Unassigned Readings

He comes back next time with some grievous injury to his nothing, presumably from the massive shredded gash across his thigh plates. He sits and waits. I fix it for him. He is still nothing in there. I decide to add a drawing on the inside, of the type of beast I imagine could rend metal into scraps with a single blow. He puts it back on. He no longer moves as if he is injured.

Over time the interior of the knight becomes decorated with whatever odds and ends I could think to attach to the inside of a guy who’s got room to carry it. What really gets me is that he never removes any of it. Never requests a change. Not even when I installed a curtain rod for a small tapestry, or a bud vase to carry roses for his beloved, or an accordion folder for letters. He didn’t say a word for any of the many, many drawings of mythical beasts that now fight forever inside of his shell.

There are plenty of other forges. I’m not entirely sure why he keeps coming back here anyway. We’re pretty popular, but he could get his armor fixed a lot quicker (and with fewer ridiculous modifications) literally anywhere else. I asked him if I could get a look at his nothing again. He flipped up his visor and nodded his head so I could take a look. It was the same as it had been, filled with drawings and trinkets and weird little fixtures I’d put in there. I asked if he was annoyed by it, or liked it, or felt anything at all, but he literally only ever says nothing, so I’m not sure why I asked.

There’s not much room left in his nothing now. When he comes back for repairs I’ve had to fix my own foolish additions. Some of these pieces are intricate and irritating to repair, but I fix them anyway. It feels wrong to take any of it away from him now, even though I’ve been rudely encroaching on his nothingness to the point where it’s barely even there. How he squeezes his nothing back into a body so full, I’ll never understand. But it’s a game to me now, finding a spot not yet filled and putting something there. A dark part of me wonders if he ever gets filled up completely, if whatever sorcery holds the nothing-knight together may break, and it will all clatter unceremoniously to the floor.

When he hands me his breastplate yet again, it is so shockingly disfigured that I wonder if being made of nothing has somehow kept him alive. No ordinary knight could sustain such injuries. So I fix it. And he waits, unmoving, in a quiet corner of the forge. It’s like he’s watching, even though I know the reading glasses I put inside his helmet were just for fun. I’m careful to put it all back exactly the way it was when he last left. There’s no room to add more this time.

He examines the breastplate, and pauses before putting it back on, like he’s looking for something. Is he worried about the fit? But it suits him just as it always did. He calmly points to a little space, about an inch, between a miniature shelf and one of many pockets. There’s nothing there. I ask him what’s wrong, and again he points. It’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him, and it’s barely anything at all. I take it to mean he wants something there.

I spend some time engraving a little snail in the gap. He watches, as much as nothing can watch. When I’m finished he holds the breastplate, but he doesn’t put it on right away. I ask him if something’s still wrong. He says nothing, and puts it on. I tell him I can’t add anything else. Even if he could ask, there’s no room left.

Next time he comes back, there’s nothing wrong with his armor—he lets me check to make sure. I ask him what he’s doing here. Out from one of many pockets, he retrieves a tiny rusted knife. It’s in miserable condition, barely worth saving. I tell him I could make him a nice new one, but I’ll fix it if he likes. He puts it away and reaches around to find something else, a needle and thread. Better condition, but I’m not a sewist and I tell him as much. He puts them away. He then retrieves a little twisted piece of wax paper. I open it. It’s candy. I ask if I can eat it. He says nothing. I eat it. It’s flavored with cinnamon. I’m surprised he let me take it.

He keeps bringing me candy now. His armor is the most laborious to repair out of every client my forge serves, but it’s my own fault so I can’t complain. Sometimes he keeps me company while I work. I wonder if he is trying to tell me something when he hands me mints. I wonder again at the lemon lozenges. He stares at me when I eat, as much as nothing can stare.

One day he brings me a little jar of honey. I thank him, I tell him I’ll save it for dinner. He watches me work, he puts his repaired armor back on, and he stays. My shift passes slowly, and when I finally pack up to leave it’s dark outside. He follows me out of the forge. I ask him where he’s going. He points to the jar in my hand. I ask him if he wants to watch me eat it. He says nothing, but the nothing-knight clearly wants something, so I open the lid and dunk my finger in the honey. I try not to get any on my chin. He stands there, inches away, watching me try to consume this jar of honey without a utensil. It tastes like clovers. About half the jar is left when I’ve finally had enough of pretending to be a bear, but he doesn’t move to leave.

