When Democrats Are Called Terrorists

“The Democratic Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” Today White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said this on Fox News.

I had a whole other post written. Much like happens some nights, I was carrying that draft with me when I saw this and it stopped me cold.

This is what we are up against. This is why we are where we are. There has never been, in modern American political life, a White House press secretary who casually labels the whole opposing political party of people the equivalent of terrorists and criminals on national television.

Saying this out loud is not an accident. It is a strategic move. It normalizes fear, it encourages suspicion, and it tells millions of Americans that their neighbors are suspect.

That is exactly how politics slides into something far uglier. Politics here is no longer about normal partisan disagreement. It has become something closer to a fight for survival.

I know that sounds dramatic, but it is the truth. This administration is attempting to turn the opposing party into enemies of the state. Their core base absorbs propaganda as if it were fact and then acts on it. That is the risk we face.

History gives us the map. Authoritarians do not begin with guns and mass arrests. They begin by naming people less than human, by turning citizens into enemies with words. In Nazi Germany that process was deliberate and bureaucratic. A ministry of propaganda centralized messaging, and newspapers, films, posters, and radio hammered a steady language that turned Jewish people into caricatures and threats. That constant lowering of moral concern made discrimination feel ordinary and then made mass violence feel possible.

We have seen the same pattern elsewhere and in far more recent memory. In Rwanda, hate radio and certain newspapers repeatedly called Tutsis cockroaches and used other degrading language. That corrosive vocabulary helped prime ordinary neighbors to kill. The broadcasts did not simply reflect prejudice. They amplified and organized it into a public instruction to hate. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge followed another version of the script. Revolutionary slogans and official messaging labeled whole social groups as enemies of the revolution, set a Year Zero against them, emptied cities, and then created the apparatus to destroy those labeled as corrupt or parasitic. The rhetoric was the verbal scaffolding for state violence.

This is not a laundry list of tragedies meant to score rhetorical points. Scholars who study mass violence identify dehumanization as a clear and early stage on the pathway to atrocity.

Name calling and categorical denunciations are not merely ugly politics. They are a recognized warning sign. When leaders or chief spokespeople single out groups and describe them as threats, they set the moral table for exclusion, discrimination, and worse. That slide is preventable if we recognize it and call it by name.

It’s what Trump did to Black people in his first term. It’s what he is doing to brown people today. It’s what Hitler did to Jewish people and now Karoline Leavitt is doing it to Democrats.

I am not equating the scale of these horrors. I am naming a repeated tactic: leaders reduce people to enemies so cruelty feels permissible.

That is not original. It is lazy and dangerous leadership.

We have to ask ourselves some basic questions. Is this who we are? Is this who our country is? Is this where we want our country to go? Are we okay with this? Is this what we want our children listening to? Is this who we want leading us?

If you are reading this, you are likely on the right side of history and agree to at least some degree that this is not the America we love. It is not the kind of country a respected nation should be.

I have to think some people who voted for this are right now saying, this is not okay. This is not right.

This rhetoric is splitting us farther than we could have imagined and doing more damage than any outside force ever could.

If you know a staunch Republican in your life, ask them this simple question: is this really what you wanted? They may answer yes and defend it. But we are planting doubt. We are asking the question that could wake someone up. We are chipping away at the idea that cruelty is acceptable simply because a leader chose to normalize it.

We also have to stay laser-focused. Call out and name every single thing they do the moment they pick another line from the dictator playbook to act out. Call it what it is. Talk about it. Share it. Shine light on it. Do not let polite distance or false equivalence protect bad behavior. Say plainly: this is unconstitutional. This is a fascist move.

When someone in power groups entire communities as threats and chooses fear over facts, we must use the words that describe it. Say dehumanization. Say scapegoating. Say erosion of democratic norms. Saying those words exposes the pattern and gives us a place to stand against it.

That clarity must be followed by action. Rallies matter. This weekend I am all about the rallies. They are not a magic switch and they will not by themselves reverse what is happening. But they do something necessary. They remind us that we are not isolated islands of outrage. They show up the arithmetic of democracy. They make visible the fact that there are more of us than there are of them. They give courage to neighbors who are quietly worried and to young people who need to see adults who still believe in ordinary decency. They create the shared feeling of being part of a movement rather than a lone voice in the dark.

If you go to a rally, go because you want to be counted and because you want your neighbors to see you there. Bring a sign. Bring water. Bring older friends who might feel afraid to be alone. Bring younger people who need to see what steadfast public care looks like. If you cannot attend, do something that matters. Call your elected officials and tell them what you think. Volunteer for local efforts to protect voting access. Donate to organizations that monitor hate speech and help targeted communities. Share accurate facts when someone in your circle repeats a dangerous line. None of these actions is glamorous, but all of them add up.

When we shine a light, when we refuse to accept dehumanizing language as normal, we build a public culture that resists cruelty. That culture protects people who are vulnerable and slows the slide toward worse abuses.

On a personal note, I want to wish the editor of these posts a happy 26th anniversary. My husband and I were just kids when we got married. Without him, I would not be able to bring these posts to you every night. He makes sure I have the time every day to research, to learn, to write, and to rewrite. He stays up late to edit them. He stands with me through threats and by my side when I have awful words thrown at me, when I call out cruelty and fascism. Instead of encouraging me to stop, he encourages me to keep going. He is quiet and generous about it. I want him to know how grateful I am for him.

This is another one of those strange moments when it is the best of times and the worst of times. I have learned to live in two realities at once. Life goes on in the small ways, and at the same time we face some hard truths about what is happening around us.

And I know I’m not alone when I draw strength from those who suffered unimaginable horrors and left us their lessons. I think back to the Diary of Anne Frank. Reading her words as a young person taught me something vital. She showed how a brave, observant voice could hold joy and ordinary human goodness in the middle of terror. Her writing woke a generation to real evil and taught people to recognize it when it reappeared. With ICE roundups continuing, her words echo in my soul as a warning that cruelty has no limits and nobody is safe from its grip.

Even though the days feel darker at times, this is not a call to despair. It is a call to steady work. We do not win by anger alone. We win by persistence, by the slow accumulation of small acts that together change the atmosphere. We win when neighbors start asking each other hard questions. We win when complacency is replaced by accountability. We win when people who once shrugged now call the lie what it is. This is how movements grow. It is messy at first and it is slow, but it deepens into culture and law when enough of us refuse to accept normalizing cruelty.

So get your signs ready. Show up where you can. Make calls where you cannot. Share the names and faces of the real people who are being hurt by this rhetoric. Teach the young people in your life to ask the same questions we are asking. Is this who we want to be? Is this what we want our children to hear and learn from the leaders we elect? Push for policies that protect civil rights and our institutions. Support local journalism. Vote in every election, not just the flashy ones. Hold people in power accountable every single day.

And do not forget to live. It is okay to feel joy, to love your life, to laugh and to dance and to celebrate the small things even as you fight for the big things. That is the heart of resistance. It is not all righteous fury. It is also tenderness and courage and ordinary human joy. Love your family. Read a book that fills you with hope. Talk to your neighbor. These are not distractions. They are the reason we keep fighting.

Remember who you are, remember where we want this country to go, and stay focused on how we will get there. Get your signs ready and get some rest. We have a fight ahead of us.

I will see you tomorrow,
Heather