Pat Taub
Lately I have been thinking about the meaning of home.
Not the wonderful Victorian space I have lived in for almost 14 years; my neighborhood of tree-lined streets; the welcoming market; the Maine coastline that still takes my breath away. These places remain. What has changed is the country I thought I knew. I no longer feel at home here.
Tree-lined neighborhood in Portland, Maine
I have spent much of my adult life seeing our country become less democratic through growing social inequalities unaddressed by elected officials who prioritize their corporate donors.
No matter how bad things got, I believed that change was possible if concerned citizens mobilized for social justice. That belief shaped the choices I’ve made. I marched against the Vietnam war, for women’s rights, an end to poverty, racism, and most recently the genocide in Gaza.
Protesting in 2009
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And, 2025
With each presidential election, my hopes diminished, watching our freedoms gradually chip away. Regan, Bush, Clinton, even Obama, Biden and now Trump, who’s hurling us into Fascism at a dizzying pace. I couldn’t have predicted I would live out my life under an authoritarian regime.
What once felt unthinkable is gradually becoming normal. Our prized institutions are being hollowed out: the Supreme Court, the most glaring example.
What troubles me as much as the growing authoritarianism is its quiet acceptance. We can’t let ourselves be defeated or allow indifference to take hold. Indifference creates space for injustice.
So many people seem tired, distracted, or convinced that there is nothing they can do, or that the midterm elections will usher in a compassionate government: improbable given the predominance of neoliberalism, which can only tolerate cosmetic changes, not a fundamental shift to an equalitarian society. For the short term, we can focus on electing Democrats. A long range strategy involves electing progressive candidates who oppose war and champion social justice.
I felt validated after reading Ece Temelkura’s Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century, describing global citizens, who feel like strangers living under encroaching Fascism.
In the US our time is running out. ICE is on the rampage, displaying full-blown racism; progressive activists are the new target; wars are draining the little money available for social programs, while making us feel less safe.
Temelkura insists Trump came to power because of the failures of liberal democracy, which ignored labor and social inequalities. Trump filled this void by addressing the abandoned, promising them a better life. Now that he has failed to deliver, many of his followers are jumping ship, with Trump maneuvering to sabotage the midterms.
Now is the time for bravery. We can’t allow our fears to sideline us. Temelkura champions a “moral revolution,” based on love for one another, citing Minneapolis as an example of citizens mobilizing to protect and defend targeted migrants.
Minneapolis protesting against ICE killings, winter 2026
Every movement for justice that I have been privileged to witness began because someone refused that silence.
I am indebted to the remarkable people I have marched besides, organized with, laughed with, and occasionally been arrested alongside. Like Temelkura, I have experienced joy from joining protests, boosted by the energy of like-minded souls, sharing in the conviction that unity can produce change, instilling hope.
Perhaps home, after all, is not the place where we happen to live. Perhaps it is the community of conscience we build, one conversation, one friendship, one act of courage at a time. It is incumbent upon us to refuse the easy refuge of indifference, to resist injustice.
