Ward: Naturally fighting back

America is like a human body. Complex, interconnected, and astonishingly resilient — but not invincible.

With the rise of Trump and the MAGA movement, it’s as if we’ve deliberately injected ourselves with a fast-moving virus — Ebola. Not a slow-creeping illness we can ignore, but a brutal invader that targets our most vital organs from the outset.

This strain doesn’t just spread through back channels. It assaults the brain — our academia and shared knowledge. It overwhelms the lungs — our justice system, now struggling to breathe. It attacks the heart— our democratic institutions, our voting rights, and the public trust that binds them. It sabotages the immune system itself — our checks and balances, the independent press, and the rule of law.

And yet, in recent days, there are signs the immune system is responding. The “No Kings” rally, and others like it, feel like antibodies forming — a signal that the country remembers how to fight off authoritarian infection. We see people waking up, naming the illness for what it is, and trying to save what’s left of the body politic.

But Ebola moves fast. We can’t afford to wait and see. Either we mobilize every cell of the immune system — our voices, our votes, our vigilance — or we let the disease run its course.

And history tells us: unchecked, it’s always fatal.

Kevin Ward

Snowmass