US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before departing the White House in Washington, on Feb. 22, 2025. [Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP]
My dearest…I was deeply touched by your caring and compassionate concern over what you interpret as my perhaps overly impassioned stance on the obvious undoing of the American system of checks and balances and its replacement with governance through the Executive authority or, to put it more succinctly, the assault on democracy in America by a criminal few. You mention that since there is “literally nothing we can do,” perhaps it is better to go on with our “little lives, hunkering down for the storm” etc etc. My dear, I almost expected that you would suggest that I see a therapist, do yoga, or go on long walks in nature. I would like to have an opportunity to make my “apologia,” the Platonic kind, not the American. It makes me sad to realize that I need to do this. Like Plato, I want to explain, not ask for forgiveness. Unlike for Plato, there will be no cups of hemlock. At least not yet. Best to avoid a rehashing of these changes and of the very recent actions of someone who may be, or may not be, the director of the new and illegal department of DOGE. Nonetheless, we should all be aware of what is happening in our country, whether or not it has affected us directly.
This is my point. It hasn’t touched many of us yet. So this gives us a sense of calm without seeing the impending storm, and this, despite the countless analyses, policy statements, observations, prophesies and historical references. These are exhortations – cries for help. This isn’t my intention. I am not a political analyst. But as you know, I am a lifelong observer of human behavior, at least of the American variety. One feels helpless. Without focus. Unsure. In a fog. One doesn’t know what to do, so often one chooses to do nothing. And then focus suddenly arrives in us, like a searing laser beam. This is when we, or the people we love, become the target of the government, a government that we were taught to believe serves us, and not the reverse.
There are certainly examples of such cases in our history. Americans led the war in Vietnam (actually involved from the 1950s) until it greatly escalated in 1965 and ended in 1973. Over 58,000 American troops lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were severely wounded. And for what? There were perhaps millions of anti-war political analyses, media presentations, enormous protests, civil unrest, academic protests, Oscar-winning movies, and so on. But the war went on. Then came the draft system, a system of lotteries based on the alphabet and dates of birth. It was no longer voluntary. Little Bobby next door, son of investment bankers, on his way to Yale, was suddenly drafted to go to fight in Vietnamese jungles. Our school mates, and others, and kids at fancy private schools were drafted. Summer plans were interrupted! University tuitions had been sent and would be lost! And millions of parents became politicized. Outraged, they now questioned the war that had gone on for over a decade. Soon after, America left Vietnam to the Vietnamese, as the last US helicopter left Saigon. Within one day, the government which America chose to support, lost this useless war.
Another obvious and tragic example was the fascist movement in the 1950s when thousands of American lives were destroyed by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunts. Those who were affected, government employees, writers, producers and actors in Hollywood, remember those dark days, when democracy died. And now, friends of mine and yours, even people I have never met, are writing me about their children, or other loved ones, who have been dismissed from their professions, without reasons offered, by the new regime in Washington. These are the most respected military commanders who have given their lives to service, to protecting the American people. There are others, young people, scientific and medical researchers who studied for years, who are now being targeted and dismissed from large institutes of health, and people at USAID who have risked their lives in undeveloped countries to assist the poorest in the world, who have organized food and medical distribution, who are now made to feel like criminals from the new government leaders. There are hidden or rhetorical hints at ridding the nation of “entitlements” (which are not entitlements at all) like Social Security, or the little medical assistance that is even left in America. Must we wait until the checks to our grandparents stop? Are we ready to take in our vulnerable family and friends?
As I now live in Athens, Greece, the worry of our European neighbors, once allies, is intensely palpable. Greeks and indeed all Europeans know about foreign and even domestic invasions, coups d’etats, civil wars. Apparently, many Americans have forgotten. So, my dear brother, what can we do? We can join political action groups, write letters to our congressmen, use art to promote our concerns, write songs, compose articles, refuse to purchase from companies who are heavily donating to MAGA and their sycophants. Anything is better than nothing. We do this to not only help others who will soon be severely damaged. We do this for ourselves, so that in the few years we have left, we will know that we tried. And our children will know it and perhaps follow suit.
Tenia Christopoulos is a freelance writer from Washington, DC and the author of “Lords of the Dance.” She has contributed to several international publications.