As I sat down to read “Paul Revere’s Ride” [1] this past Friday night, I could still hear the words in my mom’s voice: “On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-Five: / Hardly a man is now alive / Who remembers that famous day and year.” Since I was a child, she and I would quote those lines to each other every year on the anniversary, cementing the date of the American Revolution firmly in my brain. Despite the fact that (at least according to her) our ancestors were loyalists, and despite the artistic license Longfellow took with several facts related to the event, [2] the poem itself remained one of her favorite symbols of defiance against tyranny.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Longfellow wrote his poem in 1860, when our country was experiencing incredible turmoil, on the verge of civil war. Reading it now, on the 250th anniversary of the event, during the most tumultuous time I’ve known in my life, felt particularly apt. Its vivid imagery stirs feelings of patriotism even in this part-time cynic, which is why it felt important to examine the relationship between how we perceive the world and how we respond to it – because right now, in this extremely divided time, we are not just perceiving the same facts differently; we are being fed different facts and different interpretations, which many still don’t seem to realize; and as a result, people on opposite sides of the political divide really do appear to be living in different worlds.
It is not my intention to sit here and rehash my “Bias in the Media” post, [3] which until recently held the record on my blog for most views in a single day. It is also not my intention to point fingers at certain media sources or political figures spinning the news in their favor. My concern, as I sit down to write this post, is with anyone who consumes available media without asking some basic questions (e.g. Who is the source, and who is the intended audience? Is the information recent and reliable? What is the author’s goal – what do they want me to feel/do after reading this?) I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been guilty of seeing something online and responding emotionally without fact-checking it first. On more than one occasion, I have prefaced a statement with “now, I haven’t fact-checked it myself, but I saw that…”
Image credit: [5]
Since last fall’s blog post on depolarization and related research into balanced news sources, [6] I have subscribed to a daily nonpartisan news digest [7] and daily deep dive into one contentious issue [8] – and ignored most everything else. Those steps have helped me focus on the facts of the day and what I can do about them, rather than getting hijacked by high emotions. I try to avoid any news that isn’t from the top center of the Media Bias Chart, [9] but it’s difficult to avoid bias altogether – more extreme political spin filters back to me through my family and friends, often thanks to things they’ve seen on social media or hyper-partisan news sources. (I am still limiting my time on social media for mental health reasons, but I’m not off entirely – as should be obvious if you clicked your way here through Facebook.)
But speaking of Facebook, I saw what I thought was an interesting post this past week regarding steps Americans can take if they are concerned about actions from the executive branch of our government and/or inactions from the other branches that were designed to act as checks against executive overreach. (Remember that our founders didn’t want to build a monarchy, having just rebelled against one.) The post was shared by user Pru Pru on a Facebook group called “Liz Cheney/Adam Kinzinger Against Trump,” after which it went viral and was widely misattributed to Liz Cheney – both by people sharing the post across social media platforms and by actual media sources as well.
A cry of defiance, and not of fear
The letter (which now seems to be unavailable on Facebook but has been reprinted elsewhere) [10] points to suggested actions that democratic members of Congress can be doing now in spite of their minority status. However, while some of these actions may require time, resources, and political capital, I don’t believe they necessarily need to be taken specifically by politicians. The suggestions included an independent (i.e. civilian-run) investigative coalition, state-level frameworks to offer legal services and education, support for international media and watchdog groups, and examination of the rise and fall of authoritarian regimes throughout history.
My main takeaway from the letter was the author’s argument that we don’t have the luxury of waiting for the next election – that critical systems are already being dismantled in the first 100 days of this new administration, and that checks against authoritarianism require education for those at the bottom, working their way upward and enforcing accountability for those at the top. The writing style certainly didn’t sound like Liz Cheney, but after I saw some internet backlash about the authorship of the letter, my first thought was to wonder why it matters who wrote it, as long as the suggestions are sound. Of course, my second thought was that Liz Cheney might not care fore the credit if she didn’t say (or agree with) those things.
Image credit: [11]
My husband and I saw her speak in Pittsburgh last fall – to a room that was more left-leaning if I had to guess, but there were definitely conservatives in the audience too. She talked about growing up in her family, where learning about US history and government was a matter of course for everyone; about being an adult in politics herself and having respect for people who focus on doing their job for our country, regardless of their party or their ideas on how best to get things done. What I heard was that her brand of American exceptionalism includes a deep love for all we have accomplished as a nation and a recognition that we must hold our leaders, our press, and ourselves to high standards so we can continue on our path of creating a more perfect union.
Among the responsibilities she noted for the general public were being thoughtful consumers of media and continuing to demand integrity and fact-based journalism from our press. Interesting, then, that political news site Georgia Today seemingly didn’t authenticate whether Liz Cheney actually wrote the letter they were highlighting. But neither did the thousands of people who commented and shared the post online, many of them crediting Cheney. I have for years been legitimately concerned about our (human? American?) tendency to take whatever we’re told at face value, and I wonder why we do that. Have we always been that way, and is it just exacerbated by social media? Are we so used to consuming art and fiction without conscious criticism that we respond that way to our news as well? I honestly don’t know.
In the hour of darkness and peril and need
Subjectivity and flexible facts may be less of an issue in the realm of art (though the descendants of William Dawes’ take issue with Longfellow’s choice to make it sound like Paul Revere was the only one riding out with warnings that night [12]), but good art can fan the flames of cultural movements, as can disingenuous media spin. The responsibility that falls to us in that case is understanding the context of whatever piece of art or news to which we’re exposed. For example, knowing the history of April 18, 1775 allows us to appreciate Longfellow’s departure from it in crafting a poem that was then used to stoke patriotism on the brink of the Civil War.
