Diary of a Dreamer in MAGA Country: Week 7

Protesters and Performers

Originally published on Medium on Mar 10, 2025

On March 8th, a Pro-Palestine protest leader and organizer was detained by the Department of Homeland Security under claims that he is working for or in alliance with Hamas, therefore, his Permanent Residency was claimed to be revoked. His name is Mahmoud Khalil. His specific whereabouts are not known yet. His wife is 8 months pregnant and a citizen.

The day after the Election of 2024, I started compiling a list of steps towards authoritarianism that would help me understand where the U.S. was currently at and what we needed to pay attention to as a sign of escalation. The detainment, deportation, or dissappearence of dissident voices of either activist leaders or journalists was one of the big boxes not quite checked yet. It’s checked now.

This week I wrote a plea, ahead of the State of The Union Address, in response to Trump’s post stating that he would begin detaining and deporting student protesters. I stated that this was a clear escalation and that his SOTU speech would be pure propaganda and that there needed to be a strong retaliation specifically from the demographics with the most power.

The Democrats wore pink shirts.

The following day, ten Democrats voted along Republicans to censure the only person who had actively stood up, spoke up, and who did not bend as he was removed from the floor in front of the pink congress. During Trump’s first presidency, 3 separate censure resolutions did not progress as far as Al Green’s. Al Green stated he would begin articles of impeachment.

Trump has been impeached twice so far.

what a show…

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

The 50501 protests are ongoing with every state having at least one protest at some point this week and many major cities here in the U.S. as well as many other nations demonstrating for International Women’s Day. The economic boycotts are ongoing. SCOTUS voted against dismantling USAID.

SB47 failed in committee here in Colorado and I received an actual human reply from an aide to Rep. Gonzales letting me know that they got my letter and that I could rest assured that the bill was not going forward. My local coffee shop has several resources now at the front for people to grab, including my own, about authoritarian resistance, and red cards in Spanish.

Rest Assured…

“I see the ugliness, the filth, the shame, and I name it. I bring it into the light of day and I look at it face to face. And I say to myself: what is there to understand?” — Aimé Césaire

“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” — Anne Frank

“Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.” — Bell Hooks

The last unchecked boxes:

🔲 Implementing Emergency Powers Indefinitely

🔲 Direct Military and Police to Silence Opposition

🔲 Suspension of Constitutional Laws

What performance will we see when these boxes are checked?

because we won’t be seeing protests…

Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash