I don't know where we go from here. I don't know we escape this. This administration has stoked my gravest fears and taken actions that we as a people swore would never happen again.

My grandfather earned his purple heart fighting against these very atrocities.

I'm sure he's spinning in his grave.

every tiny backslide, has led us here.

And yet, we are still mocked when we speak up. Called alarmist, called fear-mongerers.

We point to every step along the way that has lead us to this point, and we point ahead to the inevitable conclusion it will lead to in the future.

And we dismissed (cont)

the public murder of a podcast host known for his violence-filled rhetoric.

This wife and mother and peaceful person was dead in the snow because she dared to speak up.

Thirteen year old me couldn't comprehend that we would ever be here again - but here we are. Every small slip (cont)

And I saw people cheer his actions.

The government called her a terrorists.

The state said she deserved to die.

People said she should have obeyed. Followed the rules. Cheered her death.

The same people that, months earlier, called for violence against those who didn't publicly mourn (cont)

And a man stepped in front of a car he didn't need to, forced an altercation that didn't need to happen, and shot a scared mother just trying to get away. In the face. At point blank range. When he was in no danger of being injured.

Executed in broad daylight, crimson blood on white snow. (cont)

Who cares about papers - these are people. Our friends, our neighbors, members of the community.

First they came for the undocumented

Then they came for those with brown skin

They came for the queers.

They came for anyone that dared protest.

They gleefully signed up to Do Violence. (cont)

And now, I sit - twenty six years after sitting in that high school classroom, reading that poem on a corkboard and telling myself that we had learned and we could never possibly let it happen again.

And people, our neighbors, are being kidnapped off of streets. (cont)

Not when she was brown and a woman and when he was the personification of every conservatives frothing, bitter rage.

When propaganda had slowly dripped dripped dripped in the country and divided us to an extent not seen since the civil war.

And he won. Again. But this time, they were ready. (cont)

And now he was almost a martyr, and the Dem guy flubbed a debate and stepped down and doomed us.

Harris wasn't a terrible candidate, in a vacuum, but a milquetoast coastal dem who toed the party line and refused to take a hard stand for justice was never going to win against a demagogue. (cont)

capture and murder our elected representatives.

Somehow, it failed.

And then the Dems didn't learn. They designated a candidate. He did some good, he did some bad, but the disconnect with the people was insurmountable and failure to hold a primary doomed us.

And Trump was shot at. (cont)

And it was awful, and we endured, but it could have been worse because no one expected him to win. Even his side was not prepared for it.

But we made it through. We almost didn't - remember, there was an insurrection. People stormed the capitol with zipties and the intent and desire to (cont)

But mocking is still exposure. Mocking is still putting him in front of millions of people, in every bar in the country, in every household.

And he won. He won becuase one party felt they knew who should represent the people- Because an FBI director poisoned the well a week before the vote. (cont)

The Citizens United decision, flooding politics with corrupt money. Politicians, unwilling to work for the people and only concerned with lining their own pockets.

Trump. Trump on the news. Trump on every televisions. Pundits laughed at him, they joked at him, they treated him as a fool (cont)

You could no longer wave goodbye to your family as their plane took off at the airport - at least, not from the gate. Never again. The economy collapsed in 2008 - with little hope for good work for my graduating class without a lot of luck. The subprime mortage crisis (cont)

We fought against this. My family fought against this. My grandfather earned a purple heart, fighting against this. This dehumanization of people, this refusal to speak up in the face of injustice and cruelty.

I naively thought that it wouldn't happen.

Then came 9/11. The patriot act. (cont)