applejongho

[applejongho]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[applejongho]

i think the worst of it is this terrible feeling i'm constantly fighting that nothing fucking matters anymore. that there are just no rules anymore. i have this terrible, tragic sense that the president of the united states - that any of his cronies - could truly do or say anything, and face no consequences.

my brother and i have a common thought experiment where we try to figure out "how far is too far." like, at what point our radicalized father would have to agree that this man is a genocidal freak. that this whole campaign is misappropriating christianity for the sake of a false prophet. that this entire thing is a fucking coup. there has to be a line, right?

but there's never a too-far for my father, because our father (like so many others) will be easily swayed by the cult of our theocratic oligarchs. our father votes republican because those are the people he feels understand him the most. our father votes republican because it is his identity. and unfortunately: the soul of our country has become this same, bitter person; lost in time to values that no longer reflect their lived experience. they have to love being a republican, because it resolves harder questions about how they fit into a rapidly changing world. they just are republicans, and they don't need to question that.

so it just feels like - no one will hold trump or elon accountable. nobody is going to do anything. and yes, i'm like you, i'm in the streets and protesting and boycotting and all of it. it still feels like these men are fucking untouchable.

and over and over the rage that grips me: because people voted to fucking make them that way.

[applejongho]

I love personalization. I love stickers on water bottles and on laptops. I love shitty marker drawing on the toes of converse. I love hand embroidered doodles on jeans. I love posters on walls. I love knick knacks on shelves. I love jewelry with goofy charms. I love when people take things and make them theirs.

[applejongho]

@uharuz

[applejongho]

me: this is the worst thing ive ever submitted to my supervisor. he is going to have so many comments. this sucks

him: great job keep up the good work u killed it

[applejongho]

average cis conception of gender is roughly equivalent to "every single liquid is either type O+ blood or cold-pressed peanut oil." and you're like "are there not perhaps a handful of exceptions" & they get so mad they start funding nazi militias

[applejongho]

also nyeheheh rubbing my hands together like that one yeosang reaction pic, i'm glad you didn't put two and two together and figure out it was me !! you deserve fun surprises on your birthday !! 🤍🫂

hello ask i totally overlooked...... yes u filleted me!!!! genuinely when u sent the anon asking about my fav jjongs I forgot my birthday was in a few days and just thought it was a normal Ask Anne thing... I was sorely mistaken 😔 but ofc those are the best surprises aren't they and I'm so grateful u made it 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🫶🫶🫶🫶 it's always loving sarah time!

[applejongho]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ATEEZ'S BACKBONE | 250323

[applejongho]

YESSSSSSS YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES.

feel like I have six senses, touch taste smell sight hearing and knowing when hongjoong with a guitar or hongjoong guerrilla era is being posted about. I had to put my crochet hook down to address the Tingling I had in my wrist. this isn't tendonitis it's the hongjoong sense. and I was right. anyway

me seeing that gifset

[applejongho]

HONGJOONG - FINALE IN SEOUL 250323

bonus:

[applejongho]

the gang is all here! 📬🌱🪄

all patterns by crochetedbybogusia (link)!

[applejongho]

[applejongho]

We joke and all but some of you really forget that people hate women.

[applejongho]

my actions (crocheting for four hours straight last night) have consequences (wrist OUCHIE)

[applejongho]

like the return of the r slur and horrible fatphobia and gay jokes and the misogyny oh my fucking god can we talk about the misogyny. we have culturally regressed to the eary 2010s but when you try to call people out they’re liek ohhh it’s just a joke 😂. i’m sorry but i don’t want to hear jokes about pedophilia or about rape or about racism that is not funny and it never will be. everything is ironic and if you get offended it’s cuz you’re a crazy femnazi who cares too much. because it’s apparently uncool to take anything serious or do anything with actual sincerity anymore

[applejongho]

Jongho veggie orchard concept photoshoot?

damn 😭😭😭 yes 😭😭😭😭😭

[applejongho]

libby is even among these other apps popular with the user on the home screen of her phone🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️