Imagine if ...

You watch as some of your neighbors, mothers, are thrown into one van, while their young children, some nearly naked with hands zip tied behind their backs, are dragged screaming into a different van. You keep telling the armed men who you now assume are federal officers that you’re a citizen and they tell you to shut up. You ask for a lawyer and they tell you to shut up. You ask them to show you a warrant and they tell you to shut up. You watch as more of your neighbors are thrown into trucks and vans and taken away while others, like you, are forced to sit and wait, the zip ties hurting your wrists.

After three hours, the armed agents remove your zip ties and say you can go. You and your neighbors find their furniture tossed around, laptops and phones missing, and what used to be in drawers and closets all over the floor. You don’t have to imagine this. It all happened two weeks ago in Chicago.

Did the agents executing this raid have search or arrest warrants signed by a judge? Who were all the people arrested and where were they taken? Who approved this operation? Who supervised it? Was anyone severely injured? Was this really legal? These are all questions we the people have a right to ask and have answered but the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security aren’t answering. All the Republican administration says is that the targets were suspected of being in gangs or in the country illegally and that they arrested 37 people out of the 130 apartments. 

Imagine if the president announced that San Carlos was burning to the ground because Antifa and Tren de Aragua gang members were roaming Laurel Street attacking people and that he was sending federal agents and military troops into the city because Mayor McDowell wasn’t doing enough to fight crime? You look around and there’s nothing burning, no gangs or terrorists roaming the streets, just Cub Scouts selling popcorn, but the president has promised that what just happened in that Chicago apartment building will be coming to other “blue” cities. Are you even a little afraid? You should be. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that what’s happening in America, orchestrated by the White House, is a “five-alarm fire” for democracy. Even when a federal judge ordered the administration NOT to do something, like federalizing the Oregon National Guard and sending them into Portland, the administration ignored that order by sending the California and Texas National Guard there instead. That same judge ordered them not to do that either and the president called the judge, whom he appointed, an insurrectionist, and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to justify mobilizing the military against “blue” cities and states. He recently told 800 active-duty generals and admirals they would soon be fighting American citizens, the “enemy within,” doing combat training on our streets. 

You might wonder, is there anything that can stop the Republican administration from militarizing every blue city, county and state? Is there anything they are afraid of? The answer is yes, there is. They are afraid of the mid-terms, losing control of Congress. The president, trying to keep Congress from flipping, asked Texas and several other states to redistrict in an off cycle to give Republicans a better chance of winning more seats, reducing the chance for Democrats to take the gavels of power. Those states said yes.

The citizens of California, in the face of this gerrymandering by “red” states are not powerless. I’m glad Gov. Newsom and the legislature, recognizing the extraordinary threat to our democracy, responded to the Republican gerrymandering with a ballot measure offering us the chance to do what we can to take back the House and Senate.

Yes, in 2010 Californians voted to change how we did redistricting, but this is a five-alarm fire and we, the people of California, have an opportunity to counter what Republicans in other states are doing. I urge you to please vote yes on Proposition 50, allowing us to counter red state redistricting with our own. Visit stopelectionrigging.com to learn more about the ballot measure and please vote yes. Our nation’s democracy is in grave danger and voting yes might help save it.

Craig Wiesner is the co-owner of Reach And Teach, a book, toy and cultural gift shop on San Carlos Avenue in San Carlos. Follow Craig: craigwiesner.bsky.social.