What Does Taking Risk Look Like Right Now?

Owning the fear and stepping into it anyway

That question in the headline—the one posed by my friend, Chicago Alderman Andre Vasquez, in a reel on my feed this week—hit me like a brick. And then a headline popped up on my phone yesterday morning: Trump, standing before top U.S. military brass, declared that American cities and citizens should be used as “training grounds” for the armed forces.

That’s not a democracy talking. That’s a president telling the military the American people are the enemy. That’s an audition for dictatorship.

And somehow, it didn’t feel shocking. It felt inevitable. Like we’ve been sleepwalking here for years, and the warning signs have just been background noise. Maybe you felt it too—that sick mix of nausea and numbness. That frog-in-boiling-water dread.

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Monday, I sat down with Sarah Longwell for my podcast. We talked about the collapse of the Democratic narrative, the ongoing shutdown standoff, and what it actually means to “defend democracy.” She said it plainly: You can’t call Trump a threat to the Republic and then not act like it.

She’s right. If we say he’s dangerous, we have to move like it. Speak like it. Show up like it. That doesn’t mean just another viral tweet. It means an in-the-streets mentality. It means abandoning the hierarchy that says we wait for Democratic leaders to give the signal. It means relentless communication—from every corner of this movement, at every level.

Even as I write this, I feel the heat rise in my throat: Am I doing enough? Is writing this rant a form of risk—or just a ritual of safe outrage?

Because here’s what happens when a president says the military should “train” on U.S. citizens: it collapses the line between defense and suppression. It tells generals to see neighbors as insurgents. Protesters as combatants. Citizens as enemies.

We’ve seen this before—in history books, in coups, in regimes where obedience is currency and silence is survival.

And the most dangerous part? It’s all happening in the open. On camera. In quotes. No conspiracy required. Just power, consolidating—unchallenged.

So what does risk look like for me right now?

It looks like refusing to stay in the performance of analysis in the face of death threats from MAGA losers like Laura Loomer. It looks like owning the fear that comes with saying something sharper, harder, less polite. It looks like calling this what it is: authoritarian creep. A soft purge. The normalization of institutional rot.

And it looks like learning from those already showing up.

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Every Friday for the last 12 years, a Catholic prayer group has gathered outside the Broadview ICE facility in my hometown of Chicago, standing witness as buses take people to be deported. Rain or shine. Week after week. In recent weeks, others have joined them—neighbors, clergy, students, elderly, veterans, Congressional candidates. Now people are showing up every Friday and Saturday. Even on weekdays, there’s someone there, taking a stand. That’s what presence looks like: ordinary citizens refusing to let cruelty happen in silence. Local officials have joined them. Community groups have rallied support. When institutions fail, people step up.

Indivisible offers a different kind of model—one rooted in Big Tent politics and a single unifying message: No Kings. Just citizens standing up together to say: Enough. All are welcome. It’s not about purity tests or perfect alignment—it’s about solidarity in the face of authoritarianism. A simple message, but a powerful force: everyone in, nobody out, and a clear, collective voice saying this is not who we are.

Mallory McMorrow is another model. Her power is authenticity. She doesn’t sound poll-tested—because she isn’t—she sounds like someone who shops at Meijer, worries about the cost of groceries, watches football. Her NFL Redzone ad focusing on affordability that went viral is a form of protest, too. She framed Democratic values in concrete, everyday terms. And she shows up—locally, visibly, like a real person, not a press release. We need a million just like her.

That’s what people respond to: not spin or talking points.

Truth. Presence. Guts.

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And yet, this fight is exhausting. My assistant and I admitted to each other this week—we feel the collective grief. The dread. The flickering hope. Some days, the only thing holding us up are these small, honest exchanges. Like when I told her I wanted to cut a work trip short just to take my son to school in the morning, and she said, “That sounds like a great idea.” Or when she said she needed a day to rest after a grueling newscycle week, and I said, “Take it. Rest. We’ll get back to it after the weekend.”

That’s how we keep going.

Because the point of authoritarianism is to grind you down. To isolate you. To make you feel like showing up doesn’t matter. Like you’re alone.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

People ask me all the time: Mike, what do we do? What’s the next move? How do you feel hope? How do we fix this?

But the truth is: I don’t have an easy answer. I’m scared too. I’m tired too.

But here’s what I know: it won’t be one person or one idea that saves us. It’ll be a million acts of resistance. Moments both big and small that make a difference for you and your circle of people. We need you doing whatever you can with the skills and the energy you have to move our country through this moment where the worst possible people are grinding this country into the ground for their own gain.

Mallory’s showing up with truth—taking on a political establishment that begged her not to run. Chicagoans are showing up with presence and grit against armed ICE agents. Indivisible is showing up with unity and guts. This fight is in our hands now.

That’s the model: relentless presence. Ordinary people creating accountability where institutions fail.

That’s how I find hope—not in one grand fix, but in thousands of small acts of courage that add up. That bend history.

So ask yourself: What risk are you willing to take right now? What are you willing to disrupt, to say out loud, to make uncomfortable?

Because this moment doesn’t need more commentary.

It needs courage.

Yours. Mine. Ours.

LFG.