“Now is not the time to be afraid and now is not the time to do nothing”. That’s the message journalist Jim Acosta (formerly of CNN) brought to his town hall at the Lincoln Theater in DC last night.
It was an incredible lineup of voices: Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (TX), Olivia Troye (Mike Pence’s former National Security Advisor), January 6th police heroes Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, Independent Journalist Aaron Parnas, and author Miles Taylor (who is being targeted by the Trump administration), among others.
Many federal workers who were eliminated by DOGE were in attendance. One woman – a veteran and federal worker for 30 years shared her story, “I was fired over a Teams call, within 30 minutes, I was locked out of the system. I have since been on leave without pay, no one in HR will respond to my emails. I didn’t even have the proper paperwork to file for unemployment. I am a single mom. No one has contacted me. To make ends meet, I am now on SNAP benefits”.
Others shared the same heartbreaking stories. But the panel had an important message: that everyone needs to use their voice and to not back down.
“The Elon Musk’s of the world and the other billionaires who have decided that we don’t really care what happens to everybody else so long as they have their lifeboat, I think that there are more of us than there are of them, and if we can just come together, we’ll do a lot of good” – Jasmine Crockett
“People ask me every day, ‘What can I do, I don’t have millions of followers, I don’t have a giant audience” and my answer to that is simple, all of you have influence, it doesn’t matter if you have 1 follower, or 10 or ten millon, you have a voice and your voice is powerful. And if we use our collective voices then we will succeed, and the truth will win” – Aaron Parnas
“When you’re going through something tough, everyone likes to say it’s going to be okay. I’m not going to gaslight everyone in this audience and say it’s going to be okay because we don’t know if it is. I do know that if we don’t do anything, it will not be okay, so sitting around doing nothing is not an option.” – Harry Dunn
“A lot of you know who we are, because we suffered the worst day of our lives on national TV. The world knows who we are because we went through the worst day of our lives in front of the whole world, only for it to be attempted to be erased by this administration, members of Congress, and a whole bunch of people who got pardoned. They are being celebrated as the good guys”. -Harry Dunn
Jim Acosta closed with an uplifting note, “there is still a lot of light left in all of us, and it’s important that you carry that message with you, that this is not a country being plunged into darkness, this is a country that can find its way back to the light.”
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- Use your voice – check out our resource on how to take effective action with your elected officials. Invite a friend and attend a march or protest, share to amplify the reach of your favorite content provider on social media.
