Hope: An Orientation of the Heart
Phil Nel's speech at the No Kings! protest, and photos!
You are not crazy.
As you’ve been hearing from our speakers today, all the terrible things that you’ve been noticing … are in fact happening. In direct violation of the US Constitution, an unelected billionaire and car salesman is dismantling our federal government — with no oversight from Congress, which is supposed to have the power of the purse. As Rebecca Solnit says, DOGE and Musk are a kind of autoimmune disorder, attacking the body politic from within. And then there are people being disappeared: Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia — one of over 200 people the administration has sent, without due process, to an El Salvadorean torture camp. The number of impeachable offenses staggers the imagination.
And I say “you are not crazy” because, if you read the newsletters from our Senators and Representative, you’d wonder whether they inhabit the same reality. Or even the same planet. One I received yesterday highlighted a Kansas Senator — the one who likes to call himself Doctor Senator, you know, the one who actually lives in a 1-million-dollar Florida home — anyway, it highlighted him visiting “Ottawa County Head Start,” and yet does not mention the administration’s cuts to Head Start, nor its aim to shut the program down entirely. Another newsletter I received this week was titled “Lowering Taxes and Advancing Common Sense.” But how is lowering taxes for billionaires common sense? How are on-again off-again on-again off-again on-again tariffs common sense? The same newsletter lied about the SAVE Patriarchy Act (excuse me, the SAVE Act), which would place many more obstacles between women voters and the ballot … all to address the non-existent problem of non-citizens voting.
I say “you are not crazy” because they are gaslighting us. Offering “solutions” to problems that they have invented out of whole cloth. Destruction is not efficiency. Tax breaks for billionaires are not balancing the budget.
The United States does not have a money problem. We have a morality problem. It’s been estimated that the illegal dismantling of USAID kills 103 people per hour. How many people are being killed or hurt by dismantling the USDA, Department of Education, Centers for Disease Control, Social Security, Federal Housing Administration, the VA, the EPA, the FAA, FEMA, the National Weather Service, all the systems upon which we rely? How many people will be killed? How many will be hurt?
Cruelty is not a sound philosophy of governance. Cruelty serves no one. And to delight in cruelty — as Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and their gang seem to do — is not merely disturbing. It’s evil.
We are here because we oppose evil. We are here to say NO to Mad King Donald and his gang of grifters, sociopaths, and criminals. We are here because we care about our neighbors, our fellow citizens, visitors to this country, people in our families and in other’s families. We are here because we care about each other and about democracy.
We are here because, in a democracy, voting should be a right and not an obstacle course. Health care should be a right. So should free, high-quality public education. And representatives who represent all of us, and not just their rich donors. A judicial system that treats all of us fairly. Living wages. Affordable housing. Accessible, healthy food — some of it grown right here in Kansas! Fundamental human rights for everyone, irrespective of race, religion, age, ability, sexuality, gender identity, or country of origin.
We are here because we know democracy is the only way we are going to get any of these things. You may be a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent. You might have voted for Kamala Harris. You might be regretting your vote for our current president. You might not have voted in the last election. What unites us here today is not party affiliation. Not who we voted for or who we usually vote for. We may not even agree on the solutions to this country’s problems — or even which problems are most important.
We are here because we want to restore our democracy.
Because make no mistake: This is our democracy. It belongs to the people. They cannot take it from us. Because we won’t let them.
Our numbers are greater. More people oppose the regime than support it. And more people are speaking out and showing up — it's not just progressives. It’s moderates. It’s people who voted for our orange overlord… but didn’t realize they were voting for… this.
And look, I don’t know how long this is going to take. Maybe weeks. Maybe months. Maybe years. I don’t know.
But I do know that, in the words of the civil rights anthem, we shall overcome.
And I know that because to show up here today is an expression of hope.
And I’m using the word hope here in the sense that Vaclav Havel used it. Before he became Czech President, when he was still a dissident who had spent time in Czech prisons, with no idea that he would one day lead his country, he said this: “Hope… is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, … but, rather an ability to work for something because it is good.”
As he wrote in that same essay, “History is not something that takes place ‘elsewhere’; it takes place here. We all contribute to making it.”
That is what you are doing here. I’m grateful to all of you for turning up today. We have a permit to be here for another hour, to demonstrate our faith in and commitment to democracy. So, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Protest peacefully. Please stay out of the streets. Follow the guidance of our Indivisible marshals.
As Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”