Arise, America. It's Not Too Late.
We are in a state of emergency. Most newspapers report the facts, ma'am, but shy from stating American democracy is on the line, in serious peril.
Scenes from the resistance: the Lincoln Memorial, the jammed independent bookstore and the floor of Congress, where Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) parted waters by bellowing at the president midway through a 99-minute rant.
These times demand swift citizen resistance, and I don't mean passive or violent. The suffrage movement held vigils, bonfires and marches on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House gates, and never gave Woodrow Wilson a day off.
Organized in the public eye, they would not be ignored. They even burned a presidential speech about liberty. Wilson, a Princeton man, was proud of his precious speeches, for good reason.
When women were jailed and force-fed, Wilson had to submit, and this is why: Most families knew someone in the struggle for the vote, suffering for suffrage. Politics hit home and became personal.
The sun gleamed on the Lincoln Memorial Friday afternoon. Five thousand attended the rally, Stand Up for Science. Doctors and scientists don't often leave their labs, rounds and white coats. Seeing the gathering around the Reflecting Pool was an extraordinary moment.
National Institutes of Health research funding for cancer and other diseases is on Elon Musk's chainsaw chopping block. Young scientists are at risk of being laid off when they are working for their country's good -- just as much as any soldier or marine.
When I was growing up, NIH was a household name. My father, an immunologist, was always working on a research grant. The New England Journal of Medicine landed in the mail. Over dinner, he was always telling stories about patients and colleagues.
A contingent from Johns Hopkins Hospital came from Baltimore to the demonstration.
"As a doctor, I owe it to my patients to stand up for the science that enables us to offer the best possible care to everyone. Medical research saves lives!" Dr. Eric Bass said.
"We must help people understand how much they benefit from federal support of medical research and what they will lose if we can't stop the disruptions of research that are occurring."
That is one of the best hospitals in the world sounding an alarm.
President Donald Trump doesn't know -- or care -- that the public sector can't be privatized, because government is a service to the American people. A thousand National Park Service workers are meeting Musk's chainsaw fate, when they are stewards of our shared national lands.
Friday night, it came time to go to an old-fashioned "teach-in," a session given by constitutional law experts at the Politics and Prose bookstore. It's a favorite Northwest neighborhood haunt, and I've never seen it so filled, every square inch.
Concerned citizens were out in force tonight. In Washington, we fly in the eye of the storm. Most of the skilled expert federal workforce lives here.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) spoke when I arrived. I knew his voice, though I strained to see him, a Trump impeachment manager.
"Spend the money as Congress tells you!" Raskin exclaimed, angry that government agencies that Congress founded and funded are being shuttered. The U.S. Agency for International Development was an important instrument of foreign policy and good will.
Only Congress has the power to spend funds, strictly speaking, which is spelled out in the Constitution. The Trumpian chill is also spreading to university funding with drastic consequences.
But Congress is timid -- or intimidated -- by a president who would be king. Republicans and Democrats have never seen a powerplay hell-bent on revenge and destruction.
Except one Houston Democrat who stood out -- literally.
Green, 77, waved his cane and roared like an Old Testament prophet: "You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!" Trump smirked as Green was escorted off the floor.
Green responded to Trump calling the subdued Democrats "lunatics" to their faces. A veteran of the civil rights movement and the NAACP, he described his protest as "righteous incivility."
That man has my vote.
This is a time to declare, like the abolitionists, "I will be heard!"
Very soon we'll all know someone hurt by the Trump-Musk mass layoffs. Then popular opinion shall shift in the wind -- if it's not too late.
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The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.
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