I ask if he’s going to follow me home. He says nothing. I tell him he can if he wants to. Again, nothing. I start walking, and he follows at my side. I know he’s not going to say anything ever, so I fill the silence. I tell him I’m grateful for the sweets, I tell him about how his various components are made, I tell him I’ve never met anyone made of nothing before. I tell him it’s a rare opportunity for a smith to work so much on the inside of something. He says nothing. I tell him again how much I like the candy.

It occurs to me that maybe filling me with sugar is as close as he can get to filling someone else’s empty armor with trinkets. I’m not sure if that’s really why he does it. I tell him I don’t have room to be filled with anything on the inside, not like him. I’m not a container for much besides food. He offers me another piece of candy. Maybe he likes containing something, the way I like to feel full. Maybe it’s nothing at all.

—

During the next thirty minutes, the inspiring and optimistic address Americans had been promised to celebrate 250 years of this nation never came. Instead, Donald Trump delivered one of the most radical and dangerous speeches of either of his presidencies, declaring that the Democratic Party was made up of communists, promising that communists would be sent into exile, and outlining a plan that he said would ensure Republicans “will not lose an election for a hundred years.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had previewed the speech on Air Force One, telling reporters that the President was “set to give an inspiring, an optimistic address tonight at Mount Rushmore, where he will answer the age-old question, ‘What does it mean to be an American?’” She promised it would “defend the ideas that make America the greatest country in the history of the world.” It was supposed to be about all of us. About 250 years of collective promise. About the country we have built together and the promise we leave for the next 250 years.

Instead, what Trump delivered was a declaration of political war against half the nation. It was McCarthyism, resurrected in real time, on the eve of America’s birthday, beneath the carved faces of the very men who built a republic founded on the right to dissent. And it was not subtle. It was not coded. He said it out loud, word by word, and what he laid out is a plan to dismantle the United States of America as we have known it and rebuild it in his image.

Here is what he said. He didn’t begin with threats. Like every authoritarian movement before it, the speech did not begin with punishment. It began with belonging. Before the word “exile” ever left his mouth, he first defined who counted as a “real” American.

“The birth and survival of the American nation under God is quite simply the best and most incredible thing ever to happen on this planet by human hands ever,” he said. “No other country has done more good for this world than the United States of America.”

He is appeasing people who want to reshape our country in the name of God. He is setting up Christian nationalism, the idea that this is a nation that belongs to one faith, tradition, and one set of people. And he said “no country has done more good,” as if every war he is alluding to was fought by Americans alone. He forgets, or he does not care, that we had allied forces standing beside us along the way. This is the same man who posted last night that NATO is “ridiculous” and “one sided.” He takes credit for collective achievements while dismantling collective defense.

“Americans did not bow before a king or a government, but kneelled only before Almighty God,” he continued.

And then he moved to culture. This is where the speech shifted from patriotic pageantry into something much darker, because he was no longer just celebrating America. He was defining who belongs in it.

“The identity of a nation is the destiny of a nation,” he said. “Here, the old world sent its bravest, boldest, and most resilient, its fiercest, most faithful, and freedom loving. These men and women brought values, traditions, and customs transmitted over the centuries in Britain and stretching back even further to Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome.”

Notice the places he names. Britain. Athens. Jerusalem. Rome. Now notice what he does not name. He does not mention Africa or the enslaved people. He does not mention Asia. He does not mention Central or South America. He does not mention the Indigenous nations that were here for thousands of years before any of those civilizations set foot on this continent. He is painting a picture of who built this country, and it is a picture that leaves out most of the people who actually did.

And then he said this: “On the grounds and granite hills and the rugged plains of this wide open continent, they forged a uniquely American character, a new breed of citizen.”

A new breed. That language is not an accident. It is straight out of eugenics. It is the language of racial hierarchy dressed up in patriotic clothing. And he said it on land that was stolen from the Lakota people, beneath a monument carved by Gutzon Borglum, a man with documented ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

He went further. “In America, we speak English because that is the language of our founding. And for a thousand years, that has been the language of freedom.” The Constitution does not specify an official language. Congress has never passed a law establishing one. Trump signed an executive order in 2025 designating English as the official language, but that was an executive action directed at federal agencies, not a constitutional or statutory designation. But this was never about history. It was about telling people with accents, people who speak Spanish, people who are not white, that they do not belong in his version of America. That is what this line was designed to do.

He also praised the four men on the mountain as the ones “most responsible for reaching this milestone.” Men of action. Men of ambition. Men of daring. Men of destiny. Not a single mention of the women who built this country alongside them. Not a word about Abigail Adams, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt, or the millions of unnamed women whose labor, sacrifice, and courage made every one of those men’s achievements possible. That omission was deliberate. He wasn’t simply describing the past. He was defining who belongs in his version of America’s story and who does not. Project 2025 envisions rolling back women’s rights and limiting their autonomy. When women disappear from the story of America’s founding, it becomes easier to argue they should have a smaller place in its future. His vision of this country has no room for them on purpose.

