Solidarity for a Better World started out, right after the last election, as an outreach of First Congregational United Church of Christ where I’m serving as pastor.  I organized a “Communal Prayer Vigil of Lament for the Hurting and Devasted” which sought to address the deeply emotional, spiritual, ethical, and psychological heartache of those who understood that the election results would inevitably lead our nation into policies of “xenophobia, hateful nationalism, religious bigotry, sexism, war against the impoverished, white supremacy and racism.”  

 

That vigil sought to help our wider community “to express our grief, anger, frustration, heartache, and feelings of despair in a safe place where we can recognize our kindred spirits and feel their mutual support.”  We invited “all members of the Siouxland community, of all faiths or of no faith, who are feeling these things to join us in an open sharing with one another of what is on our hearts and minds.”  It was an event “for those who needed to share our collective heartaches and fears in the face of fascism.” It was “for those of us who are in need of strength, resilience, and resolve as we feel like spiritual and ethical refugees in our own land.”  That vigil gathered approximately 40 concerned and aggrieved members from our Siouxland community.

 

It was clear that many from that meeting wanted to have a local group where they could be encouraged and supported to speak and act against the impending fascism and anti-democracy policies that had been promised by the Trump administration, not only in their campaigning pledges, but also in Project 2025.  While Trump himself denied he knew anything about Project 2025, those of us who knew he lied over 30,500 times in his first tenure as President knew that he was not being truthful, and would install the originators of that document in his administration and would implement its policies – both which have already come true. 

 

The expressions of concern from members of that vigil, as well as my own, provoked me to start a community-based group designed to bring people together to resist fascism, authoritarianism, and unethical policies that were assured to occur based on knowledge of the last Trump administration, and his stated aspirations to become a dictator like those in other parts of the world where we have as a country long opposed.  Being a student of history and fascism, I knew the 2nd term of Trump would push us into an existential crisis as to whether we would be able to remain a democratically-oriented republic.  His agenda was clearly fascist and authoritarian, as were his stated heroes who he claimed he wanted to emulate. 

 

Like many, I felt powerless, individually, to make any real difference.  I am not a politician, but a pastor of a local church.  I don’t live in Washington D.C., but mid-America.  My place of residence is not the capital of my state, but is a small city on the western border of Iowa, the SE border of South Dakota, and the NE border of Nebraska.  We are a wonderful area to live, but we are not known as a hotbed of political activism.  But what I recall from my history lessons of fascism in other countries is that it can only gain hold where it is allowed to do so.  Even small communities need to resist, oppose, and be noncompliant with fascist policies that discriminate against whole groups of people in order to consolidate power and wealth in the hands of the few while subverting the rights of the masses. 

 

Tommy Douglas (a Democratic Socialist) said, “Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.” 

 

This is exactly what is happening in the USA today.  The oligarchs, lined up behind Trump on inauguration day, and who bought and manipulated the election, are serving themselves on the backs of the poor and middle classes of American society.  All that helps the majority of us, they are undermining:  USAID, Dept. of Justice, Dept. of Education, our Universities, Medicaid, our National Parks and public lands, Habitat for Humanity, watchdogs that have been fired throughout the government, lawyers and judges who have been targeted and threatened, as well as the attacks on Medicare and Social Security.  1st Amendment Rights are now being brazenly denied for people who have even occasionally taken positions different from Trump’s (e.g., woman who had made some pro-Palestinian posts online).  People being kidnapped, disappeared, and taken to detention centers or other countries without due process, and without any listed crime that they have committed (e.g., Mahmoud Khalil, Dr. Rasha Alawieh a kidney transplant doctor at Brown, et al). 

 

And these things have been made possible by five decades of the Republican party putting their perceived interests above that of the nation as a whole, and deliberately speaking untruths in political debates, talk radio, and other means of media by deceptions and outright lies as to the truth about countless issues, laws, and policies.  They have attacked truth itself – not only in lying about how trickle-down economics works, but also more recently in declaring they have their own alternative facts – a form of double-speak, as warned about three-quarters of a century ago by George Orwell in his book “1984.”  It is this perpetual dishonesty and deception that has for decades led us to become a brainwashed society. 

 

As Hannah Arendt (a philosopher writing in 1951 after the time of Nazi Germany was able to commit a Holocaust against their enemies) wrote in the book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”:  “Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”

— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

 

Fabricating reality, not only by rejecting objective facts, and declaring their own viewpoints to be true, but also by trying to erase entire words from the English language, and erasing the historical accomplishments of Blacks, Hispanics, LGBTQIA+ persons, women, and others whom they seek to subvert, they are trying to rewrite history in accordance to their own white-supremacist, male-dominated, and cisgendered viewpoint. 

