"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

These words were written nearly 250 years ago, in December of 1776, by Thomas Paine. They were meant to steady people living through fear, uncertainty, and violence. Paine was not glorifying war or pretending it was clean or noble. He was trying to give meaning to endurance when the outcome was uncertain and the cost was real.

Over time, the American right hollowed these words out and repurposed them into slogans. They have been used to attack things like a moderate Black president attempting to pass health care reform in 2010. This is what happens when language is stripped of history and context. Paine was not defending comfort or hierarchy, but sacrifice in the face of tyranny.

The Revolution itself was not pure or innocent. The war was brutal, no army was saintly, and countless people suffered. America would go on to conquer a continent, remove its inhabitants, enslave a race of people, steal land from those it subdued, and lynch anyone who threatened its imposed order. None of this should be denied or softened.

And yet, within that moment of upheaval, there existed a dangerous and genuine hope. Many people, women, enslaved people, Native peoples, and others, believed a new government might one day grant real freedom. That belief was incomplete and often betrayed. Still, it mattered because it challenged the idea that power must always belong to the same people.

That challenge to hierarchy is exactly what many people today refuse to confront. Complexity threatens narratives of superiority and entitlement. It forces people to see a world that is not simple, static, or built around them. Ideas are not to be feared but understood, and diversity is not a threat to anyone capable of honest thought.

The fascist cannot tolerate this reality. They see a world where they are no longer kings and where people like them cannot look down on people like me. Difference becomes an existential threat rather than a fact of life. Control and elimination are reframed as necessity.

This is the logic of white supremacy and the logic of the Trumpist movement. It is not about strength or order in any meaningful sense. It is about preserving hierarchy at any cost. Fear of losing unearned dominance is disguised as patriotism.

It has been a week since Alex Peretti was killed in the streets of Minneapolis. At the same time, more information continues to surface about the president’s involvement with Epstein. And yet, those who claim they are protecting children voted for a child rapist. This contradiction exposes what they actually value.

Those who continue to support him are choosing violence against others. They do not care about facts or truth, because anyone who did has already examined the evidence. Ignorance here is not passive. It is chosen and maintained.

They want to be seen as strong, but they are not. They want power without virtue and authority without responsibility. They cheer as immigrants are torn from their homes and call it justice. In their minds, they are the real natives, and anyone not born of pure European blood is a degenerate destroying their nation.

Their nation is defined by white supremacy. It is a nation where brown children are locked in cages and Black people are shot in the streets. It is also a nation where white people who dissent are silenced or killed. This is not a deviation but a logical outcome.

This is what you voted for. If you continue to support him, this is what you support. You are not a patriot and you are not a hero. You are an adult child inflicting real harm on people who have done nothing to you except exist.

Fascists like to pretend they are strong, but history shows otherwise. Hitler was not an educated man, but a failed artist who believed he was entitled to greatness. He learned to perform, not to understand. The old fascists were insecure men who blamed immigrants, queer people, and Jews for their own failures.

When they began losing their war against the world, they blamed those same groups even more. They believed completely in their own grandiose delusions. They imagined that impoverished Jews in the ghettos of Poland were plotting their destruction. Reason itself became the enemy.

Modern fascists operate in the same way their predecessors did. If someone is liberal, queer, immigrant, or Black, they are declared weak and deserving of punishment. Violence is reframed as righteousness rather than moral failure. This is not strength, but the collapse of ethical reasoning.

This movement will not endure because it is built on fear rather than solidarity. It cannot create, only destroy, and destruction eventually turns inward. History shows that systems founded on supremacy consume themselves once there is no one left to blame. What remains is isolation, paranoia, and decay.

What endures instead is refusal. Refusal to surrender truth, refusal to accept cruelty as normal, and refusal to mistake domination for strength. Real courage is the willingness to live in a complex world without needing enemies to feel whole. That is the ground they cannot stand on, and the reason they will ultimately fail.