October 2nd was the 27th anniversary of the day my son, Ben, died and it hit home particularly hard this year. When I woke up that morning last week, I realized that 27 years ago he was still alive. It wasn’t until 8:30 that night that Ben, then 25 years old, was hit by a car while riding his bike on a street in Austin, Texas. I’ve written about Ben before in my attempt to keep his memory alive by sharing him and his short, quirky, creative life with others.
But this year, I also realized that my grief, my mourning has extended beyond my son to the world we are now inhabiting, one in which cruelty toward others has reached an epic level in this country.
What we’re seeing on a daily basis is nothing less than the destruction of our democracy. In its place is a regime of cruelty. We can no longer rely on the rule of law to protect us from being accosted by masked, unidentified agents and taken into detention without warrants or access to lawyers. People are simply being disappeared.
Last week in a Chicago neighborhood, in the middle of the night, immigration agents descended onto an apartment building. When I say descended, that’s just what I mean as Blackhawk helicopters were used to lower agents onto the roof of the building while others invaded on the ground. These masked and armed government agents broke down doors and through windows, grabbed the sleeping inhabitants, both adults and children, and zip tied them. Some were not even clothed. And then dragged them out of the building.
Since the recurrent guy returned to the White House, we hear every day about people being brutally snatched off the streets or from their places of work, but please try for a moment to imagine what it must have felt like for those people sleeping peacefully in their homes and then being suddenly assaulted by masked men.
You are terrified, your kids are screaming, you ask for a warrant, for a reason, evidence, anything to explain what is happening. Nothing. You are met with brutality, because you might be a member of a terrorist drug gang. Or not. Your children are separated from you. You can hear them crying in the dark outside your building, but you are surrounded by unidentified armed military-clad people who treat you like a criminal.
And then they ransack your apartment, looking for what? Well, anything, of course. In our democracy, at least prior to this regime of cruelty and lawlessness, investigators investigated, looking for evidence of a crime. Search warrants were issued by judges if the evidence was appropriate and police armed with those warrants came to your door and searched. If there was enough evidence found, they took that to a grand jury that would then issue an indictment if the evidence was strong enough. Those who were indicted would get a fair trial before a court of law and a jury of their peers. That, unfortunately, has not always worked out as intended, but it is what we have come to expect of our democracy.
So, is this really about crime? The recurrent guy and his hired guns all yell at the top of their social media lungs that immigrants are spoiling the blood of our communities, that they are dangerous criminals and need to be treated as less than human and deported as quickly and illegally as possible. The fact is that research has shown that immigrants break the law at lower rates than citizens.
But facts don’t matter anymore, nor does the rule of law. This past weekend the recurrent guy attempted to send Oregon’s own National Guard troops to the peaceful city of Portland and was taken to court to stop this unconstitutional power grab. The federal judge in the case issued a temporary restraining order against the government, ordering a stop to the plan. Instead of accepting defeat, the recurrent guy then ordered the deployment of the California National Guard to Portland. “This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law” said the judge, a recurrent guy appointee, as part of her new restraining order which puts a stop to sending troops from any other state to Portland.
The question is, where are we headed? The recurrent guy is now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, which he thinks will allow him to deploy the U.S. military to any state he chooses. If this administration decides that it doesn’t have to obey judicial decisions and can do whatever it wants, then it’s over, though it’s been very close to that for months. The recurrent guy has demonstrated over and over again that he doesn’t want a democracy, he wants to be king and he’s getting closer to that every day. Congress has given all its legislative power over to the recurrent guy and the Supreme Court appears to rule in his favor on most issues, no matter the constitutionality.
So, yes, I’m mourning, grieving the loss of my son, but also the loss of our democracy, our freedoms, our rights under our constitution. And grieving for all those who have faced the cruelties of our now autocratic government. Is fascism where we are headed? Will we the people allow this cruelty to continue? It just might be left up to us to stop this in whatever non-violent way we can. We must come together by the millions with marches, demonstrations, boycotts, letters and calls to voters and our elected officials to show that we will not give in.
Oct. 18 is No Kings Day 2 — find an event near you and show up!
Karen Gardner of Haydenville can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.