I’ve been following Illinois Governor Pritzker for awhile now. If you haven’t, you should. He has been fearless in his calling out of the Rapist-in-Chief. I looked for a full transcript of his recent speech in New Hampshire but it’s not yet been posted. Here’s a sampling:

• Be the better people, we are urged, as if such a thing will be a panacea to the violence against humanity currently embraced by Republicans far and wide. Such an approach has led us to the edge of the demise of Democracy. It’s time to accept that Republicans are no longer our fellow countrymen whose values are reflected in the Constitution, or even the Bible they so repulsively exploit. They are our enemy.
• We can no longer embrace the “blind hope that one day soon Republicans would wake up to find their better angels” Pritzker says. “That got us where we are today. The reckoning is here. And now that this culture of timidity is on display, these same do-nothing Democrats want to blame our losses on the defense of Black people, trans kids, and immigrants, instead of on their own lack of guts and gumption.”
• We have to quit apologizing for wanting to create a better world, for wanting to recognize the humanity of all people, for rejecting the cruelty that Republicans embrace. “Time to stop apologizing when we were not wrong,” Pritzker says. “Time to stop surrendering, when we need to fight.”
• I was at a dinner party this past weekend where the discussion turned to how to get along with neighbors who are proud to display their devotion to Trump, or even family members who do. By now, we all should have learned that there is nothing to be gained by discussing politics with people devoted to Trump. You aren’t going to change their minds and they aren’t going to change yours. But I am not going to go along to get along either. It is way past time for that. If we continue to prioritize getting along, we become, in essence, the drivers of the murderer’s get-away car.
• We become the Great Pretenders. We pretend that our friends, our family, our neighbors are “good people” even as they advocate for kidnapping and disappearing people without due process. We pretend they are “good people” as they seek to silence Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and women of all colors. We pretend they are good people as they cheer as the rights of LGBTQ+ are diminished. We pretend they are good people as judges are arrested for dissent, and as American citizens are terrorized simply because they are traveling in a car or on a plane or going out for a walk. We pretend they are good people even as they support nursing babies being separated from their mothers, or women being arrested for having a miscarriage at home. What will it take for you to realize good people don’t do these things? Going along to get along is a failing policy. “We must abandon the culture of incrementalism that has led us to swallow their cruelty and their callousness,” Pritzker says, “with barely a cowardly croak.”
• I will not listen to another podcast interview or talk show host (yes, Pod Save America and Bill Maher) rant about how Democrats need to learn to communicate better, need to learn to appeal to men, young or old, who feel ignored or slighted or that liberals think we are better than them. Listen, if you are burning books and arresting migrants while they are at their immigration appointments, throwing women in jail for miscarrying at home, you are a loathsome creature. Tom Horman not excluded. He’s loathsome. He’s repulsive. He’s a thug. He belongs in prison, along with the Rapist-in-Chief who was convicted of 34 felony counts, who pardoned those who defecated on the floors of the Rotunda. The problem isn’t what Democrats aren’t communicating. The problem is what Republicans are communicating – cruelty. In fact, their plan is to suppress the voices or to outright arrest anyone who doesn’t go along with their agenda. The problem isn’t Democrats at all. The problem is that this country is full of people who are cruel, hateful, selfish liars and cheaters, rapists and racists. They would burn us all at the stake given half a chance. They want permission to enslave women, lynch Blacks, disappear Latinos, imprison justices, and do away completely with any law that would constrain them.
• “Today, it’s an immigrant with a tattoo,” Pritzker warns. “Tomorrow, it’s a citizen with a Facebook post that annoys Trump.”

Or a Blog Post.

We are not the violent ones. Trump is. Every Executive Order has been an act of violence against someone or some group. Every. Single. One. But it is Republicans in Congress who are aiding and abetting the cruelty. Praising it as the Will of God, even.

Pritzker is right to call for Americans to take a stand – a stand against our family, our friends, our neighbors, our Congressional members. He urged Americans to demonstrate, to disrupt, to stop cowering in the face of racists zealots decimating Democracy. “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box… and then punish them at the ballot box.”

Well, this is my soap box. I think it is long past time that Americans stage a nationwide walkout, shut down the economy for a day, and to do that week after week until the Thirty Percenters who support the Rapist-in-Chief and his agenda are backed into a corner.

For far too long, we have been the better people, appealing to the Republicans’ better angels. The reality is that there are no better angels when the one served is a gleeful demon hellbent on hurting as many people as we allow.

We have the ability to stop him. The question remains as to whether we have the will.

Karen Spears Zacharias is author The Devil’s Pulpit (Mercer University Press) and many other books.