1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am in the streets this weekend and every week, with so many of my neighbors. And Democratic leaders in Congress are dodging questions about whether an agency that teargasses babies and executes innocent people should continue to have a budget bigger than most countries’ militaries. It’s pathetic.  We need leaders who will stand up for American communities being terrorized by Trump’s fascist death squads. We need leaders who don’t have to consult poll-tested messaging to answer: “No, we shouldn’t be giving ICE more money to kill and brutalize innocent people.” I want DHS funding cut. I want Noem and Vance impeached. I want ICE and Trump’s secret police off our streets. Democratic leaders must see themselves not just as legislators or party leaders but as actors in a global battle for freedom and democracy. We are heirs to the American Revolution and the Four Freedoms global system that made freedom the founding organizing principle of our country and the world. It is our obligation to lead this global fight. We must be warriors for the middle class and working people, AND proud American patriots fighting for freedom and democracy here and everywhere. Our Founders declared that our inalienable rights include not just the “pursuit of happiness” but “life” and “liberty” too. We must summon the power of those great American patriots: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Dr. King, and other global freedom fighters: Churchill, Gandhi, Mandela. We are in a new day. I need representatives who are comfortable fighting in today’s political and information battlefields. It is time to recognize that pragmatism is cowardice. It is a time for courage, ambition, imagination, patriotism. It is time to fight for our freedoms. That starts with ICE off our streets!