The last decade in America has been an unrelenting funeral.

For over ten years now, we’ve all stepped into the day knowing that we would be facing the death of people we love.

However, it would not be their physical passing that we would bear witness to and mourn over, but the dying of the people we once believed them to be; it would be the grieving over the still-living.

As a substantial segment of this nation has found itself swallowed up by a carefully curated mass delusion, we’ve watched in disbelief as our parents, siblings, neighbors, coworkers, and church friends have fallen into the cultic pull of an amoral, intellectually-fetal, vile, needy, narcissistic man-child.

Little by little, in incendiary social media diatribes, in explosive outbursts at holiday gatherings, in offhand remarks over lunch, and in facepalm-inducing text exchanges, we’ve lost them—or at least the version of them we used to know; the one where they were compassionate and loving and decent.

And these people whom we share homes and blood and memories with haven’t just died to us in words but in silences, but often in the hundreds of thousands of moments of consequence when they turned away and said nothing; moments where the inhumanity and illegality and cruelty would have compelled any human being with a fully functioning soul to raise their voices. Many times, it has been their lack of words that has been the fatal blow to our image of them.

Because of these seemingly never-ending relational deaths, we’ve mourned the loss of our families, of lifelong friends, of our social circles, of our church families, of our communities, and it has been spirit-crushing.

And in these very moments, many of us are experiencing the unthinkable death of America.

It’s happening as masked thugs rip mothers from carpool lines, knock old men from bicycles, and tear gas teenage girls.It’s happening as terrified, half-naked children are being zip-tied by cosplaying super soldiers. It’s happening as armies of unidentified goons smash out car windows and shoot family dogs and drive women’s heads into the pavement.It’s happening as people are being kidnapped from their places of business and houses of worship, without probable cause or due process or legal representation.It’s happening as law-abiding, tax-paying, community-enriching human beings are being deported or disappeared, whisked away to human dog kennels, foreign prisons, or God knows where.

And the America we thought we lived in is dying as millions of people we share this nation with ignore it or allow it or applaud it.

What ICE is doing right now is nothing short of an open declaration of war on everything good that this nation has aspired to, the best of our forebears’ intentions, the personal liberties and collective freedoms our ancestors fought and died to defend.

There is no “both-siding” this moral filth in our midst, no spinning of the grotesque story to make it at all defensible, no alternative take that justifies the Government-sanctioned inhumanity being visited upon our nation.

You’re either with the masked mercenaries or you’re on the right side of history, period. You either oppose fascism or you enable it. You either believe in the sanctity of life or you don’t.

This Administration’s violent weaponizing of ICE is a test of Americans’ tolerance for dehumanization, for illegal Government overreach, for brutality against the most vulnerable among us—and millions of those who call this place home are failing that test.

They are failing it by enlisting in this modern wannabe Gestapo, donning masks, and terrorizing their neighbors.They are failing it by not outing their family members, friends, and neighbors who are choosing to do so.They are failing it by scrolling away from the horrifying videos and gut-wrenching stories because they lack the courage to confront the violence—or because they secretly support it.They are failing it by clinging to their myopic political tribalism instead of the beleaguered, disparate humanity they share this nation with.They are failing it by betraying both faith and country by doing nothing to stop the most brazen, most vicious, most dehumanizing assault on America by its leadership since the Civil War.

This is a stark line in the sand for all of us. The good people of this nation cannot allow what ICE is doing to go unopposed. We cannot be found gutless or voiceless now or we will deserve the fascist nation we will quickly call home.And we can no longer make excuses for the people we know and love who are showing us with heartbreaking clarity who they are.If the people we live with, socialize with, and work and study alongside will not stand against the authoritarianism at our doorsteps, and worse, if they partner with it, they do not deserve relational proximity to us.Those collaborating with and supporting ICE must be made into pariahs wherever good people gather. History demands it.

We may have to attend the funeral of relationships with people we once respected, but it’s better than being complicit in the death of this nation.This is a test of our individual and collective humanity, America.

May we not fail.

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