Imagine this. It’s 9:10 pm. You’ve been getting calls. Disturbing, threatening ones. Calling you “dirty… disgusting.” Accusing you of crimes against your nation, against the leader, or ex-President or whatever. Or of being a paid agent. They call the authorities to arrest you. They threaten you and everyone you love. You are Black. Latinx. Jewish. Muslim. Indigenous or Asian American. An immigrant of color. LGBTQIA. A Democrat or democrat. A Republican who has spoken out against DJT. A woman. A scientist or Doctor who speaks about global warming, the efficacy of masks, the threat of COVID, the need for public safety measures. A teacher.
Then they show up at your home. Bang on your doors. Try to break in. Crowds of people. At first you don’t know what to do. You might be unsure⎼ if you called the police, who would they support? You or those attacking you? At 10:00 pm, you are too scared to hesitate any longer. You call the police. Your call is recorded. The police are on the way. They help you this time.
And later, you must leave your home. You are forced to hide. Your business is shut down. You can’t tell anyone where you are. Your previous life is shattered. No job. No seeing friends or family. Every morning you wake up not knowing if you will have a future or what it will be. Or if someone with a gun or club, hate in their heart or disinformation in their mind, will come after you.
Imagine another woman who lived in a city with her husband and two daughters. Soon after her nation was taken over by a dictator, she began to fear for her family. Those in power kept spreading lies about different groups of people, blaming the innocent few for the suffering of many. Calling them hateful names. Taking away their businesses. Forbidding them from using public transportation, sports facilities, watching entertainment, etc. and their children from attending the regular public schools. Where they could go and what they could do was heavily restricted.
Then she heard rumors of people being arrested, never to be seen again. No trial. Just vicious accusations. Her sister got a call to report to what was labeled a labor camp. She and her husband were suspicious and feared for their lives. So they went into hiding, in a space behind the business they had owned. Friends secretly supplied them with food. They could never go out, never go near a window. Never see the light of day except through a curtain.
The latter story is about Edith Frank, the mother of Anne Frank, whose well-known diary documented the Holocaust in Holland during World War II. Edith and her daughters died in a Nazi concentration camp.
The first story took place just recently in the USA. As reported by NBC and other news media, it happened to one black woman and her daughter who were so brazen as to volunteer to help process ballots. She was a temp worker in the 2020 Presidential election. She did her nation a service. Then the ex-President (who was then President) accused her of stealing the election from him. His lies were shared at a rally and by conservative media.
The woman’s name is Ruby Freeman. Supporters of DJT took a clip from a surveillance video of her simply doing her job. The clip was first presented on December 3, 2020, while DJT was still in the White House, to the Georgia State Senate as evidence of supposed voter fraud. It was totally discredited and dismissed by the legislature. Despite this, DJT shared the video with others.
Freeman was just doing her job. But DJT claimed she was, right in the video, stealing the election by throwing out ballots or counting illegal ones from a suitcase stashed under her table. He also falsely claimed she was a paid agent, a professional scammer, a hustler.
She is a retired 911 call worker who later ran a fashion accessories business. Or she used to. She was threatened in phone calls and emails, and people twice tried to break into her home.
On Jan 6, while DJT’s supporters were attacking Congress and trying to stop a legal election from being officially recognized, a crowd in suburban Atlanta surrounded her home, used a bullhorn to shout false accusations of her committing crimes. But she had fled, with the advice of the FBI. She hid out. Closed her business. Could not allow herself to be seen in public.
Many of us have asked, including Rachel Maddow, how do you conduct an election if people can’t safely count votes? This is one example of how would-be dictators destroy democracy. This is how freedom, how a nation of rights and constitutional protections is destroyed.
Ruby Freeman and her daughter are now suing The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website for publishing false information about them, for ”a campaign of lies,” and for instigating “a deluge of intimidation, harassment” ⎼ all in an effort to support DJT’s actions to overthrow the election.
I was inspired to write this piece after a discussion with friends about our fear for the world and what might help motivate us and others to take action. We know what the DJT GOP represent. A second term for him or a follower of his would be unthinkably awful. There are now 54 documented cases where DJT’s name was invoked during violence or threats of violence in this nation recently. This must not be allowed to continue unless we want to allow our rights to be stolen and mobs of people coming after us, too.
**To read more about how Trumpism and white nationalism in America is modeling itself after European or German fascism, go to Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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