By Nicholas Maivelett

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I write today because the world is full of fear and uncertainty. The world I grew up in is gone, the hope of a better America that my parents tried to instill in me has turned into dread.

Recently, we recognized the 250^th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, where good people stood up against the Goliath that was the British Empire and through hardships they won. The Trump Administration is currently trying to use its power to instill fear them because they want absolute control of every aspect of our lives like the British Empire did.

We must draw on from the lessons of those who started the American Revolution, for it will take good people to come out of the darkness to resist and fight back against the tyranny they are trying to impose on all of us. One prime example of this crippling authoritarianism is the desire for the administration to decide what kind of courses colleges offer to its students, masking such measures as defending Jewish students against anti-semitism.

We have seen Columbia University give into this level of control, allowing the Trump Administration to take over the department that handles what courses they offer that are centered around Middle Eastern studies, in exchange for being re-allocated $400 million that was frozen by Trump.

While many Americans are willing to accept this kind of power grab, either out of fear, disbelief or sadly they agree with the views of the administration, I look upon the past to the lessons of how to resist either up front or in the shadows.

That is the question that rattles in my head everyday: will I keep my head down and resist in the shadows or stand at the frontlines to resist the rising tide of a dictatorship that will in the end come for everyone? The lesson that I have learned delving into the history of Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia and others is that it takes good people to do nothing to allow autocratic regimes to take control, and destroy and kill anyone in their way. I don’t want to be one of those good people that do nothing, especially because I care too much for the people in my life to stand by and wish as they are stripped of their rights, freedoms, liberties, and possibly their lives.

One of these examples that swirls in my head is Germany, where millions of people succumbed to the fear of others like the Jews, the LGBTQ+ community, the disabled and millions of others, allowing their government to systematically kill them.

I see parallels of this today. The American people have been feed a daily dose of hatred towards many of the same communities that Nazis prayed upon. We have always been taught that we could never become like the Nazis and yet here we are witnessing the same kind of behaviors that lead to the downfall of Weimar Republic in Germany.

An example of this is the dismantling of due process, this is highlighted by Kilmar Abergo Garcia, who has been shipped off to a prison in El Salvador. He has been accused by the Trump Administration of being a member of MS-13, whether these accusations are true is not the problem, it is that Mr. Garcia was not afforded a hearing on these allegations.

This is dangerous because if they can do this to a seemingly innocent person, they will use this kind of power against anyone they deem a threat to the United States. This is because due process offers us the opportunity to hear the governments accusations and try to prove our innocence and without it, the government can seemingly behind close doors decide whether you are guilty or innocent without a jury or judge hearing the evidence.

During these times I think about movies like the Dark Knight and the Dark Knight Rises, where a mad man is willing to kill, torment people into submission and for some that works because they fear they will be next so they do what the mad man says so he will not target them next, but then a dark knight comes along to save the day and sacrifice himself to save the city and those he cares for.

While I wish real life were like these films in which there is a great white knight or dark knight that saves the day, sadly life is not a movie and the only people that can get us out of this situation is us and while it is frightening to think about taking on this administration because of how powerful they try to present themselves, they have a weakness.

That is there are more of us than there are of them and we must use our power, our numbers to push back against them because if we don’t do it now then there is no going back and we will become just another country that falls to the fear of others; if we fail, those who fought and died at Lexington and Concord would have died for nothing.

This decision is not about myself but the love that I have for my friends, my family and coworkers and anyone who has touched my life in any way. It is time for we the people to make good trouble, whether it be through protesting, running for office, or helping certain candidates in the next elections to stop the backsliding of our democracy.

Many of us may not be the target today but once they are through with the most vulnerable in our society, they will come for us and we will have no one to speak up for us. These day with fear of the government at an all time high for many groups of people, it is easy to keep our heads down and look the other way while this administration takes over and reshapes our country into a system based not on experience and ability but on loyalty to Trump.

This is because they want us to be afraid of them: we have seen what the US government has been willing to do to those who go against the status quo, like the civil rights movement of the 60s, the Anti-War movement. The hard work must be done by those willing to stand up and speak loudly and say even louder that we will not go quietly.

We will stand up for those who have been targeted by this administration whether it be the immigrant community, women’s rights, the LGBTQ+ community, and people of color, among others. This is not just call on me to stand up to Trump and his cronies who seek power by any means necessary, but a call to everyone in the United States to stand up, resist, protest and run for office because in the blink of an eye they will destroy this country as we know it.  

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