I wish my father were still alive so that I could ask him, will this be how our democracy dies? Or will we be able to rebuild it anew?
My father was a professor of American constitutional history — in Korea. Like many Korean fathers, he was a gireogi appa (기러기 아빠), a “goose dad” who worked in Seoul and could only fly across the ocean seasonally to see his kids. I grew up thousands of miles away from my father, first in Illinois and then in Missouri with my younger sibling. After school, I would rush home (because we had landlines back then) to wait for his call; as the sun rose in Korea, he would call.
Once in elementary school, I answered the phone in tears. The kids at recess spat at me, “Go back to your country!” They pulled at the corners of their eyes, laughing at me. My dad replied by mailing me a miniature pocket Constitution. Together, over the phone, we read the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States…”
The next day, I took it upon myself to bring my little maroon booklet embossed with gold writing, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, to school. I waved my pocket Constitution vigorously, yelling as my now extremely confused bullies backed away slowly. My first time wielding the law. My father insisted that I would have a brighter future in the United States, a uniquely stable democracy held together by the Constitutional separation of powers, checks and balances, and hard won struggles for civil rights. He believed that we could use this democratic foundation to build a more inclusive and just society.
As I write now, billionaires and their cronies are looting our democracy. They are dismantling our federal government: eviscerating protections for working families, immigrants, trans and non-binary folks; giving big corporations free rein to pollute our air and water; fueling the flames of climate change; empowering white supremacists and rolling back a century of civil rights progress.
Trump is getting ready to defund healthcare, Social Security, and essential services that American families rely on — all to raid our hard-earned tax dollars and line the pockets of billionaires through unearned government contracts and tax breaks.
For most of us, we just don’t know how to wake up and exist, much less resist, during an autocratic coup. We can, however, learn the lessons of other nations that have had to resist authoritarianism.
My father often talked about how constitutional democracies were not just about what was written down on paper. Laws, lawmakers, and courts alone wouldn’t be enough to determine whether a democracy lives or dies. Throughout history, people have had to put their bodies on the line to transform the idea of democracy into a reality.
Democracy in South Korea has been marred by the authoritarianism of the U.S.-backed military dictators and the violent suppression of democracy movements. In the Gwangju Uprising of 1980, thousands of students, union workers, and everyday people sustained mass protests for 10 days, and were massacred by military and paramilitary forces. For decades, Koreans continued to organize, protest, and strike to build their democracy and determine their own future.
At this very moment, Elon Musk and his cronies have physically occupied the Office of Personnel Management and U.S. Treasury, giving them access to our government’s payment systems. Budget negotiations have started, but the Democratic Party leadership fails to grasp that the Trump-Musk regime and MAGA Republicans have already overriden the budget deals struck by Congress.
For the Trump regime, the rules of democracy and the constitutional order don’t apply.
Despite court orders to unfreeze all federal funds and reinstate illegally terminated federal employees, this regime is refusing to comply. The Trump regime is replacing military lawyers with loyalists; dismissing independent watchdog officials; and his supporters are doxxing the judges who dare speak up.
If my father were still alive, he would say that Congress and we, the people, still hold an enormous amount of legal and political authority to check the executive branch.
Now is not the time to duck and cover, or to cut deals that the Trump regime has no pretense of honoring. We must reassert our power.
Here are three things each of us can do:
- Build community. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Hold space for what you’re feeling together. Make a plan for what you will do to get organized and support each other. They are counting on us to be overwhelmed by the chaos, silenced by fear, and isolated by grief. We are more powerful together.
- Turn up the heat on your elected officials. Both Democrats and Republicans need to know that we have not given up our power. Start with the basics — call, email, visit — demand what matters to you. And always add: no deals without stopping the coup. You can make calls with people around the country through the Working Families Party.
- Find your lane and give them hell. Trump’s power grab only works if we give in and go along with it. Whether it’s organizing to stop ICE raids, participating in mutual aid projects, or making art for the movement, we need your talents, skills, and creativity to make this mass movement irresistible. Show up, organize, or fund collective actions to fight the corporate authoritarian takeover. Join an organization or form an action group.
- If you’re in the Bay Area, Bay Resistance is a great place to start.
- Our sister organization, APEN Action, is building a membership of young Asians across California ready to take action for climate justice. If that sounds like you, sign up here for more information.
Ten years have passed since my father died. That was three months before Trump announced his first bid for the presidency. After Trump was elected, I finally went to law school. I moved across the country, got married, and started working for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). In Korea, democracy movements organized to successfully impeach two sitting presidents.
Last December, right-wing extremist and then-president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law for the first time in 40 years. People dropped what they were doing and flooded the area around the National Assembly. In the middle of the night, Korean legislators from the opposition party immediately mobilized, breaking speed limits and running to the National Assembly. The people gathered outside helped them climb over walls to get back into their chambers to write legislation to lift martial law. Joining the people flooding the streets, opposition party spokeswoman Ahn Gwi-ryeong grabbed the barrel of a gun held by a young soldier carrying out the order and yelled at them, aren’t you ashamed? I said, aren’t you ashamed!
Martial law lasted only four hours. For weeks afterward, millions of people stood vigil at the capitol for weeks until there was a successful impeachment.
I wanted to call my dad to ask about the energy in Seoul as I watched videos of impeachment chants to a techno track, witty protest signs during the day, and a sea of glow sticks at night. A classic academic, he would remind me how there was still a long fight ahead to re-stabilize the democratic order. It will take the sustained political will of a mass movement — the people — to usher in democracy anew.
Connie Cho, APEN’s Senior Policy Advisor, is a Korean American movement lawyer living in the Bay Area with her partner and their rescue dog.
