Freedom Writers 4/12/2025
Saving our Beautiful Democracy
Hello, Freedom Writers!
In Today’s Post:
Saving Our Beautiful Democracy
Postcards - Watch for our next post to sign up!
Today’s Actions >> 5 Calls
INFO SHEETS - For Your Information
(If you’re reading this post in the Substack app, you can use the little bars to the left to navigate between bullets.)
Saving Our Beautiful Democracy
It’s coming at us from all directions. The cruel and lawless deportations. The looming budget bill. The threats to pull funding from PBS and NPR. The attacks on law firms and universities. The crashing stock and bond(!) markets.
Trump’s using every trick in the book to replace our beautiful democracy with an ugly, cruel tyranny.
But, he won’t win.
The truth is, Trump is a paper tiger. He’ll TRY to throw everything at the wall to see what will stick. But, he has shown over and over again that when he’s confronted with push back, he folds.
The truth is, he’s a bully who hopes he can scare people into doing what he wants. He hopes people will not challenge him. So challenge him we must!
We need to stay focussed and TAKE ACTION. EVERY. DAY. We need to call our elected officials, join the stand outs and protests, and write the postcards / make the calls to voters and constituents of other states.
In short, we need to persevere. We have no other choice.
It may take some time, but I believe eventually we will prevail.
Postcards - Watch for our next post to sign up.
We’re starting up regular postcard writing in a few weeks. In previous years, we did postcard events every 2 weeks, but this year we’ll be doing them once a month.
PLEASE WATCH out for our next post! It will contain the packet order form and more information.
Today’s Actions >> 5 Calls
These calls to your elected officials are CRITICAL! If you’re new to the ‘5 Calls’ app, click HERE for instructions on how to set it up.
Attend an April Recess Town Hall: 4/12-4/27
Demand the Unfreezing of FEMA Funds and Restore BRIC
Oppose the SAVE Act (H.R. 22) - A Voter Suppression Bill - Passed House
Demand Congress Stop Trump’s Tariffs and Reclaim Trade Authority
Save the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
INFO SHEETS - For Your Information
If you’re new to the Freedom Writers, WELCOME! Check out these INFO SHEETS with lots of great background information:
INFO SHEET: Get Started - Taking Action with Indivisible - Get the most up-to-date information about what is happening in your area through a local Indivisible group!
INFO SHEET: Keeping Your Cool Under the Trump Regime - Access reliable, free news when it counts the most!
INFO SHEET: How to Contact Your Elected Officials - Find out why we act the way we act.
Three AOC Videos About the Importance of Phone Calls Now - Don’t let the MAGAts win the calling our elected officials game.
5 Calls App - Set Up Instructions - This beautiful instruction sheet was written by 3 people who are all over 70 years old. If they can do it, you can do it.
Heather Cox Richardson, April 7, 2025:
“In a strange twist, I was actually researching the extraordinary powers of the Department of Homeland Security today for a radio show when Forbes broke the news that the DHS was looking for help compiling a database of "media influencers." DHS leaders want the database to include journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers, and so on, and to include the "sentiments" of the people in it. While DHS spokesperson Tyler Q. Houlton tweeted that monitoring media is normal practice, and that "any suggestion otherwise is fit for tin foil hat wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists," many people have helpfully pointed out that, in fact, this is a move straight out of Putin's playbook, and that media influencers with the wrong "sentiments" get arrested or attacked, or they disappear.
“There is no way now to know which interpretation is the right one.
But I do know that it's a funny thing as an American to realize that saying or writing something could lead to imprisonment, torture, or death. It happens in other countries, of course, and it has certainly happened here at times, but it has never been part of our lives that we had to worry that our own government would, in a systematic way, silence dissenters.
The first reaction to this realization is denial: there is no way this could happen. And then it gets personal: there is no way this could happen to me. And finally, the personal turns the idea into a bit of a joke: the concept that I would be important enough to silence just proves that the idea is ridiculous.
“But then you wonder. Perhaps every person thinks they're safe right up until they hear the door slam against the wall.
“It didn't bother me when I got put on the Professor Watchlist right after Trump took office. I have attracted troubling attention before, and have come to accept it as part of the cost of doing business. There are precautions you take, and then you get on with your life. So the Professor Watchlist didn't bother me... until I understood how frightened other people were about my inclusion on it, and I suddenly saw that maybe the fact that our government supported the sort of folks who were policing universities meant that the watchlist was a very different thing than I had become accustomed to.
“I could not bear the idea that my writing and speaking might endanger my children or my partner, and I considered shutting up. But my very practical kids-- who are all adults-- pointed out that there are so many records connecting them to me that any potential damage was already done, and they told me they were proud of me. My partner asked me if I was willing to live in an America where a person couldn't say what she thought. He said he didn't want to.”
“I thought about it, and realized that I am exactly the sort of person who must never cede ground to this sort of terrorism (for that's fundamentally what it is: threatening people's safety in order to influence their behavior). If I have a faith, it is in the principle of human self-determination, and that faith makes me a staunch defender of American democracy, the system of government that has the best chance, I think, of fostering a society in which everyone can reach their highest potential.
“So I set my affairs in order, and went back to my normal life, while continuing to try to call attention to the illegalities and extremes of the Trump administration, and at the same time to illuminate the principles that truly make America great. I harp on our history because it tells us about our past triumphs and, crucially, our failures. We can-- must-- learn from both.
“But it is now being suggested that I might be writing my own death warrant. This is a very odd thing to try to wrap your head around. My colleagues occasionally talk about how the first ones to be ‘disappeared’ in a political coup are the professors who speak out. That is true, historically. And while it used to be an academic observation for me, it has quite suddenly grown teeth.
“And so I write this tonight, thinking how terribly silly it is to imagine that the American government might purge opponents, and how ridiculous it is to th
Thank you! I propose a future action. FLOOD EPA chief with postcards, emails phone calls saying we want clean air for all to breath! We insist that corporations report emmisions to air, water and soil!