Dear Senator Jeff Merkley:
We note with interest and respect your record-breaking twenty-two-and-a-half hour speech addressing authoritarianism on the Senate floor; the longest Senate speech for Oregon in state history, and the third-longest of any Senate speech, ever. We recognize and appreciate the enormous effort and strength of personal will that allowed you to go that distance.
We appreciate and agree with many of the points you made. We acknowledge and salute the many ways in which you chose to not mince words during your session. You spoke strongly about the current ongoing abuses of power. You correctly identified that the current situation is, as you said, “an incredible threat…to the entire platform on which our freedom exists.” You spoke correctly of checks and balances and ensuring Congress remains a coequal branch of government, not a rubber-stamp for the executive.
You correctly identified that Donald Trump is “shredding the Constitution.” You did much right and well in a time when that isn’t happening very often, and we appreciate and respect your effort and dedication in having done so.
You said “If you remove a clear standard as to whether there is a rebellion, and just say a president can deploy the military on a whim…then you have flung the doors open to tyranny.” We agree wholeheartedly. We also acknowledge our obvious bias in this matter.
We’re addressing you today, Senator, because of the words we didn’t hear. Specifically, the words “fascism,” “anti-fascism,” and/or “antifa.”
What we are facing is an attempt at a fascist insurgency intended to end our way of government and of life. This is a long-term attack on our nation that has been happening for decades through an ever more sophisticated system of distributing disinformation and manipulating public opinion using lies and distortions of truth.
We understand the “f word” is a big one here. We understand the impulse of any elected official, whose very ability to function depends to some degree on public approval, to try to avoid using one of the strongest labels in our language for evil.
There comes a time when we must use our words.
Donald Trump and his cabinet, including the Vice-President, are fascists. Textbook, by-the-numbers fascists.
Additionally, while we certainly agree that maintaining checks and balances of power is critical to the function of a free people, we question your choice to fail to point out that a significant percentage of the very body you were addressing have themselves signed on to fascism and all its various facets including bigotry, greed, totalitarianism, authoritarian abuses of power, and the outright disregard for the rule of law. That’s a problem we must address just as certainly as we do the problem of the current Executive Branch.
As a private citizen, I’ve had a target painted on my head by the President of the United States, in public, simply because I’ve chosen to operate a social media page called “Antifa” without hiding my identity or pretending to not be engaging in “antifa leadership.”
We know from bitter history that one of the things that most empowers fascism and other similar ideologies when they arrive is our reluctance to name them for what they are. We fear being “premature anti-fascists,” a term used by intelligence agencies during the period between the two world wars. We don’t want to rattle a cage that might otherwise vote for us. We don’t want to anger our political donors.
And in every decision we make based on those fears, we are conceding to the fascists.
One of the reasons this keeps happening in human history is that we refuse to reject it outright and completely.
It is time we begin that process.
It is time to start using our words.
We hope the next time you use so many words – and again we appreciate and respect the effort! – you include the ones that really matter.
We’ll have more on this subject very soon, but it won’t be directed at you specifically.
America is anti-fascist.
Anti-fascism is American.
It’s time we stopped letting fascists try to shame us and threaten us and drive us away from saying so.
Thank you for your time, and your leadership.
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