I'm from the United States of Division

What country cares more about the logo at Cracker Barrel changing than people being rounded up and disappearing into detention centers?

The United States of America does. Or should I say, the United States of Division.

Most nights when I sit down to write these posts, the words flow easily. There is so much mayhem spilling out of the White House that there is never a shortage of things to talk about. I open tab after tab on my computer, digging for details, trying to learn as much as I can about what I need to share.

But today I've written this three times. You are reading my third attempt. The first two were overtaken by something bigger, something worse, something that could not wait. This went beyond having too much to talk about. This was personal.

The overarching question that I kept asking myself, over and over again, was this: these stories I'm reading are all important, but is there something even bigger here than what is happening in each atrocity, each event, each horror this administration commits?

Because in between drafts, I read your comments. I respond when I can. It steadies me to know there are others who feel the weight of this moment, who understand how fragile this country really is. That nothing is guaranteed. That we are teetering on a cliff that might not hold much longer.

And it's the comments that linger longer than they should that give me the answers I'm looking for tonight. The encouraging comments, yes. But also the ugly ones.

And then it hits me all at once. Reading between the lines and taking these comments literally, I cannot shake the deep stabbing pain that our most dangerous battle is not with Trump. It is with each other.

Because what I see around me is not only the cruelty of one man. It is not only the lies piled so high that truth feels unreachable. It is the slow breaking of a nation. People split in half as if someone had dragged a permanent marker straight through the middle of our country.

Trump has done what no foreign enemy has ever managed to do. He has turned Americans against Americans. He has pushed us so far apart that we no longer speak the same language, no longer believe in the same reality, no longer share the same dream or the same truths.

And that is what terrifies me.

Division is not even his end goal. It is just the tool of his madness. He fractures us internally so he can build power outward. Once he has a completely fractured America in his grip, he can use us to control the world stage. Because he knows that we, collectively, would never allow that. But us divided, we absolutely would.

I would have told you last year that the majority of Americans care about our place in the world and the people we share the planet with. Now, I am not as sure. I see how easily thirty percent of our population was brainwashed into believing that we are the enemy of ourselves, and I see how easily they could be tricked into thinking our true adversaries are our friends and our allies can no longer be trusted.

I'm thinking of Canada. I'm thinking of the EU.

The example of it hit me hard this week. A man commented on one of my posts. He called me "sick" and a multitude of other dangerous and offensive words. He said eighty percent of Americans are happy with their schools, their healthcare, their housing, and their safety. He said "multiple polls" proved it.

Another told me that I was a "commie" and that Russia and Putin are not to blame for the war in Ukraine, and that Zelenskyy could have ended it already. That Ukraine was the reason there was still a war and not Russia, the invading country.

That is how it works. Lies delivered like scripture. Numbers invented out of thin air. And then repeated until the repetition itself feels like proof.

But none of this is true. Gallup shows less than half of Americans are satisfied with their lives. The World Happiness Report just placed the United States at its lowest rank ever.

The facts don't matter to those locked inside the cult.

Try to answer them with evidence, and it is like speaking to a door. A door bolted shut from the inside. Because if one fact slips through, the whole house of lies might collapse. And to them, losing their imaginary connection to Trump would be more unbearable than losing the truth itself.

They are even willing to gamble on our country to preserve this pseudo-relationship with a man who has called them the "uneducated" and insulted them over and over again.

That is how division works. It keeps people chained to a false reality. And that false reality becomes the foundation for everything else he wants to build.

He just keeps repeating propaganda, new and recycled, that makes us hate each other.

Like when he attacks freedom of the press as "enemies of the people." Like when he frames sanctuary cities as harbors of criminals. Like when he shouts about "woke" universities teaching kids to hate their own country. Like when he promises to "root out" political enemies like vermin.

And while that door stays shut to his followers, while the truth can't get through, he marches forward.

In Washington D.C., he declared an "emergency" in a city where crime is at a thirty-year low. He seized control of the police. He sent in the National Guard and armed them with guns. And then he said he would personally patrol the streets with soldiers at his side.

He won't stop there. He's said he'll do the same in Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Oakland, even suggesting he could occupy up to a hundred cities controlled by Democrats. He isn't hiding it. He said this was just beginning.

Trump has never deployed troops outside the US. Only domestically, against his own American citizens.

Think about that for a moment.

It tells you everything you need to know about him. He hates his fellow Americans and sees us as a threat to his desperate desire for world domination.

Chicago's mayor called these kinds of crackdowns "uncalled for," warning they are political theater, not public safety. She was right. No free country does this. No president turns the capital into his own stage play.

But this was never about safety. It was about power. It was about showing us he can take over whenever he wants. That the federal government is his weapon. That the line between civilian and military power bends if he says so.

And when the cameras roll, it is no longer just about us. It is a message to the world. America is no longer a democracy. America belongs to Trump.

And what does he do with that power? He turns allies into props. That is not ego. That is empire building.

And the gerrymandering battle unfolding right now is proof of it. In Texas, Republican lawmakers just gave final approval to a Trump backed redistricting map that creates five new GOP leaning congressional districts before voters ever cast a ballot. It is cheating dressed up as governance. A direct attempt to lock down power before 2026. California has already moved to answer with its own counter map, and Barack Obama himself has stepped in to back Governor Newsom's move.

It should never come to this. Maps should not be redrawn mid decade. But when one side breaks the rules to seize permanent control, the other has no choice but to fight back.

Greg Abbott stands ready to sign these new maps into law because Greg, too, has high aspirations, and if the MAGA cult president says give me five seats, Greg Abbott bows to the king and delivers.

