Losing My Perspicacity February 27, 2025

Good morning and Happy Thursday! Thanks for being here. Just one topic today, because it’s one I feel strongly about. We’ll catch up on all the news again tomorrow.

Yesterday was relatively quiet in terms of news, and by “relatively,” I mean that we didn’t get an alert that Congressional Republicans have voted to suspend habeas corpus or that Trump has declared martial law. But don’t worry, there was plenty of disturbing news, per usual.

The momentary letting up of the deluge gave me some mental space to sit with what we saw happen in Idaho earlier this week, and to wonder what my community would do if something like that happened here, in the former Republican stronghold of the western Chicago suburbs that gets bluer every election.

If you haven’t yet seen the entire video, it’s here:

In the days since an American named Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, who was part of a group protesting cuts to Medicaid and other Republican policies, was bodily dragged out of a public forum for exercising her right to free speech, we’ve learned a lot about what went down.

Sheriff Bob Norris, seen wearing his sheriff’s hat and badge on his belt, claims he was attending the rally in his personal capacity, not as a county officer. We know the emcee, a voice actor named Ed Bejarana, berated the protestors in the crowd and suggested that those who spoke up should suffer “consequences.” Bejarana has since locked down his social media. We also know that the men who did the actual dragging were employees of a private security firm, Lear Asset Management, and refused to identify who they were or on what authority they removed Borrenpohl from the event. Lear’s business license has since been revoked. Norris is now under investigation for his role in the fracas, with witnesses claiming that he “escalated” the situation. The charges filed against Borrenpohl have been dropped (she was reportedly charged with some combination of trespass and/or battery, depending on the source).

As the information and video from Coeur d’Alene has trickled out, many rolled their eyes and dismissed it as “It’s Idaho.” And granted, Idaho, and Coeur d’Alene specifically, has been a known hotbed of white supremacy and right-wing fundamentalism for decades. It’s where Ruby Ridge took place — less than 100 miles from Couer d’Alene. Idaho is also known for having one of the most restrictive laws on the books when it comes to reproductive freedom. Idaho’s abortion ban is total, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother. So maybe it’s not so surprising to see a bunch of white men in Northern Idaho treating women like steers at a rodeo.

Of course, this isn’t an isolated incident. We’ve seen protestors forcibly removed from many events open to the public over the last 10 or so years. The Republican politicians who ran the meeting are, of course, still blaming Borrenpohl:

Unfortunately for Regan, the First Amendment does not require decorum or politesse. It doesn’t require that Americans refrain from insults or interrupting elected politicians.

Perhaps if Republicans were showing up to these town halls prepared for an actual dialogue with their constituents, rather than gaslighting and dismissing their concerns, people wouldn’t feel compelled to shout at them from the audience. Here’s Republican Congressman Rich McCormick comparing his constituents to January 6 rioters for “yelling at me” and “not listening.”

Of course, the GOP has now decided that, as their congressional members are getting killed in town halls, they simply won’t hold any more town halls.

But more than any of that, the thing about the Idaho event that keeps me up at night is all those who sat there and watched it happen without moving a muscle. No one came to Dr. Borrenpohl’s aid. Not a single person. Not as the Lear guys dragged her out of her seat. Not as they dragged her down the aisle, baring her torso to the world in the process, not when two of them knelt on her back and held her face-down on the floor. Some people even cheered them on.

As a child, I remember asking, over and over, how Germans could sit and watch the Nazis drag people from public places without doing anything to help. (Fun fact: The SS started out as private security, too.) But over the last nine years, it’s become so clear how Germans could watch their countrymen be dragged away and never intervene, and it has to do with more than just fear. Those victimized by the Nazis were on “the other side.” Whether they were Jews, Poles, queer, disabled, communists, or simply those who abhorred fascism, they were “The Others.” “The Others” are an impediment to policy, and must be dealt with accordingly. Hell, Ed Bejarana said as much in Idaho.

“She spoke up and doesn’t want to suffer the consequences.”

That one sentence says so much about where we are.

To the right, anyone who is not a cishet white man is also “Other.” Sure, white women try to protect themselves with their whiteness and proximity to the power of white men, but they aren’t entirely in the club, either. “Libs,” as the right likes to call us, are other, we’re in the way, and we deserve everything that happens to us. Just today on Facebook, I saw a woman whose entire identity seems to be “motherhood” cheering on the ICE arrests of children on school buses. Immigrants, too, are other and deserve any harm that befalls them.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism directed at the men who were present in Coeur d’Alene and didn’t move to help Borrenpohl. "‘Not all men’ — Turned out to be every single man in that town hall in Idaho,” @powerfulwomenunite wrote on Instagram. And I will admit to dragging my 23-year-old son to the TV and telling him, specifically, that if he ever encounters a situation where someone is being manhandled in front of him, his job is to put his 6’3 frame in between them and those doing the manhandling.

But I’m not letting the women off the hook, either. I’m just as capable of getting in the way of “private security” as any man. Catharine Burks-Brooks was a 21-year-old student when she took part in the Freedom Rides. Glenda Gaither Davis was 18. Joan Hell, If young Black women in dresses can stand up to the violence and cruelty of the Jim Crow South, there is no reason why middle-aged white women remained rooted to their seats and watched three men violently drag another woman away.

It’s time for all of us to decide who we are and what we’re willing to do to defend the America we want to live in. Are you willing to risk arrest? Criticism in your community? Will you risk your body to uphold the Constitution? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I fear we each might soon learn what our limits are.

I remember hearing Colin Powell, during George W. Bush’s administration, saying that he was “becoming very concerned” about the kind of people who were attracted to the Republican Party. Fast forward 20 years, and those people are now making decisions for the entire country. Their politics are not only divisive, they are harmful, they are savage, they are cruel.

We have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who shrugged his shoulders about a child dying of measles in the United States of America in the year 2025. We have a President who is willing to rip health care away from the working poor and disabled, and a Congress willing to help him do it. We have an unelected megalomaniac who is firing US veterans just because he can. And we have an executive branch that has completely dispensed with the idea of checks and balances, the Constitution be damned.

So, what are you willing to do when Idaho comes to your town?