Donald Trump’s Conviction Is a Call to Arms
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Editor's Note
The group quota regime is a revolutionary enemy, which means that it must destroy our way of life before it can lay a new one in its place. Nicole Kiprilov, whose mother fought communist tyranny in Bulgaria in the 1980s, voices her fears that the American way of life may fall to a similar despotism — that the regime’s attack on Donald Trump is only the beginning of a far larger assault on our constitution, and on all of us.
When the guilty verdict in Donald Trump’s New York trial was delivered on May 30, I was at home with my mother. We were anxiously awaiting the results, and once the verdict was read, my mother broke down in tears. In between sobs, she managed to get out a few words about how she did not risk and sacrifice everything to immigrate to a country that now reminds her of the one she fled, the one in which she was persecuted. It sounds dramatic, but this was her genuine reaction.
This story is not unique. I have no doubt that this was the reaction of thousands of people across the country upon hearing the verdict. While I truly believe Trump’s conviction can be leveraged into an enormous political strength for Republicans, as well as for the conservative movement as a whole, May 30 will remain a dark and depressing day in our national history. It was perhaps the clearest indication to date of the rot permeating our society. It is the culmination of decades upon decades of strategic planning and execution by the Left, with the explicit purpose of destroying America and everything beautiful it stands for.
This verdict was personal for many Americans, especially those like my mother who fled political and religious persecution in hopes of finding a better life and starting a family in a place defined by freedom and prosperity. This is the country that has given millions of people a unique hope and opportunity that only exists here and nowhere else. The Trump trial verdict is a gut-wrenching reminder that the continuation of this legacy is far from guaranteed. The American dream has been slipping away for years, and today, we are on the edge of a precipice, in danger of losing the American dream entirely.
My mother was an anti-communist revolutionary in Bulgaria in the 1980s. She risked her life to fight, both in government and on the streets, against communism. Driving around in a small, beat-up car, rallying up the people, with almost nothing but an indomitable passion for freedom and justice, my mother was a major part of an important time in the history of Europe. Growing up dirt poor in the middle of nowhere in Bulgaria, she fought against the chains of communism and helped to topple a totalitarian regime.
After the fall of communism in Bulgaria, my mother realized that even though Bulgaria’s future would certainly be a brighter one than before, it would be many years before the remnants of the brutal regime she had lived under as a child would start fading away and presenting the opportunities and freedoms she so desperately craved.
Fate came knocking at my mother’s door in 1992 when some distant friends who had already immigrated to the United States invited her to stay with them for two weeks in New York for the holidays. My mother jumped at the opportunity, not knowing what to expect. As a young girl, I loved hearing my mother tell me the story of how she came back to Bulgaria from that trip to New York with the permanent decision to start a life in the United States. She was standing in the middle of Times Square on Christmas, and “It felt like I was standing in the center of the universe,” she would say. “I would look around, and I could tell everyone felt the same way.”
My mother came to America in search of a better life, and she found it. She met my father, also an immigrant from Bulgaria. They decided to get married and start a family in New York. They eventually built up a small business from scratch in the pursuit of the American dream they had only heard about in whatever American movies they had grown up watching long ago. My parents each separately longed for the American Dream for years, and God brought them together to realize it.
As a stark contrast to my mother’s upbringing, I was born and raised in Manhasset, New York, one of the wealthiest communities in this country. I attended the best schools and never knew what it was like to not have an opportunity to do whatever I wanted to do. My mother would always tell me, “You are lucky to be born here, because you have the opportunity to do anything you want to do.”
My parents, through incredible hard work and an amazing fortitude of spirit, and without taking advantage of government resources or existing in this country illegally even for a second, laid such a stable foundation for me that growing up, my only connection to my mother’s brutal history was our conversations at the dinner table about her difficult life in Bulgaria during Soviet times. I listened to her stories about the long bread lines, the months it took to obtain a simple pair of jeans, and getting punished by communist authorities when going to church to practice her Christian faith. I had no comprehension for what that experience would actually entail, but as I grew older and started to realize just how much my parents had sacrificed for me, I became more passionate about giving back to the country that had allowed my family to make their wildest dreams come true.
To me, Trump is the greatest president of my lifetime and currently the only person who can command a large-scale effort to save our country. To my mother, Trump is all of that as well; but he is also an everlasting symbol of all the things America has given her, most of which is the uniquely American experience of immigrating to a foreign land, surrounded by a foreign community and a foreign language, and still feeling like this is her true home. Only in America can one come without nothing and achieve everything.
My mother is still deeply connected to her Bulgarian roots, and she has made it a point to ensure that our family is proud of our heritage. But she considers herself to be American before anything else. This label gives my mother pride and hope, and she is a more devoted patriot than many native-born Americans.
To my mother, Trump represents a light at the end of the tunnel of immense sacrifice and hardship, the steadfast reassurance that her newfound freedom will not be taken away, and the beacon of hope that what she has worked to build in this country will last for generations in her family. Trump’s policies and actions resonate with her values, but even beyond that, Trump is the promise to my mother, and to millions of Americans across the country, that her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will grow up in a country that continues to give people the freedom to make their dreams come true.
To my mother, there is nothing more important than knowing that my future children and I will still be able to flourish in prosperity, the kind of unique American prosperity that transcends the material. Freedom as what allows for boundless innovation and entrepreneurship, but also freedom as a state of existence. This is what my mother fought for in Eastern Europe in the 80s, and this is what my mother desperately hopes will be preserved in the United States for future generations.
The verdict delivered on May 30 essentially crushed all of that.
I do not have my mother’s story, or anything even close. And I will never be able to truly understand the experience of those whose knowledge of American freedom is colored by the memory of communist oppression. But what I do have is my mother’s blood pumping through my veins, her instilling in me the values that she formed through her painful experiences, and a fraction of her revolutionary spirit and passion for the fight for freedom.
Over the years, as I have witnessed my parents making the American Dream happen right before my eyes—and then breaking down in tears over the possibility that it can all be taken away—I realized that there is no stronger motivation for the work that I do than to save the country that allowed my family to make the impossible happen. America is still the greatest nation on the planet, and I feel that I have a unique obligation to fight to preserve that.
Fighting for the conservative movement is not just a job, a passion, or a hobby. It is who I am, who my family is, and who I hope my future children will be when they grow up in a better society and realize that they, too, are called to continue their family’s legacy in fighting for freedom and prosperity.
God gave us a chance in 2016, and He continues to give us chances to take our country back. But that requires us to act. The verdict delivered on May 30 could bring us dangerously close to losing everything we know and love. Or it can propel us to fight harder than we ever have before. Which path will we choose?
The war in which we are presently engaged—a war in which Donald Trump is both our only suitable commander in chief and our enemy’s primary target—is about preserving everything that has allowed my family and countless others to make the American Dream a reality. I know that my mother is going to channel her tears and extreme disappointment over Trump’s conviction into an energy and strength that has led her to this point in her life. If it were not for her relentless perseverance and indestructible spirit, I would not have the opportunities for success that I have today. My mother’s love of Trump and this country can never be extinguished, which is why she is going to continue to fight, no matter what—and well beyond November.
What it boils down to is this: How badly do we want to save our country? Will you fight, too?