Don't Miss the Forest for the Tree Trumps | The Embassy - Part III

A journalist from a fictitious country attracts the attention of powerful forces that he does not yet fully understand

Feb 22, 2025

∙ Paid

The events that are part of this week’s publication of The Embassy lend themselves to a broader discussion of what it means to love your country and stand up for the values it is meant to represent.

While I have a lot of understanding and sympathy for those resisting self-serving leaders like U.S. President Trump, it is important not to lose sight of the broader picture, which is the self-serving system that brings people like him into power in the first place. In many ways, government policies remain unchanged. What has changed is the rhetoric to justify them, which has become as obscene as the policies have always been. With less sanitized rhetoric and more naked abuse of power, comes more awareness and more resistance. A better time to unite against the broader decades-long policies that have made us all less free and less safe there has never been.

Considering the many wars that have been fought over the course of human history, as well as the aspirations for power of those at the top of our societies, it is pretty remarkable that things like the U.S. Constitution or the Universal Declaration for Human Rights ever came into existence.

While these documents have proven to provide little protection against powerful actors that knowingly violate the very principles that they were based on, what they do provide in spite of their shortcomings are values to aspire to, even if these were not part of the original intent behind them.

In that sense, the current generations are, as the saying goes, standing on the shoulders of giants, who through toil and death and sacrifice have managed to bring these principles one step closer to reality. Their achievements need not be perfect, nor do they need to be exempt from criticism. But to not appreciate everything that went into accomplishing them, is to not only throw away their contributions but our own chances of accomplishing even more.

That is why we as citizens have a duty to protect and stand up for hard-won freedoms, laws, and treaties, not only out of self-interest but also so that those who come after us can continue the struggle for a better world for all.

Fail to protect the foundations of liberty from the rot that lies within, and it becomes only a matter of time before we are returned to the times of serfs and slaves. Protect them and we can continue to build upon them so that its promise might become more fully realized.