What if you were working on a job you loved and had been doing for many years, and one day a powerful group of people decided to tell a lie about you resulting in you having to leave your job and your home due to threats on your life? In June of 2023, Georgia’s State Election Board dismissed its yearslong investigation into alleged election fraud at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, more than two years after conspiracy theorists — and then-President Donald Trump — claimed that Freeman and her daughter had committed election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A jury ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay nearly $150 million to election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss for the harm caused by defamatory statements he made about them following the 2020 election.

What if you a 52-year-old  woman were being friendly to a well-known and powerful person, and he sexually assaulted you in a dressing room of an elite department store and you held that secret until you could hold it no more? The “MeToo” movement brought so many memories to the forefront of the minds of many, and some have decided to tell their stories. My guess there are many who haven’t told their stories and will forever hold these horrendous experiences in their heart…that doesn’t make their stories untrue or less painful when they allow themselves to remember. E. Jean Carroll held her story for more than twenty years and when she told it she didn’t call his name. Begs the question why with all of the wealthy real estate moguls in New York…why did people immediately think of you know who? And then of course, there is the old adage “a hit dog will holler.” 

He hollered and she sued. A New York jury found former President Donald Trump liable Tuesday for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s but not liable for her alleged rape. The jury awarded her $5 million in damages for her battery and defamation claims. He continued to holler and defame, and A federal judge formally ordered Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll, endorsing the jury’s verdict.

What if you were the manager of your company and sat in your office for hours watching your employees being battered and beaten for 187 minutes and did nothing…didn’t call the police, didn’t even ask your secretary to call the police? What if it were you needing help or your boss just watching the show? What if this wasn’t the first time? What if your boss previously sat in the office protected while his employees and customers were dying from a contagious disease when he could have just warned them it was deadly? What if it was you and your co-workers?

What if you got a new job and the person who you replaced continuously undermined, heckled, plotted, against you on a daily basis? I believe in other circumstances this would be called stalking, bullying, and a sore loser. Furthermore, did President Carter do this to President Reagan? Did Secretary of State Clinton do this to Donald Trump? Did Vice President Gore do this to President Bush? Did President Bush do this to President Obama? Did President Obama do this to Trump? I believe the answer is no, they let those who followed do their job. Do you really think this would be appropriate if you were placed in such a position?

I could go on and on, but you get my gist.

I want to remind all of the words by Martin Niemöller (1892–1984. Niemöller was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for his postwar statement:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

I would hate for your story to be, first he came for …, and then he came for me. He’s already come for women’s rights, voting rights, people of color, Jews, immigrants, healthcare, our elections, allies, our laws, military secrets, our Constitution, our democracy…last week the bible. Where does it stop?

It stops with us.