We Write In The Margins

In the damp hush of the Pacific Northwest, where mist clings to pine needles like unresolved grief, silence can feel like safety. It wraps around us like wool—soft at first, numbing in time, and quietly disarming.

What we call comfort is often the subtle undoing of urgency, easy to welcome, hard to notice, and hardest of all to escape. But history doesn't wait in the quiet. It stirs when we do, sometimes with a whisper, sometimes with a roar, often when just a few are brave enough to rise.

Only 3.5 Percent

Only 3.5 percent. That's all it takes. According to political scientist Erica Chenoweth, history begins to tilt when just this sliver of the population rises in sustained, nonviolent protests. Regimes fall. Justice stirs. Change, once unimaginable, becomes inevitable. Not a majority. Not even half. Just a fraction of the brave, the stubborn, the fed up.

Why We Hesitate

So why, then, do we hesitate?

Perhaps the urgency has slowly eroded. The lulling effect of headlines that scroll past faster than we can respond. Or maybe it's political fatigue. The endless parade of cruelty dressed in bureaucracy, of headlines that read like satire, of a government now run like a discount demolition sale.

Or perhaps we've heard too often that our voices do not count, that the machine is too big, the gears too rusted, and that history has already chosen its course.

But let us be clear. History is not a spectator sport. It's a stubborn, unruly story that bends to the ink of those bold enough to write in the margins.

Writing in the Margins

We write in the margins.

Our protests are declarations. This movement is our line in the sand, a collective refusal to stay silent while the nation's soul is auctioned off to the highest bidder. A refusal to let a con man's second act become our nation's final one. A rejection of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which, under the guise of efficiency, quietly dismantles protections, slashes education, gags science, and steamrolls over democracy using language so bold and cruel it dares you to look away while it erodes everything that matters.

The Warning in Silence

We've seen this before. In lands we've read about, in moments history warns us not to repeat, where apathy fed the fire of fascism, where families were urged to avert their gaze, to nod along, to hush their doubts. That silence didn't keep them safe. It was a quiet permission slip for everything they feared, signed not in ink but in silence.

So no, we will not look away.

Teaching Resistance

We'll teach our children what resistance looks like, not in whispers but in full voice. We'll walk beside them as they carry signs made with glitter and misspelled hope. We'll show them that democracy is not a guarantee. It's a garden, and it needs tending.

Then we'll tell them where we’ve been. We'll tell them why we keep going. We'll tell them about the women who marched miles on aching feet for the simple right to vote. We'll tell them about Ruby Bridges, just six years old, walking through a wall of hate to integrate an all-white school. We'll tell them about the rebels at Stonewall and the marchers at Selma, the farmworkers who organized for dignity, and the factory workers who walked out for fair pay. These names and moments prove that even the smallest act of courage can reshape a nation.

What Comes Next

And yes, we'll bring them to the rallies. We'll let them feel the drumbeat of feet on pavement, hear the chants, ask questions, and understand that showing up is not a privilege, it's a responsibility shared by all who call this country home.

Because what we do now becomes the curriculum they carry forward. If we teach them fear, they'll learn silence as their first language. But if we teach them courage, they'll carry the torch farther than we ever could.

So rise. Not when it's convenient. Not when it's safe. Rise now.

We are the 3.5 percent. We are the margin writers. We are the living answer to American apathy.

This is only the beginning.