And all of this, the God framing, the culture framing, the “new breed” language, the erasure of everyone who does not fit the picture, was the setup. Because once he defined who belongs, he was ready to name who does not.

“Yet, as we approach this magnificent anniversary,” he said, “we see our American identity under a renewed attack a generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism. There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.”

And then he said something truly terrifying. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 911.” The President of the United States said that the threat facing this country right now is worse than the attack that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Worse than Pearl Harbor. Worse than the wars that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. And he had already told us who the threat is. Newcomers. Democrats. The people who disagree with him.

Like so many of us, September 11, 2001 was a defining moment in our lives. We are totally different people from the ones we were when we went to sleep the night before. The sense of safety and security that was taken from us, even those of us who were not there, have never fully come back. We saw the worst that day, but we also saw the best. The world stood heartbroken with us. The world rallied behind us.

And tonight, Donald Trump stood in front of Mount Rushmore and said that the people who vote differently than he does are a greater threat than not just what happened on Sept. 11th, but also those other dark days in our history. “Communism is the enemy of free people everywhere, everywhere in the world. Never works. It’s the enemy of the Constitution. Above all, it’s the enemy of July 4th, 1776. It is the enemy indeed.”

He called it “death, tyranny, and the pursuit of evil.” He said communists “don’t love God and they don’t want God.” He called it “an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder.” And then he delivered the line that revealed what this entire speech was building toward. “You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

That is a loyalty test. Delivered on the eve of the 250th birthday of a nation founded on the right to dissent, the right to disagree with your government, the right to speak freely without being labeled an enemy of the state. The founders he was praising minutes earlier would have recognized this language immediately. It is the language of the thing they fought a revolution to escape.

And then came the line about stolen land. Standing on sacred Lakota territory in the Black Hills, beneath the peak the Lakota call the Six Grandfathers, land guaranteed to them by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, land the U.S. government seized in violation of that treaty, land the Supreme Court itself ruled in 1980 was illegally taken, Trump said this: “As for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors. They’re doing something much worse than slandering our past. They are slandering and attacking our future.”

He called it a Marxist lie. On stolen land. The Oglala Sioux Tribe issued a formal resolution opposing tonight’s event, citing treaty violations, the desecration of sacred sites, and the detainment of their tribal members by ICE.

And then came the most dangerous words spoken by a sitting president in modern American history. “So on the eve of this 250th anniversary of American heritage, we resolve and swear for all to hear that the citizens of the United States of America will vanquish communism quickly. Don’t let them take too much of your time. You know they’re wasting your time, don’t you? But we’re not going to let them take too long or too much of our time as they play their games. and send them into exile. We will send them quickly away.”

He said he would send them into exile. On the eve of the 250th birthday of a nation founded by people who fled exile and persecution. People who crossed an ocean because they were told they did not belong. People who risked everything for the right to think, speak, and believe freely. And the man standing beneath the monument to those people had just promised to exile the ones who disagree with him. “America will never be a communist country,” he continued.

And then he explained how he intended to make sure his political opposition could never threaten his hold on power again. “We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms. If we are foolish, stupid, and unwise. But if we terminate the filibuster, as we should do, and immediately vote for the Save America Act, then we will not lose an election for a hundred years.”

A hundred years. He wasn’t talking about persuading more Americans to support his agenda. He was talking about changing the rules of government in a way that he believes would lock his party into power for generations. Coming immediately after labeling his political opponents as communists and promising exile, the sequence matters. First he defines who belongs. Then he identifies the enemy. Then he threatens punishment. And finally, he lays out how that opposition can be kept from governing again.

And then he makes sure we all know exactly who the dangerous enemy is. “The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn’t want to work.” This was after he labeled Democrats as communists.

This is not a celebration of America. This is the end of it if he succeeds. This is McCarthyism. In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy used the communist label to destroy the careers and lives of Americans who disagreed with him. He held hearings designed not to find truth but to force loyalty oaths. He demanded that Americans prove their patriotism by naming names. Artists, writers, professors, government employees, anyone who had ever attended a meeting or signed a petition or questioned the government was hauled before a committee and told: prove you are not the enemy. Lives were destroyed. Careers ended. People were blacklisted, imprisoned, and driven to ruin, not for anything they had done, but for what they believed.

