To say the year 2020 has been interesting is an understatement. There’s been a pandemic and civil unrest from the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, their deaths resulting in protests happening just not here but worldwide. There have been peaceful protests as well as riots in cities like Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland, just to name a few. 

With riots happening, President Trump has been quick to group peaceful protestors in with rioters and even calling the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement Marxist. 

In an interview with Fox, Trump said, “Black Lives Matter, when did it start? Marching down streets screaming, ‘Pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon.’ They were talking about policemen … So all of a sudden, this has taken on this air of great respectability. Well, how does it start there? It’s a Marxist group.”

That is a partially true statement. Yes, the co-founders of Black Lives Matter have called themselves trained Marxists. In an article by the New York Post, Patrisse Cullors said she and her fellow organizers are “trained Marxists.” 

The thing that President Trump has left out is this: not all protestors who say that Black lives matter are a part of the BLM organization. Protesters around the world are marching for equality and an end to police violence. But since the word “Marxist” is not the correct term, what you are seeing is true democracy in action. 

Civil unrest is what America was founded on. No taxation without representation, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion are pillars of what our republic was built on. Basically, the colonies were tired of what was going on in London. 

When Thomas Jefferson wrote The Declaration of Independence, the first paragraph clearly states, 

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

There it is. If people do not like how the government is treating them, they have a right to revolt against that government. That is exactly what people are doing by protesting. 

America is making its voices heard. The people are exercising their constitutional right to protest about things they deem to be unfair. America is tired. Americans are tired of the way things have been going and tired about the course in which they saw it happening. You combine coronavirus with police brutality and people being stuck at home and it’s a perfect recipe for people to say they have had enough. 

So no, what you are seeing is not Marxism. What you are seeing is democracy in action. If you are tired of the way things are going in society today, go out and get involved. You don’t have to go join a protest if you feel uncomfortable. There are many different ways a person can get involved in social change. 

You can go volunteer in a campaign for a person you believe in, you can volunteer and help the less fortunate. Heck, you don’t even need to join anything. You can get together a couple of friends and volunteer to clean up a highway or a park. Democracy does take many forms. For the first time in not only mine, but many others as well we are seeing true democracy in action.