A Letter to My Social Justice Warrior Friend
Dear Sybil,
It was just over two years ago that I attended your memorial service, a blink of an eye yet a lifetime ago politically. I miss picking up the phone and having heart to heart and political conversations. I miss hearing your stories about the good trouble you’ve caused over the years.
You wouldn’t believe what’s happening to our country. With Trump’s reelection, the first thing they went after, of course, was immigration. Project 2025 is in full swing and the cabinet is a complete cluster (anti-vaxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the Secretary of Health and Human Services if you can believe it!). Worse yet, Elon Musk and his DOGE minions are being given free rein to dismantle the Government from within. It’s been nearly eleven weeks since the inauguration and more than 100,000 federal employees have been fired with more targeted. The DOGE crew have access to our personal data and the ramifications are horrifying.
You’d be proud of us. We attended the February 50501 “Not My President” rally in Downtown Tucson in February. We were both a little hesitant to go never having been at a protest before, but I felt your spirit nudging me to represent.
Sybil, you would have loved it! Not the reason for it, but the energy and being surrounded by like-minded people speaking out about the chaos that is our political reality. Most of the crowd were our age or older, though I shouldn’t have been surprised because for many, their coming of age years were spent protesting.
After listening to a few speakers, several of us went to Congress, a busy street in Downtown Tucson. We saw markers to make signs, but all the posterboards was gone.
“I have to get back to work, you can have mine,” a young Government employee said as she handed me her a half finished sign. I thanked her, turned it over, and wrote Felon, with the F in red ink.
Sybil, it was exhilarating! People honked, waved, and gave us a thumbs up. There were a few jerks, but far more supporters.
On another Saturday, we were part of the crowd that protested on all four corners of an intersection near a Tesla dealer here in Tucson. Weeks ago, the protests started small and started growing. They estimated 1,875 attended the one we were at. The energy, the signs, the enthusiasm…people are pissed off!
It’s unbelievable and heartbreaking to put into words the extent of the damage to our government…it’s nonstop with Musk’s ‘go fast and break things’ mantra. Thankfully, the administration is getting some pushback from the courts but until recently, the legislature has been MIA. Their phones have blown up with calls from constituents telling them to do something, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears.
This week, Corey Booker held the floor of the Senate for 25 hours and 5 minutes, reading letters on how the changes have personally impacted constituents and imploring members of the Senate to do their jobs as a check on the administration. He ended up breaking the record for the longest filibuster held by Strom Thurmond in 1957.1 Booker took pride in breaking the record from the person who believed people like him shouldn’t even have rights.
The same night Booker broke the record, Elon Musk suffered a defeat in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.2 He had donated $20M to the candidate who supported the administration, and that candidate lost the race by 10 points…even after Musk had offered two people $1 million checks. Wisconsin voters turned out in an off year to say, “Hell no, we can’t be bought!” Is the tide turning? We can only hope! Man, I wish I could hear your perspective.
We recently went to a lawyer to draw up legal paperwork in the event marriage equality is repealed.3 We’re getting ready to head North next week for the Summer but first, today there are more than 1,200 “Hands Off” protests scheduled across the country, including every state and several countries.4 I know you and John Lewis will be with us in spirit as we all stand up and cause some good trouble.
Missing you most on days like today. Wish us luck!
Deb
What a great letter to your friend! Thanks for sharing! Perfectly written as always!💞Lynn
Well done, Deb. Proud of you!