And tonight, seventy years later, from Mount Rushmore, on the eve of America’s 250th birthday, Donald Trump brought it back. Axios reported just three days ago that far-right voices are already calling for the revival of the 1954 Communist Control Act, a law that literally banned a political party. Steve Bannon has argued for years that McCarthy was right. Tonight’s speech was the public launch of that strategy.

But here is what Donald Trump does not understand about this country. While he was traveling today, flying to South Dakota on a plane given to him by the Qatari royal family, another speech had already been delivered. Hours before Trump took the stage, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a naturalized citizen born in Uganda who came to New York at the age of seven, sat behind George Washington’s actual desk at City Hall. He was surrounded by recently naturalized citizens holding American flags. And without naming Trump once, he gave one of the most powerful addresses of the day.

“Those ideals upon which our nation was built,” Mamdani said, “they are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them.”

“For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best,” he said, in a direct echo of Trump’s own language from years of rallies.

“America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are. How weak, how unoriginal.”

And then he said the words that answer everything Trump said tonight: “It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it.”

Trump called newcomers a communist menace. Hours earlier, a newcomer sat behind Washington’s desk and gave a more patriotic speech than the president. That is the difference. Trump sees America as something to be owned and ruled over, a bloodline reserved for a chosen few. The real America has always been an idea, shared, strengthened, and passed on by every generation willing to believe in it enough to build it.

And that is why tonight’s speech matters. It wasn’t just about communists. It was about convincing millions of Americans that anyone who challenges him is an enemy of the country. That is how authoritarian movements create permission for repression. They don’t begin by arresting critics. They begin by persuading their followers that critics deserve whatever comes next.

I have no doubt that what he said tonight is laying the groundwork to be used against people like me who speak out every single night. I have no doubt he will come after the media, investigative reporters, journalists, and writers, because we are among the greatest threats to authoritarianism. Every person reading this who refuses to stay silent is. We hold something he cannot easily control: the truth.

His desperate attempt to convince his followers that their fellow Americans are communists threatening their families and way of life is not about protecting the country. It is about manufacturing fear. Fear has always been the fuel authoritarian movements use to justify taking away freedom.

We are standing at one of the defining crossroads in American history. Moments like this do not ask whether we are comfortable. They ask whether we are willing to speak while we still can. We have that opportunity right now, and we cannot waste it. Because every time we tell the truth, we make it harder for propaganda to take root. Every time we refuse to be intimidated, we remind one another that democracy has always depended on ordinary people finding the courage to keep going.

We still have the midterms. But the next four months are not guaranteed. If Donald Trump is willing to resurrect the Red Scare, to stand beneath Mount Rushmore on the eve of our nation’s 250th birthday and say all of these deeply disturbing, racist, white nationalist, Christian nationalist, profoundly un-American things, then nothing is off the table for what comes next.

Please share what is happening. If you don’t have the words, borrow mine. Make them your own. But don’t let this speech disappear. Talk about it with anyone willing to listen. Post about it. Because right now we have to hold the line. We cannot allow fear to silence us. That is exactly what speeches like this are designed to do. Every authoritarian movement depends on convincing ordinary people that speaking the truth has become too dangerous. We cannot give him that victory.

And if tonight feels like one of the darkest moments in our history, I want to take you somewhere that reminds me why I still believe in this country.

On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Frederick Douglass stood before a largely white audience and delivered what many consider one of the greatest speeches in American history: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Most people remember the indictment. He asked how a nation could celebrate liberty while millions of people remained enslaved. He held up a mirror to America’s hypocrisy. But that is not how he ended.

Douglass called the principles of the Declaration of Independence “saving principles.” He called the Constitution a “GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.” His argument was never that America was beyond redemption. It was that America’s founding ideals were greater than the failures of the men who first wrote them. He believed the promise of this country belonged to everyone, and that one day America would be forced to live up to its own words.

Tonight, Donald Trump declared it a “Marxist lie” to teach our children that this nation was built on stolen land or that some of our heroes committed terrible wrongs. Frederick Douglass spent his life insisting that loving America meant telling the truth about its past. He believed our founding principles were strong enough to withstand honesty. In fact, he believed they demanded it.

That is real patriotism. Not pretending our country has never failed, nor erasing people from our history. And certainly not threatening exile against those who disagree. Patriotism is loving this country enough to insist it become what it has always promised to be.

Zohran Mamdani, an immigrant who became an American citizen and then Mayor of New York City, sat behind George Washington’s desk and reminded us of something Trump never will understand. “It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it.”

This is our promise to America on her 250th birthday. We will not let those hungry for power convince us to hate one another. We will not surrender to the lie that our neighbors are the enemy. We will never stop fighting for the country America has always been capable of becoming. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,