There's only one word for this.

I’ve been a journalist for about 15 years across the central U.S., and my job during that time has been keeping a lid on the things I think and silencing my own voice. But I can’t really do that anymore. I’m using my voice now, because my job has also been to listen to others, to search for truth and to speak that truth to the powerful.

And the truth is that there is only one word for snatching food and medicine from millions of people around the world with no warning or replacement.

There is only one word for abandoning our children, our elders, our veterans, abandoning anyone who becomes sick or disabled, in favor of billionaires and wannabe kings.

There is only one word for undoing civil rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights and labor rights, rights that generations fought and died for, in favor of prejudice and persecution and a history we can pretend is all-white and all-male.

There is only one word for rounding up immigrants for nothing — people here legally, illegally, it doesn’t matter — and shipping them off to a prison half a world away to be tortured and enslaved, and then openly toying with the idea of doing that to citizens, too.

There is only one word for turning our back on compassion, knowledge and freedom to side with hate, idiocy and tyranny.

There is only one word for stabbing our friends and neighbors in the back for the sake of bottomless, never-ending corruption.

There is only one word for the powerful standing aside in the face of this madness and saying there’s nothing to be done, or I’m busy, or you’re overreacting, or this is all for the best, or worst of all, saying nothing at all. The unforgiveable, useless silence from our members of Congress, our own state and so many others who are supposed to protect us.

And that word is evil. Not controversial, not divisive, not mistaken, not misunderstood, not patriotic, not great. It’s unbelievably, cartoonishly, idiotically evil.

Our government is in the hands of Nazis and segregationists, men — and a few women — who are using our money and our power to do evil and to make plans for more. It can feel like all of our history is crashing down on us, like the Cold War, World War II, the Civil War and even the Revolutionary War have been reopened and restarted. Parts of our castle on the hill have always been made of sand, and now it feels like the whole damn thing is crumbling under our feet.

It’s a nightmare. And I’m scared. I’m scared for me and my husband, for every queer kid and every immigrant, every young mother and every family of every skin color who is being hurt.

But I’m also right where I want to be, fighting the same good fight as our ancestors with millions of people like you. The only antidote to all of that fear and evil is standing up for good together. Because the power of a group of people, a protest or a movement doesn’t come from words on a piece of paper. The power of the people doesn’t come from numbers in a bank account. It’s right here with us, and all over this country today, where people like you and me are standing in solidarity for freedom and not kings; for helping people, not cutting them down; for good, not evil.

Before the Revolution, Benjamin Franklin printed an image of a chopped-up snake that told the colonies they had to join together or die separately. So screw these evil assholes. We’re joining together, and we’re going to win together.