The Enemy Within

Today, April 18, 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride from Boston to Lexington. He’s remembered for his courageous call to action against an imminent and menacing threat. That threat was a foreign monarchy determined to prevent the creation of an independent, democratic nation. The threat today, however, is from within–from an autocratic president bent on transforming this once great democracy into an authoritarian and predatory empire.  

I’m terrified about this dark new era that Trump has unleashed upon our country and the world. We the people–our constitution, our civil and human rights–are under direct and lethal threat from this president and his sycophantic enablers. Our institutions won’t save us. He was right to say that the enemy is within. He’s the ultimate Manchurian candidate who has injected our institutions, our courts, our rule of law, our constitution, our bill of rights, our schools, our civil discourse, our economy, and our culture with a pernicious poison that will severely weaken us while enabling cruelty, corruption and strong-man gangsterism to rise up and thrive throughout the planet. Our enemies couldn’t have imagined a more fortuitous gift. Those who were mad about pronouns and the price of eggs will come to regret their vote. 

All that was good about America is quickly slipping away. Our once world-class institutions of research, science, and innovation are being gutted. Our independent press, law firms, and our universities are threatened and extorted. Citizens are being abducted off the streets by masked, jackbooted thugs and then disappeared. Government websites are now propaganda machines. Our president is forging partnerships with the very worst dictators, murderers, and despots in the world and shows glee when talking about seeing US citizens sent to dark-site prisons in central America. He talks of communist style military parades in our capital. Meanwhile, we’ve burned every healthy alliance we once had. No one wants to even visit this country anymore for fear of what might happen to them while they’re here. We now have the clear outline of a new fascist American nation. It took less than 90 days.

The only force that can save us from this precipitous slide into tyranny and authoritarianism is us, the people. We are the country. We are the democracy. We are the government - by the people, for the people. In Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” he warns of a coming “hour of darkness and peril and need”, referring to the imminent threat against the once young republic, and says “the people will awaken and listen to hear” that call to action once again, some day. That someday is today. 

We all need to speak up and act out. One if by land, two if by sea. We must pressure our politicians to not abdicate their responsibilities to protect our democracy, our rule of law, and our system of checks and balances. To protect our cherished institutions and rules-based system. We are well beyond debating about policy differences and nuances in legislation. We are now on the brink of losing our democracy. We must form coalitions, band together, march, picket, and protest. Because as Trump has said so many times - if you don’t fight, you won’t have a country anymore.