Whose citizenship is going to be taken away?

Will it yours, mine or everyone who he doesn't like?

Hi Friends on the right side of history,

It’s great to be back in California, and strange at the same time.

There’s something surreal about travel. One moment you’re waking up in one country, and before the day ends, you’re back on your own pillow in your home nation. On this last trip, we woke up in Victoria and ended the night back home in the US.

Those moments always remind me how small the world really is. How close we all are. Not just by plane routes or passport stamps, but by shared humanity. We live on the same planet. We breathe the same air. We watch the same stars in the sky at night.

And yet, it feels like that truth has been completely lost lately. Especially here. Especially now.

I’ve been writing more about what I see happening in our country. About why I’m done engaging with MAGA. And one of the things I said early on was that I wasn’t going to block people. I wasn’t going to delete their comments. I wanted to believe there was still space for civil discourse. That maybe if I responded thoughtfully, they’d hear me. That maybe they just hadn’t heard the truth yet. Maybe they just needed someone to hold up the mirror.

But I learned the hard way that they weren’t bringing the same thing to the table.

I was trying to have a conversation. They were coming to a fight.

And the more I listened, the clearer it became. There was no hope for this movement right now in the US. None.

I thought, at the very least, we could document the side of history they chose. But the deeper I looked, the more I realized many of them didn’t even understand the history they were rejecting. They don’t know what they’re parroting. Trump could tell them to drink bleach, and they’d do it. Honestly, some of them were probably on the verge of doing that in the early days of the pandemic when he proposed maybe injecting it. Remember how absolutely dangerous his rhetoric was then? And when I post about the horrible direction he is taking us, their responses are all the same: attacks, personal insults, or right-wing talking points like "What about Hunter’s laptop?"

I bring up the president of the United States abusing executive power, and they deflect with conspiracies about someone’s son who isn’t even in office. There’s no logic. No connection. No willingness to engage in reality. It’s all projection and propaganda. And I’m done pretending otherwise.

I don’t give up hope on people. But I do know when I’m wasting my breath. Trump and J.D. Vance? I’ve lost hope there. But many in the MAGA base? They’ve been victims of a very intentional, very sophisticated propaganda machine. Do I blame them? Yes. Because they let themselves be taken in. But I can still see the strings being pulled.

That said, some of the things they write are completely deranged. I saw one person say that Jesus would want immigrants locked in cages and fed to alligators. That is the level of delusion we’re dealing with.

And while we’re caught up fighting off this cult, real harm is happening.

Let’s talk about something you might not have heard much about.

The Pentagon is about to cut off access to hurricane-tracking satellite data.

On July 31, the Department of Defense is pulling access to a key data stream used by NOAA, NASA, and meteorologists across the country. This isn’t just any data. It’s the information that lets forecasters see inside hurricanes at night. It helps track rapid intensification events. It lets communities know when it’s time to evacuate. It saves lives. How quickly they have forgotten the tragedy in Texas that is still unfolding.

The Pentagon says it poses a cybersecurity risk. And maybe it does. But they don’t have a replacement ready. They say a new system is coming. But it’s not here yet. And they’re just… turning it off.

NASA wants the data. NOAA has asked to keep it. Meteorologists across the country have said this puts us in danger. But the Pentagon says no.

Why?

Because once again, the people in power are choosing control over safety. And it’s the American people who will pay the price.

I’ll write a more detailed post on that soon, but it all connects.

Because while I was researching this and thinking about what it means to lose something as vital as protection from storms, I remembered something I discovered when researching my family’s ancestry.

I found out that my great-grandmother lost her U.S. citizenship in the early 1900s.

She didn’t commit a crime. She didn’t renounce it.

She married a man who wasn’t a citizen.

That was it.

Under the Expatriation Act of 1907, when an American woman married a foreign man, she automatically took his citizenship. If he had none? Or if the country didn't automatically give it to her, like many didn't, she became stateless. That law said she no longer belonged to the United States.

My great-grandmother, born here, raised here, had her citizenship stripped by a government that decided her identity belonged to her husband. And when he died, she had to petition to get it back.

Think about that.

A woman’s legal identity was entirely dependent on a man. Her rights. Her protections. Her place in the only country she ever knew.

And if you think that’s ancient history, think again.

Because this week, Donald Trump said he was considering stripping Rosie O’Donnell of her U.S. citizenship because she criticized him.

He called her a “threat to humanity”. Said she should stay in Ireland. And then wrapped it all up in a "God bless America," as if that makes it patriotic.

Let me be very clear:

This is not just a tantrum. This is dictatorial rhetoric. This is what fascists say.

If a president could strip citizenship based on personal grievances, none of us would be safe. Every activist. Every journalist. Every protestor. Every woman with an opinion. Gone. And if he can decide who has citizenship and who doesn't, well that makes winning future elections a whole lot easier, for him.

But he can’t do that. Not legally.

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in Afroyim v. Rusk that the U.S. government cannot revoke someone’s citizenship without their consent. That’s still the law.

But that he said it out loud matters. Because Trump doesn’t care what’s legal. He cares what he can get away with. He cares about testing the waters. Seeing how far he can go. How far we will let him go.

And I’m not just talking about his followers. I’m talking about the rest of us.

He wants to know: Will anyone stop me?

That’s the real question. How far do we let this go?

I’m not a violent person. I don’t believe in violence. January 6 was violent. That was domestic terrorism. That was an attempt to overthrow the government. And we did not act upon that strongly enough.

So what do we do?

I don’t have all the answers. There are smarter people than me who understand the ins and outs of these paths.

But I think it might look like what France does.

Mass protests. General strikes. People saying no more.

Stop the work. Stop the economy. Stop everything.

Make it clear to the people in power that this country doesn’t belong to Trump. It belongs to us.

And if you are in government and you enable him, you will not be protected. His reign will end. And you will be remembered.

Will we have our own version of the Nuremberg trials?

Will we have to go back, line by line, and document how we let this happen?

Because we already have the warning signs. We already have the roadmap. We know what this playbook is.

Historians are screaming. Survivors of fascism are screaming. And too many Americans are scrolling past it.

Our schools don’t teach this well enough. Our media doesn’t cover it honestly enough. And our kids are being raised on algorithms that reward volume over truth.

The loudest voices get the most traction. Even when they’re shouting hate.

We have to be louder. Not more violent. Louder. Smarter. Braver.

We have to tell the truth. Over and over and over again.

Please forgive me, I still believe that people have the capacity to change. I still believe that some of them will see the truth, maybe not now, but one day.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather