| Mass deportations having begun, I think of things that could be happening right now. Prohibition against ICE raids at “sensitive spaces” such as schools and churches have been removed, and while border czar Tom Homan says their first target is violent criminals (few have a problem with violent criminals being deported), it’s anyone’s guess who they’ll get to next. Most Americans seem to have little understanding how many are forced to live in the shadows by our own immigration laws. How many will now be hunted down, with no legal protections?
My heart breaks for children who are traumatized by all this. We are inflicting damage on innocent people in ways for which there is no excuse.
Trump’s mass deportation project is far more about race than it is about immigration. If it were about immigration, Trump himself would not have blocked the remedy contained in an $8B bi-partisan bill that had been worked out in Congress over a year ago. He simply didn’t want Biden to get the win during an election year, therefore told Congressional Republicans to vote against it.
Upon Trump’s return to the White House, the Constitution was removed from the White House website. The Spanish speaking page was immediately removed as well. And until the administration was forced to respond to public outcry, the only message on the page read GO HOME. The page is still gone, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that now it says to Return to Homepage. Clever, right?
White Supremacy is real and it has a political agenda. Yes, Elon’s “gesture” was a Nazi salute. And he doesn’t have to be a Nazi himself - though he sure did have the move and even the look down! - for his action to have been a dog whistle to right wing extremists. Many of those extremists were released from prison in Trump’s full pardon of the January 6th rioters, some now saying they plan to run for office!
Gee, I wonder who would pay for their campaigns...
So who and what will they go after now? It’s anyone’s guess. But there are powerful forces in this country who find a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial society inconvenient to their ideological worldview, and they’ve massed enormous wealth and power with which to halt its ascent. That is the struggle that underlies all this: the essential question, who does American belong to?
White Supremacists and Christian Nationalists are very clear who they think America should belong to, while many of us take the Declaration of Independence to be our mission statement and North Star. For us, America’s sacred creed is this: All men are created equal; endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and governments are instituted to secure those rights. If government isn’t performing that task, it’s the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.
Radical stuff in 1776, and radical stuff today. Many have sacrificed greatly, even at the cost of their lives, to protect those ideals and expand their franchise. Clearly, it’s our turn now.
This is more than a contest for the soul of America; it’s now a contest for our very existence as a free, democratic society. And the DNC must be the primary bulwark against those who would assault it.
As Chair of the DNC, I will create and manage a communications center that provides hope and inspiration to the American electorate. Where Trump promotes his politics of hate, we will promote a politics of justice, brotherhood and love. We will win minds and hearts, thus paving the way to wins at the ballot box in 2026 and 2028.
Our ground game will be excellent, and a perfect conduit for the message most needed at this time: That Trump’s vision is what it is, but that we are pushing back on every front.
People will know what we’re doing in their town, in their state, in the House, and in the Senate. They will see us on their picket lines, and they will see us at their rallies. They will know our ideas, and our plans to deliver on them. We will enroll them in our vision for a free and just world. We will provide the hope that together we’ll get through this chapter of madness.
As Chair of the DNC, I will make sure of it. We will proclaim a very different world than Donald Trump is bringing to pass and provide the policies that make it manifest.
No matter what, do not lose hope. Other generations handled this kind of thing, and somehow so will we. I believe in America. And I believe in miracles. We will make it through this storm.
The hour is urgent, but we can do this!
All my best, | 
