Who is the Resistance?
We can all agree..
…on the basic ideas of democracy, freedom, equality, and rule of law. With these building blocks of our society under attack, we need to stand up and do something. These fundamentals are the foundation on which we stand and are the very concepts that allow our (admittedly, often hostile) political discussions to exist at all. Recognizing the paramount importance of protecting these ideals, the resistance is for all reasonable Americans.
Against MAGA-style Fascism
The aggressive deconstruction of our government we have witnessed since the inauguration of our latest president is an insult to our shared past, threatens our future and must be halted now. While the steady surrender of their legislative power by Congress and the politicization of the courts are not new phenomena, the result of these trends when paired with a bad faith executive hungry for monarchical power is anathema to the American understanding of our governing structure.
We recognize the blatantly illegal and willfully unconstitutional behavior on display from the White House as only the beginning of our descent into authoritarian rule. The overlapping interests of white christian nationalism and the billionaire class are economically oppressive and socially tyrannical to all Americans and must not be enshrined as the core tenants of governmental administration now or in the future.
Commitment to Equality and Fairness
The United States is not a nation of shared ethnicity or religion, but one of a shared moral commitment to the idea of fairness and equal opportunity for all of her citizens. It is an idea unique to Americans that while the world may not be fair, it should be. Our history is littered with egregious offenses to this moral imperative, but with most every generation we have strived to bring our society closer to the truth of that vision of equal opportunity under the law.
The current administration is systematically shredding these values we hold so dear. By using careful language targeting marginalized communities, they are actively setting the stage for the next steps in their rollback of freedoms not just for these communities, but eventually all Americans they deem unfit.
An End to Corruption in Government
Like many MAGA agendas, corruption in government is nothing new in the abstract, and the urge to shrug and accept the status quo is a strong one. However, the corruption we have seen in this administration already is nothing like the status quo, and is extremely dangerous to ordinary American citizens. If corruption was a concern before, it is on a new scale now and demands immediate curtailing.
Displaying billionaires at his inauguration where one might normally see family or government leadership figures was only the visual depiction of how the ruling party feels about money in politics. These billionaires, unqualified and without background checks or Senate approval, are maliciously ejecting any civil servant who might enforce regulations to stop them from absorbing even more of the country’s wealth into their own pockets.
Protection of Free Speech and an Independent Press
The MAGA hypocrisy around free speech is one of the most appalling and dangerous things about this new world we inhabit. While constantly belittling and condemning any disagreement with their positions, let along aspersions on their character, they speak some of the most vile insults imaginable to individuals and refer to their fellow countrymen as “the enemy within.” More than the speech itself, however, there are widespread and unfounded accusations in prejudicial reporting by the press and boosting in social media.
This imbalance in the interpretation of civil rights has taken on a veneer of legitimacy recently, and not only because of the MAGA leaders’ wholesale embrace of this rhetoric. Indeed, with the few billionaires who largely control our modern communications networks apparently wholly aligned with the current agenda, there is far more danger now of the opposition being silenced than there ever was before.
We have already seen the effects of this fascist approach to media, which demands wholesale approval of their every action, with most of the mainstream press voluntarily adjusting their coverage to be more favorable to the administration. This is not opinion, it is fact; we can see the evidence in the changes of newspapers’ mottos, the vast exodus of seasoned and respected journalists from legacy media, and the sanewashing in the headlines themselves.
Return to this page in the coming days; we will be expanding on these ideas soon. But right now, we have no time to lose.