I see the silence too in my life and online. The attorneys. The professors. The fundraisers who once fought for Kamala Harris. The people with advanced degrees who know exactly what is at stake. They have gone quiet.

Not because they believe Trump. But because they can afford to be silent. They have health insurance. A high enough income. Family to fall back on. They can hide behind comfort and be fine, at least for now.

But silence is how authoritarians win. Hitler had silence. Mussolini had silence. Franco had silence. It was not only the loyalists that kept them in power. It was the people who knew better and said nothing.

That silence frightens me more than the shouting from the cult.

And make no mistake. Trump is just getting started. And any silence, from anyone, just keeps his list of targets growing longer.

He has already targeted brown migrants. Marriage equality will be next. Then a complete abortion ban. Then birth control. Then voting itself. And yes, eventually Jewish Americans who believed they are safe under him will realize the truth. Nobody is safe in Trump's America. History has shown us this pattern again and again.

He will not stop at any of these groups. He will not stop at policies. He will come for the people who spoke out, too. Which is why so many are.

Already, visa holders are being asked to prove they never expressed "anti-American" views, aka criticized him, to enter this country or even to stay. Think about that. In America. In 2025. A loyalty test to one man, not to the Constitution, not to the country, but to him.

And if it works here, why not abroad? Why not demand that Europe bow before him before aid flows? Why not demand African nations open their markets before food shipments go out? That is how division at home becomes domination abroad.

I saw something today that gutted me. A marginalized man waving both the American flag and a Trump flag.

It was the mouse holding the mousetrap.

The cruelest irony of all. Because loyalty will not save him. It never does. We know how this goes. The oppressed who defend their oppressors are always discarded once they are no longer useful.

And yet there he stood. Proud. Flag in hand.

That is the power of division. That is the lure of domination. To make the very people who will be crushed under the system believe they are part of it.

Some people tell me my words feel personal. That they feel attacked. But I am not thinking about them at all.

I am thinking about my children. About your children. About the grandchildren who will inherit what we leave behind.

This is the hill I am willing to die on. Not because I want to. But because I know what happens when people look away.

I could sit quietly and probably be fine, at least for now. But I will not sit quietly while others lose rights, while the country burns, while one man reaches for control of the world itself.

I will not call this anything less than what it is. A man dividing America so he can dominate it, and then using America as his weapon to dominate the world.

Look around. At the National Guard patrolling D.C. streets that never needed them. At Texas carving up maps to silence millions of voters. At Europe mocked while Putin is treated like a friend. At migrants forced into loyalty tests.

This is not just ego. This is empire building on the back of authoritarianism.

We can still stop this. Because history tells us how this story ends. Every would-be emperor falls when people refuse to bow. Napoleon. Mussolini. Hitler. Franco. They all rose on division. And they all fell when people stood up or when they were stopped.

There is no one coming to save us. We are the ones who must stop him.

Division and domination only succeed if we let them.

Eventually, there will have to be a reckoning. We will have to decide: do we even want to be united with people who were capable of this? Do we want to share a future with those who embraced cruelty and lies?

Germany had to face that question too. After the Second World War they did not come back together overnight. It was painful. It was slow. It required truth-telling and consequences. It required Nuremberg trials and de-Nazification. It took generations before the wound began to heal.

I still believe we can do this. Because we have been divided before, in ways that seemed impossible to bridge. The Civil War split us in two. Families fought families. Brothers fought brothers. And still, somehow, we found our way back.

That gives me hope. Because once Trump is no longer in office, once he loses control, I believe his movement will weaken. His MAGA agenda will soften without him at the center of it. None of the other characters in his orbit have the same grip, the same hypnotic control over people. They can try, but they will never burn as hot.

Even on the days when I read comments that make me ask if it will ever be safe to live among these people again, I remind myself that in history's darkest moments, humanity has found its way back. Germany rebuilt. America healed after Civil War. We have always found a way back to each other.

We have always united around the American dream. We have always reminded ourselves that we are Americans. That we are strong. That we are capable of doing the right thing in the end.

That is what I hold on to. That is what keeps me fighting.

And right now, that fight is life or death. I do not say that lightly. If Trump locks down Congress with new gerrymandered seats, he will hold all three branches for the entirety of his term. He already has the Supreme Court. He already has the executive. That would mean no checks, no balances, no democracy left for even longer.

If you are in California, we have the opportunity to fight beyond words, with our votes this November.

I will be voting an absolute yes on Prop 50, the redistricting initiative. I have said before that I think gerrymandering is wrong. There is a reason we have the census every ten years, to fairly and accurately draw the lines. But right now, we are in a war where one side shows up with guns and the other side shows up with decorative swords.

We have to fight fire with fire.

If you live in a Democratic state, tell them you want redistricting, too. Even in Republican states, demand fair representation.

Because if we can take Congress back, we have a real chance. That is why Trump is rushing Project 2025 so fast. He knows his time might be limited. He knows if Congress flips, his empire collapses. That is why he is gutting USAID, the CDC, the Department of Education, tearing at every seam he can find. These things don't snap back once they are gone.

I want to stay hopeful. Hopeful, but still taking action. Because history shows us we can survive division. We can find our way back. But only if we fight like hell in the meantime to make sure there is still a country left to heal.

So tonight I close my laptop with fire in my chest. And with hope that enough of us finally say enough.

Because this fight is not over. We have a clear path to take back our country. I will be doing my part. I hope you will join me.

I still have hope for America, and you should, too.

I will see you tomorrow,

Heather

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