Let’s check our blood pressure. When celebrations of Cinco de Mayo are cancelled due to fear of our government arresting participants and attendees, everyone should understand that Americans now self-censor themselves. The concept “Putinization of America” is when Americans and our immigrant brothers and sisters are too afraid to live their lives. People hide at home and avoid going out in public. The federal government threatens and bullies public universities, using universities as examples of how powerful the federal government is.
Local governments that don’t call out the civil rights violations of this 2025 federal government, and currently elected officials who do not stand up to President Donald Trump are acting out of fear. What happens when we are afraid? We clam up, shut down, avoid others, suffer silently.
Elected officials have been given scripts to repeat that ignore reality. The current Republican-led federal government demands that we unlearn everything our parents,grandparents, and teachers taught us about loving thy neighbor and caring for the least among us. About standing up for ourselves and our neighbors. For questioning authority. For respecting ourselves and others.
If you can hold that thought in one hand — respecting ourselves and others — and in your other hand, hold a bullying angry Republican-led government that shreds civil rights, which hand do you hold closest to your heart?
It’s not necessary to compare ourselves to others to know that “land of the free and home of the brave” is us, and we should remember sacrifices made by our veterans who fought for a freedom that is now attacked daily by a Republican-led government. Maybe we want Putin as our president. Maybe all we want is to stop paying taxes. Maybe that’s it and nothing more. Maybe all of our lives are just hanging on by a thread. Maybe we let a bully go too far and we didn’t think it would get to a point where Cinco de Mayo would be cancelled and students studying at the University of Iowa would be threatened with deportation.