It is a snowy day which is incredibly unusual where I live in Texas less than fifty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s quite peaceful to just sit quietly looking out of my window. I enjoy watching the children making snowballs and throwing them at each other. I like their laughter as they attempt to build snowmen. I should be calm right now, but I am not.

I’m sipping on hot cocoa and thinking about how much I enjoy the scene all around me but also worrying about what will happen to my beloved country in the future. I want to just look away and hope for the best after the inauguration of our new president, but I don’t think it would be wise for me to do so. Donald Trump and his dreadful plans frighten me in a way that little else in my life has ever done. His attacks on innocent people fly in the face of all of the beliefs I foster and the work that I have done with young people for decades. His description of a “golden age” sounds dystopian and authoritarian to me and I fear what the coming days and weeks will bring. 

I am the granddaughter of immigrants who were as disdained back in the early nineteen hundreds as today’s immigrants from south of our borders are today. Somehow the people seeking refuge, work, and opportunity in our country are all too often viewed as a stereotypical whole rather than the individuals that they are. Where Trump sees them as a nuisance I know most of them to be good people who are willing to work hard to provide their children with better lives. I know that they often do jobs that most of us would be loathe to consider. 

They remind me of my grandfather who first worked on farms tending and harvesting crops when he came to America from Slovakia. Eventually he landed a job in a meatpacking plant cleaning the floors and walls in the area where animals were slaughtered. It was back breaking work that allowed him to feed and clothe his eight children during the Great Depression, but it no doubt cut his life short. His legs were riddled with bulging veins that he wrapped in bandages to alleviate the pain. Nonetheless he reported to his job every single day without complaint and taught his children to love the United States and the freedom that they had. He died from a stroke before he was able to retire and only month before I was born.  

I am sure I would have liked my grandfather because he was an avid reader and learner like I am. In his memory I spent much of my work life teaching recent immigrants to this country. I never asked who was legal and who was not but sometimes students whispered to me their fear of being deported. I always promised them that I would protect them if anyone attempted to send them away. I still feel compunction to honor that pledge even as Trump promises that his roundup of such people will be swift and without compromise. 

I worry about the fate of trans people who have done absolutely nothing to incite the ire of Trump and his MAGAs. They are such a small percentage of the population that they hardly register a bleep. Most people have never met a trans person but I have. I know them to be gentle and sincere and caring. They are not folks who would even think of hurting anyone and they mostly just want to be left alone to live in peace with the freedom to be who they are. 

I worry that Trump has created such a ruckus over them that they are in danger. I am anxious about their safety and feel a sense of foreboding about what will happen to them. I know that Trump is using them as a tool to rile up his followers and to get them to believe that he is a savior of some kind. The truth is that he is simply a vindictive bully who is a master of propaganda. He knows full well that when people are frightened they are often willing surrender unlimited power to anyone who claims to make them safe. 

Trump has just pardoned some of the vilest individuals in our population for their abominable crimes on January 6, 2021. Many of them are modern day Nazis and far right extremists who will do Trump’s bidding even if it requires violence against others. I fear what will happen if Trump calls on them again to carry out violence against our government. Who will be hurt this time? How can we just look the other way as they spew their hate?

The snow is beautiful and comforting and clean but it will melt and I will have to go back into this new world that feels so dangerous. I’m not generally a fearful person and I’m not one for conspiracy theories. Nonetheless, I am worried about what the next four years will bring. After all Trump has told us what he plans to do and it will constrict the freedom of so many innocent people. I keep wondering what I might do to help them. 

I suppose that I write about my concerns because it is one of the things that I know how to do. In a sense I hope to keep others informed of the dangers and enlist their help if the time becomes to save our freedom and democracy. Trump seems intent on persecuting groups filled with innocent people. I believe that it will be immoral to simply look away and do nothing to help them. Sadly I suspect that I am just preaching to the choir while those who know my views but disagree with me will simply ignore what I have to say and cheer on Trump to be strong in his determination. 

I will linger a bit longer feeling the comfort of the snow. I’ll file this picture away in my mind for days in the future that may become grim. It will be a way to soothe my anxieties and remind me of my resolve. I suppose that I won’t be the first American who has had to take a deep breath when defending our nation or making life more free for marginalized people. Maybe this is how my great grandfather felt as a Union soldier in the Civil War. War is frightening and he must have witnessed horrors. I must remember my ancestors who have endured hardships for their families and for this nation I owe it to both my grandfather and my great grandfather to be brave.