Where Is Your Line? (Hint: Silence Is a Decision)

I have a question I never imagined I’d have to ask in the United States.

Not, “Are you worried about where the country is heading?” We’re past that. It’s a question I keep asking myself — and now I’m asking you:

What has to happen before you actively push back at a government transforming into authoritarian state before our eyes?

Will you show up? Will you raise your voice? Will you find a place in the growing resistance movement?

Because here’s what haunts me: law, decency, and truth are all buckling — and far too many people are still waiting until they’re personally threatened before they act. They’re waiting, as if democracy collapses suddenly, instead of the way it usually unravels: quietly, gradually — one normalized outrage at a time.

So the question is: How will you know when the United States has crossed the line?

I keep hearing the same inadequate answers: “I don’t know.” “I’m not political.” “I just want to live my life.”

But authoritarianism doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t say, “Excuse me, we’re about to end your rights. Is this a good time?” It sells itself as “order,” “security,” “patriotism.” And once it settles in, it sells something else: fear.

So, beginning with myself, I ask again — more personally:

If the killing of Renee Good wasn’t your line, what is?

A 37-year-old mother. A poet. A legal observer. Doing what Americans have the right to do: monitor power and speak truth to power. If an agent of the state can shoot her and officials can brazenly lie about it — and that still doesn’t move us from outrage to action — what will?

And I ask: Was the killing of Alex Pretti your line? An ICU nurse at a VA hospital — a healer, not a threat — tackled, pinned down, and shot. Again and again.

Then comes the question Americans hate most: Is there a number?

Is there a number of U.S. citizens who have to be killed — or disappeared — before we say the words dictatorship or fascism out loud? Ten? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand?

Even asking feels obscene because it forces us into the moral calculations of nations in decline. But that’s what we’ve begun doing: operating as a country that runs on moral math. A country where people ask, quietly: Is it only happening to “them”?

That “them” should chill the blood in our veins. Because the first trick tyranny teaches is that “we” feel safe as long as it’s happening to “them.”

What if the government begins spiriting away children? What if five-year-olds can be taken without due process — snatched from school, from home, from a parent’s arms? Would that be your line?

Recently, I’ve been thinking about a prayer sung during Passover: “Dayenu” (dah-YAY-nu), meaning “it would have been enough.” Traditionally, it’s a song of gratitude, each blessing building on the one before.

Today, I find myself reciting a darker American Dayenu — an anti-prayer, a lament — because so many people act as if each violation is tolerable as long as the next violation hasn’t arrived yet.

In this recasting, Dayenu means: “Would that be enough?”

If the government lied — but no one was killed — Dayenu?

If peaceful citizens were harassed — but not shot — Dayenu?

If Renee Good was killed — but just her — Dayenu?

If Alex Pretti was killed too — but only those two — Dayenu?

If children were taken — but only from certain families — Dayenu?

If dissent was labeled “terrorism” — and silence “patriotism” — Dayenu?

How many Dayenus will we accept?

Because by the time the proof is undeniable, the system has already changed. The twisted genius of authoritarianism is simple: it doesn’t need to convince everyone. It only needs to convince enough people to wait.

Wait for the courts. Wait for the next election. Wait for the next news cycle. Wait until it hits your zip code. Wait until it hits your child. Wait until it hits your body.

And that’s when I ask the question that echoes through every authoritarian society:

Which side are you on?

Not as a post — but in your actual life. When the arc of history bends toward cruelty, are you part of the weight that bends it further — or part of the resistance that bends it back?

I have one final question: How many Dayenus are we willing to accept before America becomes a place where resistance is no longer possible?

The people of Minneapolis reject the premise. They’ve been praying with their feet in their city’s streets for months, answering unequivocally: resistance is always possible. They are in the vanguard of a movement bending the arc of the moral universe back toward justice, breathing life into a fragile democracy on life support.

As a quote often attributed to Bob Marley puts it: “You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.”

But let’s not wait until strength is our only choice. Let’s choose courage now — together — and prove that in America, democracy is still something the people can save.

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