Below are comments from a friend who wishes to remain anonymous, for employment reasons, on her support for Pres. Trump.
Despite rumored threats of violence, I will attend President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on January 20th, 2025, in Washington D.C. I won’t attend the balls and other galas but I want to be there as an American who loves her country. I also attended President Donald J. Trump’s first inauguration on January 20th, 2017, along with my almost 90 year old mother, who was in a wheelchair.
When President Trump ran for reelection in 2020 and there were many questionable issues as to the truthful outcome of the vote count, I attended the ‘Stop the Steal’ rallies in November and December of that year. While I did not go on the Capitol grounds, I was in Washington, DC on January 6th where I observed Americans praying, worshipping, and spontaneously singing patriotic songs together while waiting for the outcome of the procedures taking place within the Capitol. I sat and prayed with a stranger, an African-American pastor’s wife who had ridden a chartered bus with her church all night to be there. I spoke with a couple who had gotten off of a factory shift and had driven all night from Michigan, with their dog in tow.
Collectively, we were there to use our First Amendment right to protest what we believed was a dishonest election. We demonstrated, with our presence, opposition to the election’s
certification. I heard President Trump’s speech as our 45th president in which he encouraged us to “peacefully and patriotically” let our voices be heard as we marched to the Capitol. That we did. It was peaceful and most certainly patriotic.
I am not writing to debate January 6th or those responsible for the tragic aftermath that followed. Rather, I would like to share why being a part of these events is important to me.
I grew up in a third-world country, the daughter of missionaries. The experience of witnessing deep poverty, deprivation of basic needs, and political and religious oppression gave me an appreciation for the blessings of America. It is not material advantages that motivate me to take stands, but rather God-given rights and freedoms granted to us by our Constitution.
Two other experiences shaped my love and respect for our freedom, for which I will take a stand until I can no longer do so. The first was my experience, in my twenties, in a communist country where I was an English teacher at a college. While the country was growing in economic opportunities, we American teachers had our classes monitored for content not in alignment with the government, by an anonymous student political representative.
They were there to ensure that we stayed in line. When topics of American ideas pertaining to freedoms including faith were brought up outside of the classroom in personal time, my students, always in a group of no more than two, would begin to whisper and look around to see who might be there to question the topics of our discussion. A student tiptoeing down a hallway from my office so as not to be seen and thus questioned as to the nature of our conversation was an experience of oppression that one cannot fathom until you feel its weight.
The freedoms we breathe as Americans were not known by my students. I learned much through my year which culminated in my evacuation out of the country due to unrest. A student demonstration in the capitol city led to the government’s soldiers opening fire on the peaceful young demonstrators. Many lives of students were lost. The news and its images were broadcast around the world yet when I returned to the same country to teach two years later, my one brave student who asked me if I had heard of the event, told me that the citizens had been told that it was only soldiers who lost their lives that day.
Many other conversations and experiences there led me to no longer take for granted the
freedoms granted all Americans, through our beautiful, divinely-inspired Constitution. My
conviction has become that these freedoms must be appreciated and protected by citizens like me as best we are able, with all the means we have in our influence, including protests.
The second experience that sealed my love for our freedom occurred when I visited the
beaches of Normandy and profoundly considered the sacrifices so many families have made to protect our freedoms. One cannot see ‘L’Avenue de Bedford, Virginie’ and the white grave markers and not weep. Normandy’s beaches are but one of many places Americans have sacrificed unfathomably for me and for the ideals of our God-given freedoms.
And so I vote and volunteer and take a stand when I am able. As a Christian it is a part of what I call ‘stewardship’ of the blessing and responsibility of being an American. May America be restored as a blessing to God and may God bless America. Every citizen’s voice, no matter how small, contributes to our love and protection of our freedoms. After all, we are ‘We the People” of the United States of America.
– Anonymously Submitted
