? Can they really send any one of us to prisons in El Salvador or Libya?

We’ll keep on talking about this, and there’s the conundrum: If we speak out loudly enough about the unspeakable, will we be safe, or is there a danger that we, too, will be silenced? If we’re silenced, who will speak for us? What will happen to those truths, those ideas we stress so passionately when we decide to throw caution to the winds and speak out, no matter the consequences?

How far are we from any of this becoming reality? Are they over the next mountaintop or are they right around the corner? What is that sound coming from the streets? It sounds like jackboots. I hear tanks. Who is that knocking at the door?

My god, how I hate this. I’m not afraid for myself. They’re not going to bother with an old woman with a creaky voice and little following. No, they’re going after the bigger fish. They want drama. They want quaking. They want to show the world how efficient they are at bringing oppositional power to its knees.

And they’ve done it. They’ve gone after newspapers and made them cave. They’ve gone after networks and made them pay. (ABC gave 15 million dollars to the non-existent “Trump Presidential Library”.) They’ve gone after lawyers and made them promise to do nearly a billion dollars in pro bono work for the regime so far. They’ve fired department heads for disagreeing with the ‘president’ and have shut down entire departments they’re pretty sure will work against the regime’s almost exclusively illegal shenanigans.

This regime has ended the foolish notion that our laws will save us, or that our honor or our morality mean anything anymore. It seems our entire system of government was based on courtesy and good will, not actual iron-clad law, and when that collapsed, there went democracy.

So now we’re at a crossroads. Do we go after them, or do we go along? Anyone reading this knows they’re not in the company of people who will go along. But what about the fear factor? How afraid should we be? I read a piece yesterday that insists we’re doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it. (I’m not going to link to the piece. Trust me when I say I’m saving you from a whole lot of nothing.) They said the Trump regime is so powerful, so clever, so cruel, we—dissenting citizens and Democrats—are fools to think we can find any solution that will bring all of this to a quick end. So what did that author think we should do? He thinks we should stop doing whatever it is we’re doing—which obviously isn’t working—and look for something that will work.

Silly us. Why didn’t we think of that?

I’m not going to end this by attempting to come up with solutions, either, other than to stress the ‘keep on fighting’ part. How we fight works on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute judgement call: what does this fresh hell require of me?

This right here is what I’m doing. It’s what I have the energy and the skills for. Praise you for what you’re doing! Whatever it is, it’s better than doing nothing. And maybe together we’re building a force formidable enough to make a difference.

Thousands of people marched to Grant Park in Chicago to rally for May Day on May 1, 2025. (Photo credit: John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

By all means, yes, let’s march. The visuals alone are mind-blowing. If the Republicans aren’t afraid, they should be when they see those crowds. But there’s more we can do, and this meme—unattributed, I’m sorry to say—gives some ideas that might seem obvious but can and will be effective if enough of us work at them:

And here’s another idea: Breathe. Just breathe. Give yourself those moments and take some well-deserved R&R. You’re working hard at this. You’re doing it for America, for all of us who choose to live here. Take time for yourself. Get out there and check out our America. It’s not meant to be a scary place. It’s downright beautiful. It’s glorious. It’s worth fighting for.

Once we’ve fought for it and won, it’ll be ours again. And we’ll deserve it.

Pondering at the Grand Canyon - author’s photo

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Here are some of the resisters who are helping us to be less afraid and more inclined toward winning this thing. It’s an ever-changing, dynamic list, so if you have a name you want to add, let me know in the comments.

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