Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I have had the profound privilege of visiting Iran … in 2007 with Global Exchange, and again in 2010 with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Those journeys changed me. The Iranian people I met were warm, generous, and deeply human … the kind of people you’d want as neighbors, as friends. So when I learned how close we came yesterday to the United States “obliterating” their country, my heart broke.
I know many of us are frightened and angry right now. I am too. But I want to speak from a place of love … because I believe love, not rage, is what this moment calls for. Most of us can see, with great sadness, that President Trump is no longer the person he once was. The signs are difficult to ignore. And so I find myself turning to our Republican friends and leaders … not with contempt, but with a genuine, heartfelt appeal. You have children. You have neighbors. You go to the same schools, churches, and community events that the rest of us do. You love this country. I believe that. And I believe, in your quietest moments, you feel the weight of what’s happening.
Someone apparently reached Trump before yesterday’s crisis became something irreversible. We were fortunate this time. But we may not be so fortunate next time … and we all know there will be a next time, unless something changes. It would take only a handful of Republican leaders to begin the process of impeachment. Just a few voices of conscience … not many, just enough … to say: “We love our country more than we love our seats.”
History has a long memory. It remembers those who stood up, and it remembers those who stayed silent. I don’t believe most Republican officials are indifferent to the world their children will inherit. I believe they are afraid. And I understand fear.
But courage is not the absence of fear … it’s choosing to act in spite of it.
To our Republican friends: we are not asking you to abandon your values or your party. We are asking you to protect your country, and this fragile world, from an escalating crisis that none of us can afford. The door is open. The moment is now.
With love and hope,
Jes