Local opinion: Trump should be afraid of the power of the people

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” Thomas Jefferson wrote this more than a decade after he penned the immortal words of our Declaration of Independence. 

Less than half a year from now we will celebrate 250 years of our experiment in democracy and our efforts to protect basic human rights such as freedom of speech and assembly. These are the rights we thought we secured from the tyranny of a British king and a rogue parliament which denied basic rights to the colonists.

I have two words for Donald Trump: “Be afraid.” Be afraid of the “power of the people." What do we call the ground where blood is spilled and lives are taken in service of one’s country? As Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock noted at the site of the death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, “this ground has been consecrated in blood.” The Senator from Georgia called Renee Good and Alex Pretti “martyrs.”

“Martyr” and “patriot” are not always the same, but when they are, the symbolism created can be powerful. Make no mistake about it, the streets where Renee Good and Alex Pretti gave their lives in service of two First Amendment rights, “freedom of speech” and “freedom of assembly”, will be preserved in our historical memory in some way. Lest our memories fade too quickly, how about memorializing their sacrifice starting with a proposal to change the names of the two streets where they died — something like “Pretti Place” and “Good Way”? Symbolism burnishes memory.

Two people, two lives lost, two constitutional rights come together on two nearby streets in Minneapolis — two martyrs, two patriots. The very ground where they fell will be consecrated, hallowed ground — consecrated by their blood, as Senator Warnock said. He could have expressed himself on the meaning of these two tragedies from the well of the Senate chamber, but he didn’t. Instead, he wanted to travel to the very streets where the real meaning of constitutional rights were put to the ultimate test. 

“Seeing” the places where something tragic happened — in defense of something noble and good — reinforces the meaning of abstract things like the right to protest.  People have rights only when others pay for them in time, inconvenience, sacrifice, and even blood.

What Renee Good and Alex Pretti did for us is no different from what the crosses of Normandy or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier represent.  Defending rights against the tyranny, cruelty, and brutality of our own government is even more direct and poignant because it’s right here at home, and not in a foreign land against a foreign dictator. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were just ordinary people exercising their rights, but their sacrifice is extraordinary. Together they are the face of patriotism. Separate, each is the face of a martyr.

Contrast the symbolism of the martyrdom of Good and Pretti with the symbolism of what the two martyrs were protesting against. The symbolism of a half-dozen of Donald Trump’s masked thugs in military-style combat gear overpowering a protester with a cell phone taking pictures of ICE behavior.

Let the words of iconic journalist Bill Moyers guide us: “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”

“Be afraid,” Donald Trump. You are ultimately responsible for what you are doing to the people.  Fear the power of the people.  You cannot jail millions of people, nor can you kill them all. You have sought to intimidate us and make us afraid.  Fear has been your weapon.  Now, it is your turn to be afraid. 

Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, at this moment in America. The metaphor is apt now. Trees have roots to be watered and branches to be spread. Without tending to the roots, a tree will die, and its branches cannot leaf out and spread. 

When tyranny takes root because the ordinary checks on government abuse fail, protest is patriotism, no matter the cost.