Fortunately, There Were Rebels

The Last Seven Days Are A Blueprint

“Fortunately, there were rebels.”

— Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar

These four words from one of the greatest architects of democracy in the modern world have become a lifeline for me since I read them a few years ago. Indian revolutionary Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar understood that freedom is never freely given by the powerful. It is seized. By those willing to rebel against injustice. I’ve thought a lot about his words as I try to make sense of this past week. The last seven days in America have felt like a dizzying, brutal ride with more turbulence in every news flash. Each headline seems designed to shred not just policy, but the very idea of shared reality. We need rebels now, more than ever.

This time last week, former Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded the NYC Mayoral Primary to Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani on election night before all votes were fully tabulated. Yesterday, the Associated Press confirmed the full count: “Zohran Mamdani Wins N.Y.C. Mayoral Primary in a Decisive 12-Point Victory.” A clean, decisive win. Not a squeak by with fingers crossed. This is clarity. Stunning in its scale. A 17-point win in Washington Heights. An 18-point margin in the Financial District. Dominant in conservative white enclaves like Dyker Heights and College Point. Jewish folks voted for him. Black folks voted for him. Everywhere.

WATCH FULL CONVERSATION

Above is the conversation I was thrilled to have with him on Election Day, just hours before polls closed.

And yet, as the beautiful and inspiring and important news of his win landed yesterday, all around it was a storm of state violence and legalized cruelty.

Right alongside that full tabulation last night was another headline: the Trump administration is openly threatening to strip Mamdani of his U.S. citizenship. Trump himself responded to Mamdani’s pledge to prevent ICE agents from detaining immigrant families in NYC by saying, “Well, then, we’ll have to arrest him.” They want to arrest him. Trump’s White House press secretary stated that the administration is paving the way for Mamdani’s naturalization review. They want to deport him. This is not bluster. They’re testing the waters for denaturalization, the criminalization of political dissent and the resurrection of McCarthy-era tactics cloaked in 21st-century authoritarianism.

We are living through an intentional project to entrench inequality, erase dissent and replace democracy with domination. Everywhere.

This week, we learned that a former FBI agent who incited the Capitol mob to kill police officers has been appointed as a senior advisor to Trump’s “Weaponization Working Group.” That’s a DOJ task force focused on punishing Trump’s political enemies.

The Supreme Court ruled that public schools must allow students to be pulled from any lesson parents believe offends their religion, opening the door to institutionalized erasure of queer existence, the history and reality of oppressed people and everything else we can imagine.

The Supreme Court also curtailed nationwide injunctions, clearing a legal path for dismantling birthright citizenship. Most citizens are not grasping what this means. Not just to the brown people being kidnapped on the streets. But for all of us. All. Of. Us. The foundational promises of the 14th Amendment are being methodically unraveled.

In other news that really hurt my heart these past seven days, Trump’s Department of Justice forced out the University of Virginia’s president, demanding the dismantling of the school’s DEI programs as part of a “civil rights settlement.” Let me write that again, the government made the university president resign as part of a “deal” to resolve a suit it brought because the school tried to hold onto inclusion and equity. Let your mind roam and apply this precedent to your job, community, school and personal computer.

In Congress, Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth defended renaming military bases after Confederate traitors. In an exchange in a hearing about the matter, when Hegseth was asked directly why he wanted to rename these bases for people who picked up arms to fight their fellow citizens for the right TO OWN OTHER HUMAN BEINGS, he pivoted from the core of the question and, with a straight face, insinuated that the renaming is what the people of the armed forces want in order to restore tradition.

In the past seven days, in Huntington Beach, California, a human trafficker impersonating a federal officer was arrested with ICE gear and weapons. That just sailed past local headlines like it was nothing. Meanwhile, masked men continue to abduct people in broad daylight. No agency named, no explanation, no accountability as to where people are going or how to reach them for days and days - and for some, now, weeks.

Last night, Trump’s looting bill passed the Senate. It makes steep cuts to health and nutrition programs while giving away $4.5 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1% wealth-wise. That’s $114 billion. Millions of low-income Americans will suffer staggering financial losses. And up to 12 million Americans could lose health care. This isn’t a policy difference. It’s a perverse punishment and power play and money grab. By design.

While democracy fractures, our media, which should be an institution to check and balance, is sadly folding. Yesterday, Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview. The money will be funneled into his future “presidential library.” A chilling concession in a lawsuit widely seen as baseless at the start. Yet CBS folded, just like ABC News did in December, paying Trump the same millions to settle a defamation case. How likely will the next news organization be to report accurately on Trump abuses?

Meanwhile, Gaza bleeds. Thousands of Palestinians dead in last two weeks because Netanyahu’s government broke the ceasefire and continues to bomb civilians and withhold food and life-sustaining goods from human beings while the U.S. continues to fund the weapons that fall from their skies.

Finally don’t forget, USAID has officially ceased operations altogether. Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the agency has officially ceased operations as of yesterday. That food, HIV medication, rape kits and so much more is officially gone from places that will not be able to replace or replenish. After the ravishes of colonization that put them there in the first place. And while he’s not been in the news for a couple weeks, don’t forget Elon Musk’s fingerprints are all over this. Lancet Medical Journal projects that more than 14 million deaths could occur globally as a result of the aid reductions, including 4.5 million deaths among children.

With all that, they thought they had us. They thought we’d fold. But these dastardly deeds of the last seven days should be our blueprint. This is how fascism consolidates. Through bureaucratic violence, legal weaponization and the systematic elimination of anyone who dares resist.

But what they didn’t count on? Mamdani by 12 points. Proof that courage can still cut through the fog. We, the People, are hungry for the fight. The choice before us is binary. Spend the next four years playing defense while they dismantle everything, or use the moment when their cruelty is most visible and their overreach is most obvious to build. Not tomorrow. Not when it’s convenient. Not when you feel ready. Now.

Join a mutual aid network. Share articles. Show up to city council meetings. Watch a documentary about things and places you don’t know. Protest. Take water to protestors. Prepare to volunteer as a poll worker or election monitor, especially in swing states and marginalized communities. Bank with local credit unions instead of megabanks. Support worker-owned businesses and community-run services. Pull back from Amazon and Tesla and Meta little by little, if you can. Divest from companies funding oppression. Volunteer at legal aid orgs. Donate to food banks. Watch your local news and make calls and write emails in objection to injustice - it takes just a few minutes but it agitates and that’s important. Fund classroom supplies for a teacher nearby. Share banned books - I like leaving them on benches and coffee shops. Talk about real things at brunch and dinner with friends. Protect your neighbors from ICE raids. Run for office. Organize strikes. Donate to local reproductive health clinics. Offer transport or housing to those in need if you can. Explain what’s going on to your children in ways they can understand. Develop their world view and empathy in creative ways. Expose them to all kinds of people. Babysit for organizers. Check in on elders. Put your care into action however you can. Now.

Every fascist regime in history fell the same way: real people decided that their real lives were worth defending with extraordinary courage. Gaza is bleeding because we let them. Kids are disappearing from schools because we let them. Healthcare is being stripped away because we let them.

Let us stop letting them. Close this tab. Make your plan. Doing nothing ain’t it. Their power depends on your silence. Let us break it. Let us be the rebels.

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