Opinion | What we need now is courage

The situation is dire. 

In the first 66 days of Donald Trump’s second term, he has turned up the heat in nearly ever corner imaginable—robbing power from the legislative branch, threatening to disregard the judiciary branch, petulantly intimidating law firms who oppose him, insinuating that unfavorable press coverage is illegal.

But it’s not just national—Alabama has had its own share of intimidation recently.

Right now, that pressure is weighing on the Fairhope Public Library as the Alabama Public Library Service holds a bag of money over its head. Its message: do what we say or face the consequences.

It would be fairly easy to comply. There are maybe a handful of books in the young adult section that could simply be moved to the adult section and the situation would be resolved.

It’s the easy choice, but not the right one.

Wahl and other board members say that “sexually explicit” doesn’t need to be defined in the code because everyone should just agree on the definition. That’s one theory. It seems to me, however, that leaving out the definition is purposeful, so the board could skirt scrutiny of a legally wobbly definition while still applying it situations just like this.

Capitulation, unfortunately, has been all too common over recent weeks.

We’ve seen major newspapers like The Washington Post change the way they’ve been doing things for decades right at the moment it would help Donald Trump most.

We saw the BigLaw firm Paul Weiss settle with the President and agree to give him $40 million in pro bono services supporting his agenda rather than fight his unprecedented order in court.

But we’ve also seen courageous stands right here in Alabama.

We saw Veterans Affairs Commissioner Kent Davis do what he thought was right despite the ire of Gov. Kay Ivey, and we saw the State Board of Veterans Affairs stand strong against her pressure to retaliate against him. And when she stretched her executive authority to remove him, Davis didn’t just roll over and take it; he threatened to take her administration to the court in a move that could help others as well as himself.

We saw Autauga-Prattville Public Library Director Andrew Foster stand steadfast for proper librarianship and transparency at the cost of his job. And that courage was contagious, as almost all of his library staff gave up their jobs by refusing to implement the library’s discriminatory new policies.

We saw Prattville Pride hit back when blindsided just two days before the annual Christmas parade and fight for their right to be included—and they won.

These victories can come at great personal cost, but the alternative is much worse. When we capitulate to fear, it only emboldens those who wield it for power.

The most recent example is the story everyone’s talking about: SignalGate. The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg spoke with someone recently about his decision to write the story exposing the national security breach.

“Are you concerned about retaliation from the Trump administration because of this story,” the interviewer asked.

“It’s not my role to care about the possibility of threats or retaliation,” Goldberg responded. “We just have to come to work and do our jobs to the best of our ability. Unfortunately in our society today—we see this across corporate journalism and law firms and other industries—there’s too much presumptive obeying for my taste. All we can do is just go do our jobs.”