Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz

Some things live solely at the expense of others.

They voraciously feed off those they attach themselves to; robbing their hosts of their lifeblood, sapping them of their vitality, gradually depleting them until they are a shell of what they’d been before the invasion began.

It’s pretty clear right now our nation is sick and rapidly declining. There is little doubt that this President is a planetary parasite, a global cancer; and his Administration is rapidly sucking the goodness and the progress from us day by day, offense by offense, attack by attack, violation by violation.

They’ve long ago shown us who they are and how they work:

• ‪Deporting immigrants.
• Gutting women’s rights.
• Banning Muslims.
• Silencing the Free Press.
• Ceasing medical research.
• Destroying global partnerships.
• Discarding environmental protections.
• Cutting public school funding.
• Crippling the Arts.
• Removing healthcare.
• Deleting dreamers.
• Erasing transgender and non-binary people.

The pattern is astounding in its consistency:

• They have no interest in contributing to the common good.
• They will never build, they will only subtract.
• They are incapable of creating anything meaningful or beautiful or life-giving.
• They only know how to destroy,
• to take,
• to use up.

That is what cancerous things do.

They pollute.

They kill.

And right now we who call this nation home, and who aren’t okay with this malignant, immoral presence in our midst are being called to move together. We are being challenged to relentlessly call out this President and his cohorts as the great national moral malady that they are, and to condemn the bitterness that they are breeding.

Good people feel it. They know we’re not well because of this illness that has invaded. And it is the good people who need to be loud right now. That is the only way to fight the sickness that feeds on silence, that thrives in darkness, that counts on compassion fatigue—that thinks tired, depleted people will stop giving a damn.

So we have to give a damn—vehemently.

This is not a political movement we are being invited into in these moments, friends, not a religious one either, no it’s nothing that small and insignificant.

It is not a white movement, not a movement of people of color, or of the LGBTQ community alone. It is not a Christian or a Muslim or a Jewish movement or an Atheist movement.

It is not some selective bit of isolated activism that will be overpowered or shouted down or beaten back or lose momentum.

This must be the rise of We the Pissed-Off People.

This will need to be American humanity moving in concert;

• bound together by our belief in one another’s worth,
• by the knowledge that Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are not currently available to everyone,
• by the conviction that this President is a threat to the very best things about this nation,
• by the refusal to let America be taken backward,
• by the belief that love will get the last, loudest word.

Through our collective voices and collaborative work we will need to declare together:

• that no sick person should have to choose between getting well or going broke.
• that everyone who desires to, should be able to marry the person they love.
• that everyone who is burdened to, should be able to serve this country.
• that everyone who wishes to make their home here should be able to, without being punished for the color of their skin, the orientation of their hearts, the place they were born, they religion they profess or reject.
• that no faith tradition gets to make the rules for those of us who don’t share that faith tradition.
  that we as Americans will not be known as a people of exclusion, of bigotry, of malevolence even if our leaders are.

This isn’t just some New Jersey casino, Florida country club, or New York City high-rise that a madman and his kids get to stick their names on and suck dry for their benefit. This is the United Effin’ States of America—and they are the people who are charged with working for the totality of its citizenry. They are supposed to be public servants, not parasitic vampires.

We cannot and will not be leveled by the infected ego of an unstable, ignoble man and those opportunistic monsters willing to sell their souls to feed off those he victimizes. We will not be bullied by little men with great insecurities.

When your President is a national cancer, you can let your country be ravaged—or you can push back like hell and make it well again.

We will get well together. We simply have to.

Who’s with me?