Republicans understand that they cannot win upcoming elections unless they either cheat or greatly limit the ability of citizens to vote. This past week, the Republican led House of Representatives narrowly passed a voter suppression bill called the SAVE America Act. This law requires citizenship ID to register to vote. This means all eligible voters will need to provide a birth certificate that matches their current name or a U.S. passport. The result is that a married woman who took her spouse’s last name and any other person who has legally changed their name during their lifetime, will have to present a U.S. passport in order to register to vote. The SAVE America Act is unlikely to pass in the Senate where it will require 60 votes. The problem is that this authoritarian president has announced that he will enforce the provisions of the SAVE America Act with or without Congressional approval. “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!” DJT
Yet again, this president intends to circumvent the Constitution and deny states and citizens their Constitutional rights. With a corrupted Department of Justice under his control along with a brutal Department of Homeland Security ready to enforce his orders, it has become difficult and time consuming to withstand the continuous violation of our rights. We’re seeing it every day as ICE violates our Fourth Amendment rights by kidnapping people off the streets without probable cause and without warrants. We see it in the arrest of journalist and students exercising their free press and free speech rights. The president has stolen the right of Congress to impose tariffs and to attack other countries without so much as a whimper from Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Congress passes funding bills, only for this president to deny funding. The express duty of the executive office is to faithfully execute, or enforce, the laws, not make them. But under this Republican Congress we have seen a full-scale dereliction of their oath to protect and defend the Constitution. The Republicans have instead sword loyalty to Trump or have remained silent. I have no doubt that Trump will use his private police force, ICE, to enforce his voter ID orders and that this Republican Congress will allow it.
It is our patriotic duty to win the Midterms so we can turn this country around and finally hold this corrupt and lawless administration accountable. To accomplish this, we must not allow them to prevent us from voting. His lawless executive order will be challenged in court, and he will likely lose again, but what happens in the meantime could be devastating to our democracy and the rule of law. So, we need to arm ourselves and our adult children with either birth certificates or a U.S. passport. I recommend the passport because it serves a dual purpose of facilitating travel outside the U.S. which may become necessary. I concede that passports are expensive and that it currently takes about 2 months to secure. I suppose it will take longer in the coming days since so many government workers were fired under DOGE and that passports will be in higher demand. So, my advice is to request your passport immediately and offer to assist loved ones with the process or the funds if possible. My husband and I renewed our passports as soon as Trump was re-elected as a precaution. I hope many of my longtime readers followed my lead at that time.
The second thing we must do is financially support the organizations who will be challenging this law or executive order in court. Organizations like Democracy Forward, the NAACP Civil Defense Fund, the ACLU, and Democracy Docket are gearing up for this fight but they need our financial support. They have been fighting and winning the illegal and unconstitutional executive orders by this president since he took office. This is yet another fight they are committed to taking on. The lower courts have stood between us and authoritarian rule for now. However, the Supreme Court, thankfully slow, keeps making us question its commitment to the Constitutional and basic ethics.
I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to applaud the thousands of highly qualified and experienced lawyers who resigned from this corrupt Department of Justice (DOJ) since the beginning of the year. Some were fired because they were viewed as disloyal to Trump. The good news for us is that lawyers don’t just stop lawyering. As public servants at their core, many have set up or joined law firms dedicated to defending our constitutional rights against this vindictive and authoritarian administration. The American Bar Association has reported that the DOJ has a severe shortage of attorneys and is having trouble recruiting the best and the brightest to fill their ranks. The incompetence and lawlessness of the current DOJ attorneys keep showing up in court and judges are becoming increasingly impatient with them.
Even though we should be glad that this administration keeps losing in court (93% of the time), we can acknowledge that Don Lemon was correct when he said, “the process is the punishment”. Threatening investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s past and present political enemies has had a chilling effect on universities, news organizations, businesses, and others. Trump is counting on the public humiliation of an arrest and indictment (even if proven frivolous) and the disruption and stress of having to hire an attorney to fight the charges until they are dropped or litigated to bend everyone to his will. This is why some law firms, media organizations, and corporations have cut deals in advance. They want to avoid the headache and get on with their business. We shouldn’t let them. They should pay the same price Target did for their cowardice.
But even more egregious is the fact that we the people are paying for his vengeance and ego. It is our tax-payer dollars funding the corruption and dismantling of our judice system. In addition, every time this DOJ redirects are limited resources away from actual criminals, they are leaving citizens more vulnerable to actual crime.
And finally, we must be willing to protest loudly and courageously if we are going to keep our rights and take back this country to a place where our freedoms, Constitutional rights, and the rule of law is enforced. I’m in favor of speeches, commentary, and words of persuasion. I love it when athletes, actors, and social media influencers become activists. I’m in favor of peaceful street protests, economic boycotts, meetings with lawmakers, and artful expressions of resistance. I love the songs, the skits, the projections on walls, the artwork, the comedy, and whatever else creative folks come up with to resist. The polls are showing that Trump is widely unpopular and that the Republicans will lose the Midterms. Let’s live up to our national anthem where we proclaim ourselves to be living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are the brave.
That is why we must make sure we vote this November. We must do everything within our power to be ready to cast our vote. Let’s gain a majority in the House and Senate to impeach and remove Trump. And then let’s reclaim our Department of Justice and send him and his goons to prison so that true justice is served. Let’s live up to our pledge to be “one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all”.