“What you’ve got to do is finish what you have begun.
I don’t know just how. But it’s not over till you’ve won.”
This past weekend I saw a high school production of the musical The Secret Garden. First of all, if you want to regain faith in humanity, go watch a group of teenagers putting their whole hearts into a show. I promise you will fall in love with every singer, dancer, orchestra member, and stagehand involved. It will remind you why you keep fighting for a democratic future for our country.
My favorite song from The Secret Garden has always been “Hold On,” a song about trusting that you can outlast the worst moments in your life. The lyrics hit different during this chapter in history. Holding on seems so hard, when national leadership is lashing out, assailing us with lies and cruelty and spite.
“Child, hold on to what you know is true,” the song says.
Here is what I know is true:
This is not normal.
This is not ok.
“When you feel your heart is poundin’, fear a devil’s at your door
There’s no place to hide, you’re frozen to the floor.
What you do then is you force yourself to wake up, and just say
‘It’s this dream, not me that’s bound to go away.’”
I feel like I’m walking in a haze where dream and nightmare collide. In the dream, teenagers from one of the most diverse public schools in the country are putting on musicals about hope in the face of grief and fear. In the nightmare, I have to remember that those kids now live under threat. I remember that those kids are the children of immigrants, the children of federal workers. Those are kids who use alternative pronouns and date across the gender spectrum. I have to remember that vengeful, petty men are tearing apart the very principles that ensure those students are given an opportunity to live, learn, and make art together.
I can sit in the theater and cheer for a few hours but I can’t forget what Trump and Musk and their lackeys are doing just down the road from that high school.
It is not normal.
It is not ok.
“And it doesn’t even matter if the danger and the doom,
Come from up above or down below or just come flying at you from across the room.”
We have to confront what we know is true and we can’t hide from our responsibility to speak out.
The administration is destroying the government programs and institutions that have been central to our way of life since World War II. They are wreaking havoc on the economy, increasing unemployment, shattering consumer confidence, and risking recession. They are shifting global alliances and positioning the United States alongside dictatorships like Russia and Turkey.
Moreover, the White House escalating its abuses of power in ways that we simply cannot ignore. Their actions are becoming increasingly targeted on individuals and specific institutions, with a clear intent of punishing them and intimidating others. Just this past week, they let loose a series of actions designed to quell dissent and terrify dissenters.
- Trump issued an executive order punishing a law firm that represented Hillary Clinton and the DNC, lambasting the firm for past and present commitment to diversity in hiring. The order revokes security clearances for attorneys in the firm and prohibits them from talking to federal employees or entering federal buildings.
- The administration canceled nearly half a million dollars in funding to Columbia University because of pro-Palestinian protests by student groups.
- In addition, ICE arrested a former Columbia student who was involved in the protests. Mahmoud Khalil was detained Saturday in New York and flown to an immigration jail in Louisiana. Khalil is a legal permanent resident and married to a US citizen. He was not accused of any crimes related to the protests – or any other crimes. The Trump administration is planning to revoke his green card, a tactic normally only employed when a resident is found guilty of serious crimes.
- Following Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest, Trump posted on social media, saying “This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” he wrote. “Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathisers from our country – never to return again.” He urged colleges and universities to “comply” with his demands.
- Trump suggested that boycotts of companies owned by Elon “Rasputin” Musk are illegal, saying “But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for.” He also suggested that the spate of vandalism at Tesla dealerships should be considered domestic terrorism.
This is not normal.
This is not ok.
“When you see a man who’s raging and he’s jealous and he fears
That you’ve walked through walls he’s hid behind for years.
What you do then is you tell yourself to wait it out
And say ‘It’s this day, not me that’s bound to go away.'”
In my heart, in my very soul, I know that the students in that theatre are what is right and good. I don’t understand why anyone would hate or fear what they represent.
But Donald Trump and Elon Musk are showing us that they do hate them. They hate diversity and they hate free expression and they hate dissent and they hate difference. And they are doing everything in their power to suppress all of those things.
And so I stand in the crowded theatre of American discourse and shout, “THIS IS NOT NORMAL. THIS IS NOT OK!”
I beg of you all to shout with me. Shout it in church, shout it in the streets, shout it online, shout it in letters and phone calls to elected officials. Don’t stop shouting. Don’t give up.
We must hold on to what we know is true.
Hold on. Hold on.
Credit: All quoted lyrics are from the song “Hold On” from The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon.
Civic Action Hub of Maryland 