A Shield of Silence

I don’t know what will happen when Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025, since it seems almost certain that he has won the popular vote and the Electoral College. I am still angry about this. Mainly because I’ve paid attention to his rhetoric and that of his supporters, and what I’ve been hearing from them is straight-up Nazi talk. And because these people are talking like Nazis, I am scared.

Despite my fear, I am determined to fight to the extent that I can. I am not a young man with nothing to lose but his pride, and haven’t been in decades. I have a wife to consider and a home that can be taken from me. I am limited by my lack of physical prowess and skill at arms. I am limited by my preference for solitude and lack of a sense of community. Nevertheless, there must be something I can do even if the privilege conferred by my being a native-born citizen and a white man is not an invincible shield.

I suspect that I can begin by doing what already comes naturally to me. I can mind my own business.

As far as I’m concerned, anybody living in the US is as American as I am, even if they don’t look like me, don’t speak English the way I do, or don’t speak English at all. Likewise, anybody who presents and identifies as a man or a woman is such to me; it makes no difference to me if they are in fact transgender.

If I am told that somebody is an immigrant, legal or not, I will not retain that information, let alone spread it. If a pregnant woman in need of an abortion needs my help, she need only ask and I will do what I can. Likewise if I am told that somebody is transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual, a Jew, a Communist, a trade unionist, autistic, Muslim, a liberal, or anybody else that Trump and his MAGA brownshirts regard as “vermin” or “the enemy within”.

Nor will I willingly cooperate with any police or investigative authority, whether local, state, or Federal.

• If police wish to search my person or property, I will insist upon seeing a signed judicial warrant — as is every American’s right under the Fourth Amendment.
• If questioned by police on the street or at home, I will identify myself but refuse to answer any further question without an attorney present — as is every American’s right under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments respectively.
• Should I find myself sheltering people targeted by the regime, I will honor the laws of sacred hospitality and not willingly give up my guests. If I must pretend to be a Christian so that I can hide behind the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom to protect my guests, then that is what I shall do.

Under no circumstance will I willingly serve as an informant. What I suspect, I will keep to myself. What I know, I will carry to my grave.

Only under duress will I betray a fellow American, and even under duress I am determined to resist as long as possible. Should Federal authorities attempt to coerce me by threatening my wife Catherine with deportation — which they can probably do because she’s a permanent resident rather than a naturalized citizen — I will call their bluff. If Catherine is deported, I will do everything I can to join her in exile.

If I am threatened with torture, however, I do not know how long I will resist. I hope that I will retain sufficient strength and defiance that I will not immediately crack, but I am not trained to resist interrogation.

I am posting this declaration of intent now, while Joe Biden remains President, in the hope that the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws will hold even under the second Trump administration. Should I participate in any further resistance activities, I will not write about them on my website lest such writings aid the regime. Nor will I entertain any invititation to participate in resistance activities unless they come in private, face to face conversation with a close acquaintance or a trusted friend.

Even if this makes of me a criminal, I will not willing cooperate with the incoming regime or answer any questions beyond providing the civilian equivalent of name, rank, and serial number. Otherwise, I will not use violence save in the face of immediate violence against myself or my family, and I will maintain a code of silence akin to Omertà.

Whatever Trump calls evil I will neither see, hear, nor speak of it. It is by these means that I think I can participate in resistance against his regime, even if I stand alone and fight apart from any organization. If by my silence I can shield my fellow Americans — no matter who or what they are — then I will remain silent as long as I can.

Though I lack a God to whom I can pray for strength, I nonetheless hope that I will not prove to have been a “Good German” — let alone a “Good American”. There are worse ways and reasons to die than for one’s ideals, even if one retains no particular love for one’s country.

In the meantime, I will live as if I were still a free man in a free America. At the very least, I damned well mean to try to live that way.