But we encounter interpretations, implications, and lies about the world we live in every day (employed with far less artistry and far more intentionality) through our media and through our politicians. Our founding fathers left us a republic (…if we can keep it [13]), and our current executive branch is testing the limits of our constitution on a daily basis at this point. I see many people dismayed by the fact that the systems we have in place to counteract executive overreach operate far more slowly than the actions of overreach themselves. I also see dismay that our system of checks and balances is apparently no longer functioning properly to check or balance the executive branch. [14]
Image credit: [15]
In short, there are clear and consistent indications that we are abandoning the rule of law in our republic and consolidating authority in the executive branch of our government, thus sliding toward the very thing we sought to escape in the American Revolution. But we can take a page out of the executive branch’s current playbook (and it’s a great piece of management advice that I’ve received in the business world too): don’t wait for someone to give you permission – just step in and do what needs to be done. We’ve seen numerous examples in the last three months of the president taking an action first without worrying if he has the authority; presumably, if it’s not allowed, it will be reversed. Members of this administration have been thinking outside the box for years and figuring out where the loopholes and weaknesses in the system are – and that’s what Pru Pru’s letter encouraged too in order to counteract the systematic dismantling of our government.
We ostensibly still operate under rule of law in this country. Don’t break the law – but know the law, and you will understand your rights and how you can operate in and around the system. If you are upset, shouting into the void from an internet soapbox and waiting for the midterms or the next presidential election will ultimately not help. Here is what I will be doing, and I encourage you to do the same: read the news critically, [16] understand your rights, [17] vote in every election, [18] regularly contact elected officials to let them know what they should be doing, [19] and study history, specifically on the rise and fall of authoritarianism. [20 Note: you should be able to get online access to this book with a library card]
~
In this tumultuous time of high emotions and frequent despair, I refuse to subscribe to the blind optimism that everything will be OK, but I do firmly believe that the world will feel some kind of positive result (incremental or delayed though it may be) for the actions I take today. And it will take all of us.
Let me know what you think in the comments below – and be kind to each other: we’re all in this together.
Thank you for reading.
[1] https://poets.org/poem/paul-reveres-ride
[2] https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/paul-reveres-ride.htm
[3] https://radicalmoderate.online/bias-in-the-media/
[4] https://northend.page/old-north-projections
[6] https://radicalmoderate.online/2024-general-election-part-4-depolarization/
[7] https://join1440.com/about-us
[8] https://www.readtangle.com/about/
[9] https://adfontesmedia.com/about-ad-fontes-media/
[11] https://historeetees.com/products/dont-make-me-repeat-myself-t-shirt
[12] https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/paul-reveres-ride.htm
[13] https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-september17.htm
[15] https://thecoffeeclef.wordpress.com/tag/lies/
[16] https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive?utm_source=adfontesmedia&utm_medium=website
[17] https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution
[19] https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/addr/
1 Comment
Galen · April 21, 2025 at 1:42 pm
I will preface this by stating that I know not everybody, myself included, has the time/energy/bandwidth/resources/etc. to do all of this, but while I absolutely agree that we should be doing the things you will be doing, those who are able must do more. As you mentioned, rules and norms are being bent and broken at a much more rapid pace than that at which the institutional check and balances are able to move. I believe we need to be intentional about creating, bolstering, and utilizing grassroots movements and local resources.
Catholic Social Teaching stresses the importance of subsidiarity and solidarity – subsidiarity means matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority; and solidarity emphasizes the interconnectedness of all peoples and the need to care for and work toward justice and peace for everyone. These principles don’t need to be taken from a strictly religious perspective, and can be expressed in secular practices and movements, be it local or state government, social organizations, charities and nonprofits, or even (anti)political movements such social anarchism or pure anarchism. (Anarchism here does not mean the violence and lawlessness of how it’s portrayed in pop culture but the decentralizing or abolishment of hierarchical forms of government.)
The people on the streets and in the communities need to band together to support themselves and one another while the federal government is actively stripping them of their rights and resources. There are many mutual aid organizations across various social media and messaging platforms; soup kitchens, homeless shelters, environmental organizations, and other nonprofits are always in need of volunteers, and donations of money and resources; the same for political action groups. The more we can help and care for one another, the more we’ll be able to sustain a movement. A healthy person whose basic needs are met is more able to be a healthy, productive member of society and will have more ability to engage in social and political life.
I read something earlier today making the point that there needs to be more opportunities for people with different abilities and resources to be involved in protesting and advocating for change. The author pointed out that when we water down actions and movements so that all can participate in the same thing, we often strip those actions and movements of any real power or effectiveness. There is not a one-size-fits-all answer. How can we be more creative in involving more people in truly effective methods of change? How can we move beyond simply virtue signaling on social media and on the street corner?
The civil rights movement of the 1960s was so effective because the protestors and activists directly challenged social and political norms and disrupted society, sometimes even breaking laws that they believed were unjust. Does protest without disruption actually accomplish anything beyond making us feel good about ourselves? We saw vestiges of this during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020; however, those were not sustained enough to effect real, lasting change, and unfortunately, they sometimes devolved into violence and destruction by the protestors. As MLK taught and demonstrated, those who practice civil disobedience must also be willing to accept the punishment that comes along with it.
None of this is easy, but I believe we’re beyond the point of hoping that simply voting and relying on others to do the hard work will be enough to protect our democracy and our society.
All power to all people.