Submitted by Ruth Sherman, Old Greenwich
For the first time in my life, I hesitate before expressing my opinions in the United States of America. Not because I doubt my beliefs, but because I’m no longer confident that the freedoms I grew up taking for granted will protect me.
Until recently, I was utterly confident that everyone in this country could speak their minds without fear. People could criticize public officials, protest government actions, even lie and say hateful things knowing they had First Amendment protection.
Today, that confidence has ebbed. As a professional in the field of speech and communication, I am hyperaware of the shadow hanging over our freedom of speech, particularly speech that is disfavored, speech critical of Donald Trump, his allies, and their policies. That First Amendment right may still exist on paper, but in practice it is fading, if not gone entirely.
For example, I no longer feel safe posting political opinions on social media. I’ve asked friends whose opinions I respect and agree with to please cease sharing with me and advised them to be careful about what they post for their own protection. This kind of self-censorship was unimaginable not so long ago. When Americans start managing their words to avoid retaliation, the type of thing we know happens in repressive societies like China and Russia, something profoundly fundamental has been lost.
None of this happened overnight. I stopped engaging on Facebook in after Donald Trump was elected the first time, repelled by how heedless Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was when he was alerted that his platform allowed lies and extremism to flourish. I didn’t think it was fear at the time. But that’s what it was. On Instagram, I keep things deliberately bland. Same company, same ownership, but I – and many others – post nothing that would prevent us from passing through immigration at the frontier of the country we love.
Still, before traveling abroad, I research how to make my devices inaccessible upon returning home to the U.S. There is something so troubling about this; it’s as if the nation I pledge allegiance is no longer holding up its side of the bargain. I deeply resent it.
What makes this moment especially alarming is how familiar it is. Masked federal agents rampaging through our streets. Peaceful protesters beaten or detained, or worse, murdered in broad daylight. Threats aimed at cities and states. Leaders who signal that violence by supporters will be excused, if not rewarded. We have seen this movie before, and this time, I’m not referring to China and Russia, but right here at home during the civil rights and Vietnam war eras.
I graduated from Kent State University, entering shortly after four people were killed by the Ohio National Guard during campus protests against the Vietnam war. At the time, I recall thinking it shouldn’t have happened there, then a middling state university, a party school.
Back then, the violent outcomes of such unrest shocked us so deeply we later agreed they were national, moral failures, not befitting our great country. We took a close look. We held people accountable. We told ourselves we’re better than this. We learned. Because we’re the United States of America. Exceptional.
Today, the lesson is how fragile our institutions truly are, more like newly blown glass than the bedrock of a strong democracy. We are again shocked, but now it’s by the fact that our system is completely reliant on people of character… leaders willing to uphold their oath to the Constitution even when it costs them politically vs. allowing one charismatic man to, in a few short years, upend 250 years of painstaking progress toward a more perfect union, a dream we once aspired to.
How foolish we’ve become.
Only months ago, I would tell myself I was being paranoid and that everything will ultimately be ok. Maybe the country and its institutions are stronger than I think. Not anymore. I now tell myself to believe what I see and have confidence in what I know.
And what I know is this: America is no longer free the way it was before Trump’s second term began. We have a president, who, along with his cronies and enablers at the highest levels of government in the most powerful country on earth, revel in their power to intimidate and hurt and even kill us, confident in the knowledge they will never pay a price. Not because the Constitution changed, but because too many in power are willing to ignore it, or twist and dismantle it to suit their own ends. And too many others are willing to look away because they are also afraid and therefore by definition no longer free.
If democracy is to survive, it will not be saved by standing idly by. It clearly will not be saved by our so-called leaders. It will be saved locally, collectively, and deliberately by regular people who refuse to normalize intimidation, who insist on their rights, and who understand that silence is complicity. Who take action anyway.
Freedom erodes slowly, almost undetectably, until one day you wake up and realize it no longer exists as originally intended. Defending it requires courage. The questions before us are whether we have enough of it and whether there is still time.
Ruth Sherman
Old Greenwich