Reform the Lines!
- defendingladyliber
- Mar 8
- 10 min read
Updated: Apr 6
It is time that I admit the truth: The country I thought existed no longer exists. Perhaps it never did. The results of November 5, 2024 exploded my world view. It left me dazed and in disbelief.
Most of all, it revealed that the values I thought were near-universal and ran through to the core of our country—integrity, decency, honesty –were only a veneer.
I have tried hard to deny this. To live in a delusion. I futilely tried to reassemble and tape back on the veneer that lay shredded in millions of pieces, telling myself with Panglossian optimism that “this too shall pass” and things will return to normal. I have spent lots of time in self-reflection wondering if I am overreacting. If I am being too swayed by the media. Whether I am in an echo chamber. Whether tyranny, defined as “oppressive power exerted by government”(1), is truly an accurate description of what I see unfolding. That perhaps Trump and everything he and his administration stands for are not the existential threat to our country as I perceive it, especially given that there are number of people I love and respect who voted for him.
But when all is quiet and still, I hear her panged voice in my ear. An unmistakable clarion call. Distressed but powerful, Lady Liberty pleads for help. She is under siege by the forces of tyranny—yes, that is what is unfolding—as their barbs and assaults pierce her hallowed emerald skin. Her face is bloodied but steeled with a defiant expression that conveys to all who look upon her that she will never bow. However, without our help, eventually she will fall. It is for her that I penned this letter.
This is not something I wanted to do. I am not an innately political person. I would rather sleep through the next four years; to wake up and go back to worrying about the mundane elements of life, such as how to stretch the budget to fix either the car or the washer, or how I will meet Friday’s deadline at work while still dedicating quality time to my family. I long for a return to “a boring life”. I’m tired. Not a normal tired. It is a deep, existential wariness. I am also a very private person who despises social media. It dehumanizes social discourse. It is a constant bombardment of regurgitated and surface-level opinions hurled—from all sides—at those who dare disagree with the sole intent to wound rather than to create a shared understanding of different perspectives.
So then, why do I post this letter? Because silence conveys that I consent with what I see around me. And at some point, remaining publicly silent in the face of what one perceives as injustice is cowardice. I do not want to be the one who, in 1775, decided to remain in the pub drinking his ale under the excuse of not wanting to get involved while others patriotically raced to Concord to aid their soon-to-be-countrymen against the agents of Tyranny. It is time I push my ale aside, grab my coat, and race toward the beacon of what is right.
What pushed me to this point? There are many reasons. I offer three recent ones:
To begin with, I have a neighbor who has been living next to us for as long as I can remember. They are wonderful people. They are always there celebrating our major life accomplishments as well as offering comfort in times of grief and heartache. If our house were to catch fire, they would grab a hose without hesitating or care for their own personal safety and try to put it out. Our bond is a deep friendship. A kinship that is unbreakable.
Now imagine, one day, my boss, a very rich, powerful man, comes over to my house for dinner. He starts to tell me with scant proof that my neighbor, who I thought was my friend, has really been undermining me for years. That my neighbor has been quietly and purposefully poisoning my plants and stealing checks from my mailbox. He goes further to say that my neighbor is less of a person than I am. So much so, that he feels my neighbor should be subjugated by me. That I should buy his home – without his consent – and then give my neighbor the privilege to rent it back from me. This presents me with a choice. I can remain silent and nod my head in agreement, even if I don’t agree with it, to preserve my job and not direct the wrath of this powerful man. Or, I can stand up for my friend who has always been there for me. What should I do? What should you do?
The next time Trump mentions the degrading suggestion that Canada should be the 51st state, conduct a search of what the city of Gander, Canada (among others) did for U.S. citizens during 9/11. Then, ask yourself if this is a person who upholds your values of how to treat friends.
I cannot and will not remain silent any longer as our leader tries to unjustifiably recast our friends as foes and foes as friends.
Secondly, on February 24, 2022, Russia unlawfully invaded Ukraine. Ukraine is far from a perfect country. There should be a legitimate debate on whether it is in our national interest to continue to provide them with military and monetary aid (there is a very strong argument for doing so, but that is outside the scope of this letter). What is not debatable is which side is the villain and which side is the victim. Vladamir Putin is a dictator with a long history of sanctioning the systematic killing of anyone who opposes him or democracy, including Natalya Estemirova, Aleksandr Litvinenko, Sergei Magnitsky, Alexei Navalny, Boris Nemtsov, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Yushenkov, among others. He also remains committed to undermining our democracy. As noted in the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment by the U.S. Intelligence Community, “Russia will remain a serious foreign influence threat because of its wide-ranging efforts to try to divide Western alliances, undermine U.S. global standing, and sow domestic discord, including among voters inside the United States and U.S. partners around the world.”(2)
Yet, on 2/19/25 Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the “dictator” and spread the Kremlin’s propaganda that Ukraine started the war.(3) Trump’s malignment of Zelenskyy and embrace of Putin is deeply troubling. Imagine what the world would be like today if President Reagan, rather than uttering the famous challenge to Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”, instead embraced him in a warm hug and twisted the truth to blame the West Germans for building the Berlin wall to keep freedom out. The words and deeds of Trump are sowing the seeds for the America we will see not just tomorrow but for decades to come. Presumably, Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator because Ukraine has not held elections since they have been at war. To which, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, the originator Fox News, and by no means a “liberal rag”), commented(4):
"Ukraine has delayed elections while it is operating under martial law and fighting a war for survival. Its constitution allows this, and Britain under Nazi siege didn’t hold an election during World War II. Was Churchill a dictator? Ukraine’s democracy is fragile and would be stronger if it could affiliate with Western institutions like the European Union. The only dictator in the war is Mr. Putin, who poisons exiled Russians on foreign soil and banishes opponents to Arctic prison camps. Call us when he holds a free election."
I cannot and will not remain silent any longer while our leader tries to poison our minds that good is evil and evil is good.
Lastly, on 2/14/25, the Trump administration’s Department of Education Office of Civil Rights issued a “Dear Colleague” letter (used to clarify policy) to U.S. educational institutions. It made the shocking claim that:
“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices.”(5)
I was speechless when I read it. The United States Government is making the unconscionable claim that the U.S. was not built upon systemic and structural racism. How is the enslavement of millions of people of color not systematic and structural racism? It was so systemic and structural that we had to pass and ratify the 15th Amendment in 1870—nearly a hundred years after the founding of our country—before codifying that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”(6)
I cannot and will not remain silent any longer when our morally bankrupt leader fills his administration with those who are either so inept they are not aware of our country’s own history or worse, and more likely, know of it and are trying to rewrite history for their own political gain as Nazi Germany did prior to and during World War II.
So, with social media as my trumpet, I stand atop our dimming, once shining city on a hill. I have cleared the brush from the almost forgotten signal pyre that has laid dormant for nearly 250 years. In the distance I see specks of flickering light dotting the hills from those who have already joined the fight. I commend them for their quick defense of our country and offer my silent regrets for not joining them sooner. I pause to reflect one more time if this is something I want to do. I do not want to do it, but I must do it. With that, I strike a match and light the signal fire, take a deep breath, and bellow with all my might to all who may hear:
“REFORM THE LINES! TO THE AID OF LADY LIBERTY!”
It is to my soul that I call. It is to you that I call. It is to our friends and allies abroad that I call. As we lay scattered and wounded, our enemies began a scorched earth campaign burning and uprooting the fertile ground of our democracy. Under the guise of seemingly beneficial labels such as “efficiency”, “nationalism”, “Make America Great Again” they are poisoning the mighty oaks of democracy that have stood watch over us for over two hundred years. Tyranny and despotism, once thought to have been eradicated from our shores, have returned.
We must cast aside whatever banner each of us marched under prior to Nov. 5th. There is no more “liberal”, “conservative”, “Democrat”, “Republican”. There is only pro-America or pro-Tyranny. We must embrace the former in defense against the latter. We must rally under the only banner that matters: the 50 stars and 13 stripes that we pledged our alliance to countless times as children. That was a deferred promise to our nation. A promise we must now keep.
“REFORM THE LINES! TO THE AID OF LADY LIBERTY!”
I am not alone. We are not alone. More than 75 million Americans rejected Trump and his ideals on Nov. 5th, along with many who voted for him but now reject his actions. Although Trump is the lawfully elected President of the United States, he does not have true power. Nor do political parties. They are hollow and corrupt. True political power always has been and always will be with the people. We have political might. We have economic might. We have intellectual might. We have patriotic might. And, most importantly, we have moral might. It is time that our disparate hands— of all shapes, sizes, and colors—inextricably join to form the shield and sword for our great nation. Freedom will always be the victor.
“REFORM THE LINES! TO THE AID OF LADY LIBERTY!”
We must move past the election. Over 77 million of our fellow citizens democratically elected Trump president. That is legitimate and their reasons for doing so were legitimate. There are many problems with our country: the crushing cost of living, the opioid crisis, unchecked illegal immigration, government waste, political corruption, strangling national debt, among others. Those who voted for him, aside from a radical fringe, are no different than those who did not vote for him. Theirs was a hope for a better country, as was the hope for those who voted against him. Yes, we may vehemently disagree with each other on many things but, in the end, we are fellow countrymen and women. I still love and care about my friends and family regardless of how they voted, as I know they still love and care about me.
Now we must cast aside how we arrived at this moment in history. All that matters is whether we are on the side of America or Tyranny. Our fight is with he-who-must-be-named, Trump, a real-world Balrog dug from the deep recesses of political extremism who does not care how he was spawned. All he cares about is raw, unchecked despotic power to spread darkness, shadow, and flames over our democracy. We must weave together our collective voices—tens of millions of patriots—into a deafening force that arrests his progress and lets him know we are here in defense of our country and that he shall not pass!
“REFORM THE LINES! TO THE AID OF LADY LIBERTY!”
It is time we went on the attack to lawfully and peacefully defend our democracy against his Tyranny. Each of us has a signal fire inside of us and we must decide whether to light it. Drawing on the words of the anti-hero V, “…if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek” then I urge you join me and those before me in defense of Lady Liberty. Proudly and patriotically display her image —where and how does not matter, be it your profile picture, a bumper sticker, a broch, a song—letting her know you have heard her call and are marching to her defense.
If you disagree that Trump threatens the core of our democracy, I sincerely hope you are right and that I am wrong. I accept that possibility and the implications if I am wrong. In exchange, I ask that you extend me the same courtesy and consider the consequences for our nation if I am right and you are wrong. I am sure the Trump presidency will bring some positive benefits to our country and likely to me personally. But at what cost? How many pieces of silver is it worth to betray our friends? To suspend common decency toward others, even those who disagree with us? To ignore truth for lies? America never has been, and never should be, the land whose motto is Exitus acta probat, “The Results Justify the Deeds”. It was built on immutable values and the motto E pluribus unum, "Out of Many, One". Out of many, we must form one to fight and ensure those values endure forever.
“REFORM THE LINES! TO THE AID OF LADY LIBERTY!”