 

It is this rejection of lies and opposition to their distortions of reality, along with the oppressive policies they create to accord with these views, that I created “Solidarity for a Better World.”  I saw this as a way for local people to come together to see that if they happen to disagree with the lies of the Trump regime, then they are not crazy.  They have others who see through the lies, and who are committed to work against the anti-democracy government that is now in office. 

 

Our first meeting of Solidarity for a Better World was the last Monday of January, and we had around 30 people show up for that meeting.  That doesn’t sound like a lot of people, but a few key people can make a huge difference.  The group was advertised,

 

As a means of building collaboration and activism within our Siouxland area to resist anti-democratic forces that have infiltrated our government nationally and regionally, if not also locally, we are seeking to have a brainstorming and organizational meeting to proffer ways in which we can respond to these threats in a concerted and collaborative way premised on nonviolence, equality of all, freedom of speech, right to protest, and resistance to all forms of autocracy and authoritarianism.  Our forebearers have fought for these liberties that are now being threatened, and have even fought a world war to oppose those who sought to implement fascism on their own people and those of other nations.  Democracy must vigilantly be defended, or else it will undermined from within by those who seek to exploit the masses for their own personal gain. 

 

The time for grieving an election that more fully revealed the deep-rooted xenophobia, hateful nationalism, religious bigotry, sexism, war against the impoverished, and racism that has continued to win the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans and Christians throughout over four centuries in this country must come to an end as we commit ourselves to resist these social evils locally and beyond.  We must come together, support one another, and kindle our passions towards a better nation than we see being revealed by others in our country.  We refuse to be complicit with their dehumanizing agendas.

 

Those thirty energized people in that first meeting spread the word to others.  And for our 2nd meeting, the last Monday in February, we had somewhere between 150-200 people gathered who were geared up for opposing the fascist policies afflicting our country.  That was exciting just to witness this many people in our community coming together to commit themselves to not let our country be taken from us by those who serve only their own interests, and not those of us all. 

 

I am grateful that people see the strategies we have enumerated that we can do individually and collectively to be a way they can help resist the stem of fascism in our community and nation.  It all makes a difference, and empowers others who may fear speaking up to also speak and act when they see our committed group doing what we can to create a better world than the one we have now.  But I am also grateful that people feel uplifted by having visible community coming together for the same cause, and knowing that we will be supportive of one another and others who are working to create a better community, nation, and world. 

 

I think we will see things get much worse before they get better, and we need to be ready to propose a better world, with nobler ideals, more ethical values, and greater moral concern for those who are currently having their rights violated.  We all must speak and act now as smaller groups are being targeted.  We are in this together.

 

As one of my professors in seminary, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and survivor of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel stated in the following series of quotations: 

 

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

 

What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.

 

To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.

 

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

 

It is with this same set of convictions, taught to me by my own faith tradition, and reaffirmed by my Jewish professor, that I find it necessary to create a group that will inspire people to courageously become their best selves and work for justice for all people – not just those like them.  That it is what it means to be an ethical and moral human being – no matter your faith affiliation, or lack thereof. 

 

I trust that good people are good all around the world because they want what is right, truthful, just, and compassionate for all people in the world, and for the earth and creation itself.  If we let the richest people in the world take control of our government, and pillage our economic resources that we have created to serve the interests of all of us, then we betray the very convictions we have to make the world a better place.  We need to work to reframe and reverse the fascist coup in our country, and work to remove those who are violating our nation’s Constitution, as well as our human dignity in society and ethics in politics, so that we may restore democracy to our nation and help create a more egalitarian world. 

 

This is what “Solidarity for a Better World” seeks to do.  We do this starting locally, but then hope that it will ripple well beyond, encouraging and inspiring others to do wherever they may to be the change-makers of their communities and justice-seekers for every person – all with the conviction that we are all siblings of one another, and must defend each other’s rights if our own rights are to be upheld. 

 

We have conscientious people right here in Siouxland.  We are people whose voices can, and will, make a difference not only in our own community, but well beyond it.  We need to be agents of personal responsibility while knowing we collectively have each other’s backs in the vision for creating a more just, peace, and compassionate world.  And so we stand in solidarity with the values that we have all been taught and have affirmed with our own consciences to be the values we need to have in creating that better world – while supporting one another and encouraging each other as we do so. 

 

I invite all of like heart, mind, and spirit to join “Solidarity for a Better World.”

 

Rev. Bret S. Myers

March 16-17, 2025