Rise Up...Before It's Too Late

 I'm not one to be pulled in by conspiracy theories. Yes, I have a high baseline of anxiety unrelated to world affairs, but I also have read and traveled enough to be informed.

Usually I can calm my fears by telling myself "consider the evidence." No, this plane won't crash. No, you're not going to get murdered going to a Broadway show. No, that jet overhead isn't carrying a nuclear bomb.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of history is backfiring on any attempts of self-soothing right now. I have a PhD in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Even though I've focused on the best of humanity--the rescuers-- I've also researched the worst of it. I know more than your average Joe about how tyrannies are born.

Perhaps you've heard about April 20th and the Insurrection Act. Some see this topic as far-fetched and a tool of extreme-leftist fear-mongering. At this point, there's enough, though, evidence that I'm taking it seriously.

In case you haven't heard about it, let me take a minute to explain. There are a growing number of signs that, following the Project 2025 playbook, our country is headed toward martial law. The president has already resurrected old laws about "enemy aliens" and proven through the Supreme Court that these laws are still enforceable. In his first spew of executive orders, he brought up the Insurrection Act and gave border agents ninety days to analyze the situation before invoking it. He is has also agreed that citizens can be sent out of the country to maximum security prisons known for violation of human rights, and is, meanwhile, budgeting a whopping $45 Billion dollars for building and expanding detention centers her in the US.

Ninety days after the inauguration: that brings us to April 20th. A particularly inauspicious date, it was Hitler's birthday. This same date was chosen in the past for the Columbine massacre, because of its link to that despot. Our current government has shown itself accepting of Nazism; just a few days ago, Rep. Self quoted Nazi propagandist Goebbels at a congressional hearing! This year, April 20th is also Easter.

I'm already worried about what's happening at universities, in law firms, throughout government agencies, and on our streets. I'm horrified about how a tattoo or a hoodie can condemn a legal immigrant to deportation and imprisonment as in the cases of Andry Hernandez Romero and Kilmar Abrego Garcia. I'm shocked at the government's nonchalance about court orders, and its refusal to submit to many of them.

We have a president who believes himself above the law. Our system of checks and balances is off. We are not protected as citizens as we should be.

Some of my friends call me brave for speaking out. My family is worried that I say too much. Their point is valid, but I can't be silent about human rights. I can't let democracy go without a fight.

I do consider when it is time to leave the country; I think about it every day. I think about the people who were stuck in Nazi Europe because they stayed too long. I know this fear resonates with many of my friends, too.

Depending on what you follow, the media paints a different picture of our situation. Those huge rallies on Saturday were understated in the news. Many papers described the numbers as "in the thousands" though the actual count is several million. Though the throng filled almost twenty blocks of Manhattan, the resistance rally did not make it to the front page of the NYTimes.

In the name of "freedom of speech", news outlets no longer need to be truthful and are not kept back from hate speech. However, college students who practice their free speech in disagreement with Trump's allegiances can lose their student visas. Part of being a student is learning to discern the truth from lies. Scholars are taught to speak out; it is the students that have so often waged the battles that have granted us our freedoms.

As students are being censored, legal immigrants are being deported to maximum security prisons (aka concentration camps, internment camps), people are accused of being gang members without being granted due process, and children are being plucked away from schools and "disappeared"...our freedoms are being eroded.

If the Insurrection Act is invoked, these freedoms will be under an even greater attack. The freedom of movement could be limited as curfews are imposed, for example. And that is only one step away from all-out martial law.

It is in the history of tyrants' playbooks, and in the plans of Project 2025. It has happened elsewhere. It can happen here.

We must get our representatives to rise up before it's too late.