"Good afternoon people of Salem! My name is Katelyn Holappa.
I want to thank the organizers who made this possible today and who are giving me this platform to speak to you all because there’s something that I want to talk to you all about that is very important to me. So if I could be so bold as to ask folks give me their attention for a few minutes I would really appreciate it. And I promise there’s a positive and inspiring message in this somewhere, but before we get to that we need to get real about some facts about our history. This is the same history that Donald Trump is trying to erase, because he knows that if he succeeds, if he can lie and mask the truth, then we will loose one of the greatest tools we have to defeat him.
And the truth is this: Fascism has flourished in this country for a very, very long time. and I can prove it to you. What do you think they really mean by “Make America Great Again” they want to erase the civil rights and the progress that were fought for and won over the last century. They want to control women’s bodies, they want to restrict who can vote what you can say what you can write, what religion you can practice. They want to control who has power and wealth and influence, and it is abundantly clear the “in group” is a very specific demographic. Not the Aryan race, but white christian men.
Because the truth is Donald Trump is operating out of a playbook written by Americans and I’m not talking about Project 2025. I’m talking about Jim Crow.
Here’s a fact that I don’t think I was ever taught in my 8th grade Holocaust unit. In 1935 one of the biggest differences between Nazi Germany and the United States is that we had already perfected our systems of oppression and they had to build theirs from scratch. The Jim Crow laws were literally the blueprints of the Holocaust. That’s a fact, because the sad truth is that the Nazis may have learned more from our history than we have.
We need to understand that what Trump is doing is not new. What is new is who it is affecting. What everyone has recently been experiencing under this president has, for nearly the entire history of this country, been happening to brown people, and black people, to Chinese people, to queer people, and Jewish people, and unhoused people, to people suffering from mental illness, to people who are not able bodied. To any and every group of people who could be othered and controlled by those in positions of power.
Because the truth is the checks and balances of our government were broken long ago and on purpose. You cannot have a representational democracy, of, by, and for the people, and simultaneously oppress large quantities of the people you are supposed to represent. No, what is new is that this President is using systems that were built as tools of oppression and that have historically been used to control minority groups, to control people that do not share his ideology. We are all now, finding out how exactly how effective those systems are.
So what do we do when we realize that our history is deeply flawed and that this is not the first time our government has sponsored terror against the people it is supposed to protect and serve? And believe it or not here’s actually where some of the hope is. This isn’t new, we know how to fight this. We have won victories against some of this injustice before, and in many of our lifetimes. Our problem is we stop fighting too early, but we know what works.
So this is my second ask of you all today, the first was to listen up, thank you again. My second ask is similar: listen to marginalized people, because our elders and leaders in these communities understand what is happening right now better than anyone. Listen to black people, listen to queer people, listen to women, listen to our immigrant community, listen to our AAPI community, listen to our unhoused community.
Some of the biggest problems we have in our society come from the fact that we live in an unequal society. And when we choose to ignore these inequities the problems do not go away, they grow, and they start to affect more and more people.
The housing crisis. The climate crisis. Food insecurity. Access to healthcare, to transportation. These problems are not new, but we have allowed them to grow into crises and I believe that is often because we struggle to recognize systems of oppression when they benefit us. That is something I hope we can learn from this mess once it is all over, but it is something that we have struggled to learn for centuries.
This is what Martin Luther King Jr. meant when he said that he said that:
“[the] great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice”
For many of us, we are learning what this means in real time. Because the truth is that the only times that we have been able to fight against systems of oppression and win was when we created disorder, and we demanded justice. So THANK YOU! Thank you for showing up today and demanding that you be heard! We will get through this together!
The last thing I want to use this platform for is to ask one third request of you all. I mentioned before that when we have won battles against oppression in the past, our problem was that we stopped too early. And I want you all need to understand what I mean by that. If you personally are here today to demand to a better life for yourself, your family, and your community. A life with liberty, where you can pursue happiness. If you are here today to demand it for yourself don’t you dare stop demanding change when you get yours.
We the people who stand together to demand a better life for us ALL, well we deserve to get that too. And let’s be clear, if you are a cisgender heterosexual neurotypical able-bodied white homeowner over the age of 40, which is at least a couple of you, you are going to get what we are fighting for, first. Especially if you’re a man.
What’s happening right now is affecting all of us but, for many of you here today, you never needed a constitutional amendment to have freedom. You never had to fight for the right to vote. You’ve never been the target of laws preventing you from using a drinking fountain, or a bathroom. You’ve never been forced awake in the middle of the night by a government employee with a gun, demanding that you go somewhere else, even if you have no where else to go. You’ve never been told you need to be fixed, as if there’s something wrong with you. If that sounds like your life, that means you have privilege, and power. And I am asking that you continue use that privilege to stand up for those who do not. Raise up your voices and demand liberty and justice for all!
Together we can stop them from coming for the immigrants. We can stop them from coming for the trade unionists. We can stop them from coming for Democrats, or “the radical left”, or anyone that stands up for our freedom. But we need to do it together, and together we need to understand when we’re done.
If we do not all, every single one of us, truly have equal rights, equal protection under the law, equal opportunities, our great-grandchildren will standing exactly where we are today. Every intentional inequity, any group that is deemed an exception to humanity, will be manipulated and used as a scapegoat to advance an authoritarian regime. That is how fascism works. It festers and spreads like a disease, and by the time that you notice the symptoms it is already too late to stop the pain and suffering that it will cause.
We should not like it, but we must accept that this is a part of our legacy as Americans. Our ancestors failed to learn this lesson after the Civil War, and we failed to recognize the pieces of America within Nazi Germany. If we fail to learn this lesson we are doomed to repeat history again.
What I will leave you with is this: we will get through this, authoritarianism never lasts, but in the meantime and after, please remember to be there for each other, live life with kindness, maybe host a block party, or a barbecue, support local businesses and artists. Be good to each other. Please remember to vote on November 4th."
Katelyn Holappa is a North Shore native and Salem resident running to represent her Ward 6 community on the Salem City Council. Learn more about Katelyn at https://www.katelynforsalem.com.
Note: Holappa's speech above was not edited by NSP. However, we did add html links and additional formatting for emphasis.
