THE AWFUL PRICE OF FREEDOM

We Minneapolitans—and residents of several other American cities Donald Trump has targeted with his vindictiveness—confront a question that just might reflect the challenge of our post-World-War-II lifetimes: What might I do if I find myself face to face with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) goon squad abusing a neighbor or friend?

As a man who came of age at the height of the Vietnam War, I had to face a decision that tested my character: Do I get drafted? Enlist? Resist? Maybe find another way to serve? (I ended up enlisting and serving for six years in the U.S. Army Reserves.) And, informing that decision, another question: How would I act facing the enemy, and, God forbid, asked to make the ultimate sacrifice? 

PHOTO: Saline County Library

Once my years of draft eligibility passed, I never dreamed I’d have to confront those same life-and-death, mettle-testing questions again. But here we are. 

This time the threat, the enemy, is not some crazed pack of Viet Cong; it is my own government, whose barbarity defies not just our cherished Constitution, but simple decency. And it’s not happening 8,500 miles away; it’s right here in Minneapolis.

       Just pulling out my iPhone and tapping that red 
       circle could put me in the crosshairs of some dude 
       with the training of a night watchman and an urge 
       to kick some ass.

So, let’s say I’m at work—in an office building where some 80 percent of my fellow tenants are Somali-American. It seems quite possible that some of them, even those with legal status, will be targeted by ICE. If that happens, what will I do to stand up for the rights of my neighbors—most of them my fellow citizens—against some agents’ brutality?

PHOTO: Dave Decker - ZumaPress

The violence of federal agents toward even those simply bearing witness to their lawlessness is chilling. Just pulling out my iPhone and tapping that red circle could put me in the crosshairs of some dude with the training of a night watchman and an urge to kick some ass. I’m afraid, in the heat of the moment, incensed by the stark inhumanity of these bullies, I might do more than pull out my phone. 

Should I stop and weigh my options? Consider the prospect of injury, imprisonment…or worse? Calculate my odds of making the slightest difference? Or should I just go ahead and do what I’d hope someone might do for me if I were under attack by masked thugs? Exactly what Alex Pretti was doing. And died for.

Reasonable questions. Ones we Americans, sadly, must all be asking ourselves during this unprecedented attack on our Democracy. How sad, especially for one who’s been around the block a few times. Instead of growing old in peace in the country where I’ve worked and served for six decades, I must once again, right here in my home town, weigh the awful cost of freedom.

Given the topic's surging presence in social media, I suppose by now you've heard of Project 2025.

That's the right-wing Heritage Foundation's vision for a second Donald Trump presidency. This vision is so out there, so frightening, that even the Trumpublican party's poster boy is claiming to know nothing about it. 

Right. 

The cretin is mentioned by name 240 times in the document. And CNN found nearly 140 former Trump aides and advisers who have contributed to Project 2025, including six former members of his Cabinet, four of his ambassadors, and Republican National Committee members appointed to their positions in coordination with the Trump campaign.

It's hard to think of an adequate way of responding to such a blatant anti-Democracy, fascist intention. Millions of our countrymen and women have fought and died to defend our country against such ambitions. And this one's taking place right here at home, right under our noses.

PHOTO: Mediadrum Images / NARA

Lacking a military option, we should be facing the threat with whatever weapons we do possess. Writing about it. Sharing it with friends. Flooding social media with it. Taking it to the streets...

...and calling to task major news media for what to date has been their paltry coverage of this existential threat to our democratic way of life.  To wit the letter to the editors I just submitted to the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

To Star Tribune editorial department:

Why is the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 once again not front page news today? Why is it not every day?

This 900-plus-page document is chilling in both scope and detail—nothing less than a manifesto for a fascist, Christian nationalist Trump regime.

From a wholesale dismantling of hard-won environmental and consumer-protection regulations, to blurring the separation of church and state, to undermining longstanding safeguards against abuses of executive power, to supplanting capable public servants with regime loyalists, to gutting our government’s vital checks-and-balances design, to suppressing dissent, Project 2025 is a blueprint for the destruction of Democracy.

How much more disturbing would this ultra-right-wing playbook have to be before
the Star Tribune gives it the urgent coverage it deserves?

I urge you to consider Project 2025’s newsworthiness in light of other events and issues which would surely capture front-page, banner-headline coverage in your paper. Like a nationwide power blackout, a major airplane crash, or the U.S. Capitol being overrun by an angry mob of the same kind of traitors who would find new empowerment in Project 2025.

Please, I urge you to pick up whatever weapon of expression you possess and use it to expose the shocking reality of Project 2025. Your voice, your feet, your wit, or, as I have, your pen.

Our precious Democracy—the peace and freedom most of us have enjoyed all our lives and that we so dearly wish for our children and grandchildren—is at stake.

ILLUSTRATION: Norman Rockwell