A Year of Reflections

Today, the Trump Regime announced they will pull out of Minnesota. After almost two months and three deaths they say the siege will supposedly end. After thousands of moments where the nation held its breath to watch the footage from phone cameras. Hundreds of hours of dissection trying to both convince and unconvince me that Renee Good tried to hit an ICE agent with her car. Trying to convince and unconvince me that Alex Pretti pulled his gun first.

I’ve watched Minnesota with tears in my eyes more often than not, moved by their bravery to meet fascism at the door when it knocked. In a time where so many people put their heads down, they stared into the face of a beast we still haven’t nationally named (and not for a lack of trying). The time since I wrote my last article has been harrowing, and long, and filled with misery and joy mixed together like some Frankenstein built of the visualization of courage and fear.

I haven’t really known what to write about it all, but I think my speechlessness is not a condition that belongs to only me. I think we are all sharing in this gruesome nightmare, gearing up, preparing for what we know only has to ring the bell to announce that it’s arrived in our cities. In our neighborhoods. In our homes.

I started this blog as a whistle, of sorts. A precursor to what I’d read in horror in high school textbooks. A cycle was begun, it grew nearer, and I felt if only I could scream the truth loud enough the nation might at least tilt its ear to listen. I’ve found that truth is not enough when so many rest in comfort in homes built on lies.

There’s always lived within me this call to action, and I think in pursuing it now, too, I am not alone. I find camaraderie in most places. In looks. In sunken eyes. The understanding that something has fundamentally changed does not need to be spoken aloud. For the most part, we all know it is time to work with our hands to shape our anger into hope.

There’s a lot I want to say, and I hope soon I’ll find the words, but today I want to do something different. I’ve often sent you newsletters full of comparisons of now to Nazi Germany. I’ve spoken of the likeness in politics, in attitude, in administering the violence that is supposed to keep us docile and sedated. Recently, I’ve thought to revisit some of the books I read during my school years. The Diary of Anne Frank. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. In them I’ve found all of the likenesses I’ve alluded to, but this time around, a year into the true storm, I find myself pondering the differences.

Donald Trump is no Adolf Hitler. He is more an empty effigy, propaganda put forth to emulate rather than a man who actually believes in his hatred. This regime is a circus, an amalgamation of distractions to distract you to distract you to distract you. There is no substantial framework, but a network of faithless monsters who are smart enough to publicly believe that they believe things.

The original Nazi’s were losers, don’t get me wrong. The incel apple has not rotted very far from that tree. There is still a deep seated misogyny and there is still a facade of intelligence that we are forced to endure, but the original’s were also war-hardened men who fought in real trenches, and not from their couches with a Mountain Dew and Cheeto fingers.

Hitler believed in his prejudices with his entire chest. He was a propagandist, he understood the benefit of it, but he used it as a tool to build his following overtop a solid and lasting foundation of what he felt in his heart was true. He was an excellent orator. He lured people in with well thought out ideas, comforted the depraved with the idea of a world where they prevailed. He convinced and clawed and fought to achieve the position where he would wreak havoc on the world. Donald Trump believes in only himself, and his followers are in his image.

I cannot overstate that this modern occupation is dangerous. Believing in nothing, having no ideals, desensitizing yourself to your fellow man, these things will eventually lead us to that dark path we all feel the loom of. Camps. Mass deaths. It is already happening.

What isn’t happening, though, seems to be the fanatical turnover of the country to his power. The people are fighting, and with social media it’s easier than ever to share that fight with each other even as the police state deepens. Even as your ring camera threatens to track the activity in your neighborhood under guise of “finding your lost dog”.

This version of the secret police are resorting to sneakier and sneakier tactics, smaller and smaller operations, because what they tried to do to Minnesota did not work. Across the country and here as I write this, we are reading messages from the networks that we are building that ICE is buying detention centers in our state’s. We are getting calls from our loved ones telling us which offices to harangue until they say they will not work with ICE. I am the youngest to show up to a trauma focused first aid class put on by anarchist street medics. I am moved to tears by Minnesota, and by the people who come out every Sunday to protest with me in my city.

Trump’s lack of belief has not been inconsequential. I largely believe it’s why the regime has been so ineffective (note that ineffective here is with a nod to the violence and horror they are still inflicting).

There are, still, many paths for this trapped regime to take, even in light of the Epstein files. A lot of them contain more violence. In a lot of them a new leader steps up, perhaps one who does have the burning belief that will win where this regime has thus far lost. We cannot let our guard down, but as I listen to an audiobook about the determination of the Nazi’s to eradicate the world of all those they deemed lesser, I don’t find those same principles dictating the every day life of men in camo joggers. That knowledge lights a fire in me. To keep preparing. To speak out.

Keep organizing. Do your own risk assessment, and then find things to do to help within your limits. Talk to your neighbors. Find a local org and see if they’re handing out whistle kits. Show up to your town halls. Show up to ICE watches. Don’t let your senators get any sleep. Don’t let ICE get any sleep. Pressure local businesses not to serve them. We are in this together. We prevail together. We do not stop them until we stop the world.

AF