Dear Friends:
Here are my opening remarks at our virtual series “LOVE AS ANTIDOTE TO AUTHORITARIANISM” with the Revolutionary Love Project:
“It has been 100 days since the new U.S. administration took power. There have been 221 executive actions to date. If you have been breathless, your breathlessness is not a sign of your weakness. It is a sign that you have been awake. The speed, scale and volume of these actions are designed to overwhelm us.
Everyone I know who works in a field to protect and care for vulnerable peoples—undocumented immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, trans and queer people, women and girls, poor people, youth and student activists— has seen their work incinerated overnight and our communities harmed in real time.
Many of these executive actions are illegal. We are demanding the courts and Congress intervene.
So far, the administration has shown its willingness to defy court orders — most recently, refusing to turn around planes of Venezuelans deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process. A Maryland man, Kilmar Ábrego García, was wrongfully deported in direct violation of a court order. The Supreme Court has instructed the government to facilitate his return. Instead, the President has stated he wants to be able send U.S. citizens to the prison too.
When the executive outright defies court orders, we are in a constitutional crisis.
The question is: How far will the executive go?
This brings us to the term authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism is a method of rule that suppresses political freedoms and civil rights — and concentrates power in the hands of a single leader or a small elite. Today, the super majority of the world’s population live under authoritarian regimes.
Historically, authoritarian leaders came into power forcefully, swiftly, by military coup. But today, many come into power through democratic elections — then subvert democratic norms and institutions to stay in power.
Authoritarians consolidate their power through projects of dehumanization that scapegoat entire populations.
Cruelty is the point.
Chaos is the means.
Helplessness is the desired result.
They are betting that we will concede to their new world order.
They are counting on our silence.
That is how authoritarians win.
But these are the early days of this administration.
What we do right now— whether we resist or concede—determines what the United States will ultimately become.
They want us to believe we are powerless. This is a lie.
The majority of us oppose authoritarianism.
We are the majority.
We must act like a majority.
We must take courageous stands — wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever that looks like for us.
We must weave threads of care and protection around each other.
We must resist — and we must do more than resist.
We must dream of the world we want — and practice that world in the space between us.
Our dream must be more powerful than their nightmare.
We must build communities so anchored in love, so activated by our joy, that the cruelty that drives authoritarianism cannot take root. Revolutionary Love is the call of our times. Revolutionary Love is the choice to see no stranger—to leave no one outside of our circle of care.
Why is love essential?
In February 2025, when the Vice President was asked to justify the administration’s halt of almost all U.S. humanitarian aid around the globe, he cited a Christian concept ordo amoris, an order of duties or “order of love.” He said, “We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.”
Pope Francis immediately rebuked him with a letter:
“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan, that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
It was one of his final public statements to the world.
The Vice President’s statement exposes the logic behind the cruelty driving authoritarianism in the U.S. If you believe that the capacity to love is limited—should be limited—then it results in a self-interested in-group morality where you recognize the humanity of only those in your inner circle. Once you disable your instinct for empathy for them, you can do anything to them or allow anything to be done to them.
The root of cruelty and authoritarianism in the U.S. today is lovelessness.
The antidote is Revolutionary Love.
Revolutionary Love is expansive and powerful and muscular – it calls us to risk ourselves for one another. When we choose to see through the eyes of love — to leave no one outside of our circle of care — and act on that way of seeing, we unlock enormous energy and power.”
I know it’s been dizzying. They want us to despair. But when we gather, we unlock enormous energy and power. Fear is contagious, but so is courage. Together we are building a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice. And we’re doing it with joy.
How will you be brave with your love?
Our next event will be May 14th | Part Two: Love for Opponents — Tend the Wound. How do we listen across lines of difference and reimagine a future that leaves no one behind? Register here.
Each gathering will feature deep conversation with visionary leaders, concrete ways to take action, tools for navigating this moment with the Revolutionary Love Compass, and healing through music and meditation.
Yours,
Valarie