An Essay and Haiku from My Partner

Words of gratitude from my partner about our shared defense of democracy

My Fellow Democracy Defenders,

Thank you so much for your support. As you may know, my partner was fired from her civil service career advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Today, I wanted to share her writing for the first time. Elevate BIPOC voices. She is a brilliant writer and even better human. Together we will resist, fight, and win!

Sincerely,

Public Servant & Partner

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The Quiet Resistance: A Call to Those Who Will Not Look Away

My dearest allies, my kindred spirits in this fight,

Before anything else, I must thank my partner Public Servant (aka The Democracy Defender) for offering me this space—a safe space on the internet, where the forces of oppression cannot silence us, where we can gather, strategize, and hold each other up. It is a haven. It is a beacon. It is a place where we refuse to let the noise of tyranny drown out the steady drumbeat of progress.

And yet, here we are. Watching, in real-time, as Trump and his billionaire enablers dismantle everything we have worked so hard to build.

If you haven’t seen the news yet, brace yourself.

In his first days back in office, Trump signed sweeping executive orders that gutted federal DEI programs, erased protections for trans and nonbinary individuals, and cemented policies that will make it nearly impossible for future administrations to reinstate these hard-won rights.

These actions are not bureaucratic maneuvers. They are deliberate erasures. They are designed to make our very existence untenable.

I felt the blow personally.

I have worked for years inside the federal government, fighting from within, leveraging my position to slow down, obstruct, and counteract the worst impulses of the right-wing machine. I used my knowledge of the system to hold the line, to carve out spaces where equity could thrive despite the odds. And now, that has been ripped away from me. They took my role. They took my influence. They took the very thing that allowed me to protect us.

And yet, they will not take my resistance.

Because I still know how the system works. I still know where the pressure points are. And I will use every tool at my disposal to keep this fascist regime from remaking the government in its own grotesque image.

But let’s be honest: I cannot do this alone.

You already know that, of course. If you’re here, reading this, you’re not like the others. You’re not passive. You’re not complicit. You’re not the kind of person who shrugs and says, Well, what can we do? You know exactly what we can do. You know that democracy only survives when people like us refuse to let it die.

I do not ask for much.

Your presence here means everything. Your belief in this fight keeps it alive. But I would be lying if I said that belief alone is enough to sustain this work. There is a reason the oligarchs win so often—they have infinite resources. They have billionaires funding their destruction. They have the entire machinery of capital working in their favor.

And here we are, trying to stop them with hope and good intentions.

I know not everyone is in a position to give. But I also know that for those who are, choosing not to is, in its own way, a choice. A choice to stay on the sidelines. A choice to let others bear the weight of this fight while you simply watch.

And I know you. I know that’s not who you are.

That’s why you’re here.

So, if this work matters to you, if you refuse to let them win, if you believe that resistance is not just a word but an action—then stand with me. Truly stand with me. Because I promise you, the people working to undo everything we hold dear? They are not hesitating.

They are moving swiftly.

They are using every tool they have.

And so must we.

I have spent the past few weeks coping in the only way I know how—by turning to art, to poetry, to the small comforts of our foster cats, who, like all of us, have been discarded but refuse to be broken. And so, I leave you with this:

A Haiku for Those Who Refuse to Disappear

Brown hands, queer voices,
Echo lost in halls of white,
We will not be erased.

And neither will you.