Emily Baden: I’m the Neighbor that Took On the Alitos – and I’m Not Done Fighting for our Democracy
By Emily Baden
Remember when Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew an upside-down American flag at his home in the days after January 6th? And when that bombshell New York Times article came out, his response was to write a letter to Congress saying he’d only flown the flag because of an altercation with a neighbor? What he left out of that letter is that he and his wife had been harassing that neighbor and her family for weeks at that point, and that neighbor had finally had enough.
On the day of the altercation, February 15th, that neighbor called the police, and there’s a record of it. But the flag was seen at his home a month before the altercation, which means Samuel Alito lied to Congress, and should be removed from the court. How do I know this? Because I value and respect our democracy – and because I’m the neighbor.
When the NYT slid into my DMs to ask me about the flag, I told them the truth: I had never seen it. But I did have a lot of other information that was new to them, like evidence of lies in Alito’s statement, and their ongoing harassment of me and my family. His deflection of blame forced me into his national scandal, and because I have been a loud and unapologetic leftist and anti-fascist my entire life, I had a moral obligation to speak out against him and everything he represents.
When the flag story broke, it became international news. Demands to reform the court were everywhere, and several members of Congress introduced articles of impeachment against both Alito and Thomas (because their corruption had been going on long before this flag story). People were asking for the absolute bare minimum: that Alito recuse himself from cases about January 6, the very same violent insurrection he appeared to support with his flags. But he wasn’t obligated to recuse because the Supreme Court has no mechanism in place to enforce a basic code of ethics. And so, in a final crushing blow to democracy, with the ruling on presidential immunity in Trump v. US, he crowned Trump as a king above the law.
Today, we are barely two months into the Trump administration and we’ve seen no less than 3 Nazi salutes at mainstream Republican events. It’s important to note these were mainstream events because now, Republicans can no longer say that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are a fringe sect of the Republican Party. The GOP has officially added fascism to its party platform and is now following the fascist playbook line by line.
Immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Lawful permanent residents are being kidnapped and deported without being charged with a crime. Transgender people are being targeted. DEI and woke have been co-opted to mean racial slurs. Plans to take over Greenland and Gaza are lifted directly from Mussolini’s plan to expand fascist territory, Spazio vitale. CNN and MSNBC should be “illegal.” Lawful orders from federal judges are being ignored.
All of these blatant attacks on democracy have been endorsed by the Republican Party.
We’ve been waiting for our Democratic leaders to react with urgency, but the majority of them are not. When Representative Al Green (D-TX) bravely stood up in protest at the Congressional address, he was dragged out of the room and later censured by Congress. In a remarkable display of cowardice, 10 Democrats supported the censure. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and other prominent Democrats recently voted to support a GOP funding bill that guts social services. These Democrats are now complicit in the government’s demise.
No one is coming to save us, so we have to take action ourselves. That’s something I learned when my now-husband and I refused to back down to our belligerent neighbors, the Alitos, or let them off the hook. Here are some steps you can take.
Start by staying informed. MAGA can’t survive without disinformation, propaganda, and taking illegal measures to crush dissent and limit the flow of information. It is our responsibility to consult multiple sources and factcheck aggressively. Meta, which has 3 billion daily users, has announced it has abandoned fact-checking. That means when your racist relative posts something from a source that’s called something like conservativeeaglepatriot.biz about transgender mice playing women’s sports, it’s on you to call them out on it.
Vote with your wallet. Boycotting isn’t effective if it’s one short day. Collective action only works if we commit to it long-term. Tesla’s stock plunge and Trump’s bizarre demand that Tesla boycotts be “illegal” are clear signs the boycotts are working. Elon Musk emerging from the depths of a k-hole to decry the tolerant left on Fox News, along with Kim Kardashian’s sponsored Instagram post from inside the trunk of a cybertruck, lets us know that the billionaires are getting scared, and we should keep going.
Know your rights. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez held a know-your-rights webinar recently, teaching her constituents about their constitutional rights when they encounter law enforcement. In true fascist form, Trump’s border czar went on the news to threaten “maybe AOC’s going to be in trouble now” and that she was being investigated by the DOJ for impeding immigration enforcement. The party that claims to love the Constitution really doesn’t like it when people actually read it.
Most importantly, stay involved in local politics. Elections matter, and are sometimes decided by only a handful of votes. The upcoming special election in Florida and Wisconsin on April 1st is going to be particularly consequential, and there are ways we can get involved right now.
Before the November election, I called thousands of voters in red districts to let them know what was at stake. So many of them said they didn’t care about politics or had never heard of Project 2025. I had illuminating conversations with young women who had no idea how severely Republicans would restrict their rights, and I convinced at least a few non-voters to get out and vote. One of the red districts I was calling flipped blue by less than 200 votes. Don’t let anyone tell you voter outreach doesn’t work, or that your vote doesn’t matter.
There’s no denying the Republican Party is fascist and we have to do whatever we can to resist. I am proud of my small act of resistance, a homemade yard sign that said, in glitter and gold cursive lettering, “f*ck trump” – of course, the sign itself didn’t actually have the asterisk – because it has organically grown into so much more. If I had known my sign would be talked about on the news and used by a Supreme Court justice to lie about his involvement with a fascist coup attempt, I would have made my sign even bigger, even glitterier, and, dare I say given the history between me and the Alitos… even c*ntier.
Emily Baden is an activist, proud union member, and mother. She lives in San Francisco and creates pro-democracy political content on TikTok.
