You're Not Allowed to Give Up

Navalny's Spirit Must Live on in Us

Vladimir Putin murdered Alexei Navalny last week. There have been thousands of words written about his Navalny’s work, his determination, and his legacy. Some will be more eloquent, or personal than those you find here. What Navalny had more than anything was will.

He knew what he was up against, and he did it anyway.

After being poisoned on an airplane, he was taken to Germany to recover.

Then he went back to Russia.

He didn’t have to, he chose to. He had the will to climb out of a hospital bed and say, “My fight is there” point east to his homeland and make his way back. I don’t believe Navalny had any illusions about what was waiting for him when he landed in Russia.

But he did it anyway.

In a now famous interview, Navalny, assuming his own death was both possible, and likely said, “You’re not allowed to give up. If they decided to kill me, it means we are incredibly strong…We don’t realize how strong we are.”

Navalny’s death puts into perspective our own fight for freedom and democracy. Sitting in a Siberain prison cell, thousands of miles from Moscow and further from his family, he knew the odds. On the best of days, attempting to overthrow Putin has the slimmest chances of success. He’s created an autocratic police state designed with thing in mind: Keep V.V. Putin in power.

Here in the US, the stakes are high, but the pro-democracy coalition is in a much, much stronger position. A decent, pro-democracy president, Joe Biden, sits in the Oval Office. The United States Senate is narrowly held by the only pro-democracy party we have left. The US House of Representatives is controlled by an ever-shrinking Republican majority whose leader is a compromised back-bencher in the thrall of Christian nationalism and Donald Trump.

Those are the federal levers of power, and they are important.

More crucial, though, are the tens of millions of American voters who want nothing more to do with Trump, MAGA, or the twisted world they’d like to impose on all of us. Our coalition is broad, and deep, spanning disparate beliefs, generations, and geography.

The Republican coalition is small, and shrinking every day. Donald Trump is an electoral loser. A financial loser. An adjudicated sex offender. He leads his followers into an abyss from which they are unlikely to emerge. He thrives on hate, division, and ugliness. He is the embodiment of America’s political Dark Side. He’d love to be America’s Vladimir Putin.

On balance, Donald Trump should lose badly this November.

For many of our friends and allies on Team Democracy, I hear Navalany’s words not as encouragement but as an admonishment.

To take on Trump is to risk threats, doxxing, swatting, and other forms of harrassment. However, there are millions of us, able to speak our minds, freely share our beliefs, and do the work necessary to keep America’s experiment going.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: The time for hemming and hawing, for whining, and for worrying is at its end. It’s enough.

The time for saying “Joe Biden is too old,” or you’re unhappy with his policy is over. The time for complaining is over. The time for saying, “I’m just so scared about Trump,” is over.

If you’re a donor, donate. If you’re activist, act. If you’re a leader, lead. The time for leaning back and hoping for the best is at its end.

No one is asking you to go to prison for your beliefs. No one is asking you to risk physical harm, either. If your reason for sitting out 2024 if you’re worried about Trump’s ‘retribution’ you are helping bring about that reality. If you’re unwilling to work with people who were once your opponents or with you have a disagreement, you’re the problem.

Now is the time for all of us to ask not whether we have the talent, or the money, or the experience for this fight. The question we must each ask ourselves is if we have the will to pursue it to its end.

If you think you’ve done all you can or should in this fight, you’re wrong. If you think you’ve sacrificed all you have have for American democracy, you haven’t. If being offended by a troll or a bot is too much for you, I respectfully ask that you read the myriad stories about what Alexei Navalny represented and what he endured. Mean Tweets don’t make the list.

We can’t yet understand Navalny’s sacrifice because we haven’t yet been asked to make the choices he did. In fact, they’re not even in our field of view. Our reality is in motion, our future yet to be formed. I’d like to believe I’d show the same resolve if my time came. Luckily it hasn’t and if we do what we need to, that future will never materialize.

You ain't gone far enough to say
At least I tried
You ain't worked hard enough to say
Well I've done mine
You ain't run far enough to say
My legs have failed
You ain't gone far enough
You ain't worked hard enough
You ain't run far enough to say
It ain't gonna get any better

• Hey Mama, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats

As Alexei Navalny sat in a prison cell a world away from all he cared about, he knew on the best of days he was planting a tree the shade of which he’d never enjoy. His wife and family, not shrinking from their loss, are leaning into and embracing his legacy as an activist and a leader. He probably wouldn’t like being called a hero, real heroes rarely do. That’s what Navalny is and why he should serve as both an inspiration, a spur to action, and a cautionary tale.

He suffered what he had to because of a tyrant and system that couldn’t account for, or allow his existence. Few people become the living embodiment of a cause, Alexei Navalny did that for his country.

For us, the work we do in the next eight months will go largely unnoticed. Every door we knock on will not be national news. Every voter we persuade will not be celebrated. Every dollar you donate will be appreciated, but not celebrated. It is the work, the comraderie, and the heat of common cause that will mold us together as freedom-loving Americans, regardless of age, status, or party.

That is the fight I am here for. That is the fight so many of you are here for. Not the petty battles and squabbles over whose idea is better or who get the credit, but the knowledge that when the time came, when the fight for our time was upon us, you stood up to be counted.

I’m not allowed to give up. You’re not allowed to give up. We’re not allowed to give up. That option is off the table for us. We should not fear, but embrace this fight as the opportunity to be part of something bigger than ourselves, a fight, a mission, a crusade that we’ve been chosen for.

Let’s make Alexei proud.

Programming Note:

All four episodes of my special series on the rise of Christian Nationalism are now up. Given this latest report in Politico, it’s more important than ever we understand what we’re up against and how to push back against it.