Last weekend, a man set a woman on fire and fanned the flames as she burned to death. The man was an immigrant.

Does that mean Donald Trump and his Christian Nationalist followers are right, and immigrants are nothing more than a bunch of nasty, dangerous criminals who need to be rounded up?

Donald Trump warned us that immigrants want to eat all our cats and dogs.

In South Carolina, a group of five people was arrested recently and criminally charged with torturing and killing thirteen cats by poisoning them in a slow and agonizing death.

Those five people were American citizens.

Does that mean that American citizens are nothing but nasty, dangerous criminals?

A crowd gathered around the woman who was set on fire. They took pictures and video of her as she burned to death, screaming. Not one of them did a thing to help the woman, to put out the flames. They were all American citizens.

Is that what the American people have become?

Christian Nationalist ideology divides people into groups, and then declares that a few groups are good, while other groups of people are evil.

Christians are good, they say, and non-Christians are evil. American citizens are good, they say, and immigrants from outside America are evil.

Christian Nationalism is obsessed with group identity. Christian Nationalists make group affiliation the foundation of their morality. Christian Nationalism teaches that whatever a person does to harm others doesn't matter, so long as they join and submit to a community of Christian believers. Believe, and obey, and all is forgiven. If a person doesn't belong to Christianity, however, they say that there can never be any forgiveness.

In order for Christians to be good, they need to accuse non-Christians of being evil.

In order for American citizens to be good, they need to accuse immigrants of being evil.

In order to preserve the moral purity of the American nation, Christian Nationalists are preparing to haul people out of their homes, divide children from their parents, and send them off to become prisoners in concentration camps. They call this morality.

In three weeks, Donald Trump will give Christian Nationalism unrestrained power over all three branches of the US federal government.

It will seem that they are unstoppable. It will feel like there is nothing you can do. It will appear as if the entire nation of the United States of America has gone mad.

When you see it happening, when you see the power of the Christian Nationalist fascists take hold, I want you to remember one thing: The United States of America is not united. It never has been. The USA is deeply divided. Nationalists want you to believe that this division is a bad thing. They want you to feel guilty for not standing together with other Americans. They want you to be silent.

Remember the truth: Donald Trump has no mandate. Donald Trump only gained the votes of 49.8 percent of the country, just 1.47 percent more than Kamala Harris.

Half of American voters rejected Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. That half is under no obligation to be silent now that the election is over.

The lives of millions of people are at stake. The attacks against them are soon going to begin.

You don't have to stand by in silence.

You don't have to be like one of those American citizens in the New York City subway, watching the horror and doing nothing to stop it.

You can step forward.

You can help put out the fire.