Editor's Note: Steve Schmidt is one of the founding members of the Lincoln Project. He is a communications and public affairs strategist who has worked on several Republican campaigns, including John McCain's 2008 bid for the White House, and he is now a regular political contributor to MSNBC.
On Saturday night, Schmidt delivered a stirring, proverbial call-to-arms on his Twitter account over a series of 10 tweets. MaxNewsToday has assembled these tweets and reprinted them as one op-ed for our ongoing segment, Schmidt Storm. His tweetstorm has been edited for accuracy and clarity.
Do Not Be Afraid. Do Not Tremble. Do Not Waiver.
Do not doubt either the goodness of our people or the possibilities for our future. Do not let small men with tyranny and malice in their heart, or hypocrites with no core, make you afraid for our future or of your countrymen and women. Do not let the fascists, racists and conspiracy theorists make you afraid of your neighbors or the strangers who could be your friend. We should all be grateful that we have been chosen by this rancid and dangerous hour to stand up and fight. What we do now matters. Our Capitol is occupied by a cabal of small and low men and women who have betrayed all of us, the American experiment, their oaths and basic decency in service of a corrupt and malignant cult of personality that is vandalizing our principles, ideals, inheritance, future and fundamental goodness. 200,000 of our countrymen and women are dead. At least 150,000 of them could be alive, but for Trump’s lethal lying and the immoral, supine complicity of his collaborators and enablers.
Let us resolve to rise up and strike down Trumpism. Let us put it down with righteous anger and fury. Let us resolve to never let this happen again. Let us do our duty as American citizens. Let us be conscious that we are called to safe action when we consider the blood, sacrifice and courage of ordinary people who stood their ground on a field in Lexington and Gettysburg.
The men who stormed the beaches of Normandy and dropped from the skies over France to crush fascism are smiling at our cause. The men and women who taught the world the meaning of the words “human dignity” as they protested segregation, absorbed the beatings and marched across the Edmund Pettus bridge are watching and judging us.
We are in the right and for the right. We are fighting for the good. Trumpism is UNAMERICAN. It is illiberal, demagogic, dishonest, cruel, corrupt and disgusting.
Let us strike it down. We will. Vote. Have joy in this fight. RBG is with her husband again. She is arguing with Scalia and meeting Washington and Lincoln. Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass are there. Susan B. Anthony is there, and so is Elie Wiesel.
A great champion of freedom has arrived in heaven. Her work is done. Her burden is now ours. Let us honor her legacy by doing our duty.
FIGHT, REGISTER, VOTE. I DISSENT are the most American of words. Thank you, Madame Justice. May your memory be a blessing.
We all know that it is.