On Patriots’ Day, We Are Reminded the Courage is Contagious

There is a reason the midnight ride of Paul Revere captures our imagination. A ride we celebrated here in Maine last week, as we begin a year-long reflection on the upcoming 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation.

Paul Revere’s midnight ride wasn’t just about spreading intelligence or saving the lives of patriotic leaders.

It was about knowing an enemy is coming — one who threatens our rights, our freedoms, and our safety — and choosing to dissent. To say, quite simply, “no.”

No to your threats

No to your violence

No to your theft

No to your intimidation

No. No. And no again.

We will take the back roads when blocked and we will stand in the square when threatened. We will ride in the darkness and then we will expose you to the light. Whenever, however, whatever it takes, we will fight until we are free.

Today here in Maine we celebrate Patriots’ Day, commemorating the first battles of the Revolutionary War. This celebration is more than a chance to look back — it is a call to act forward. To recall the true lessons of Paul Revere’s ride and all those who dreamt, fought, and sacrificed for this country, and then to revive that courage today, when it is needed more than ever.

It has been said that courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it — the resistance to it. It has been said, too, that courage is contagious.

Across America, we are seeing that courage light the way of our nation. Farmers riding tractors, teachers engaging students, caregivers and carpenters, scientists and entrepreneurs and immigrants and shipbuilders protesting in the streets. And now the courts as well, proclaiming to all that we all have rights, and those rights shall be guaranteed to all who live here.

Courage is the midnight ride of Paul Revere. It is the Senator who breaks his voice speaking out just as surely as he broke records doing so. It is the illegally fired public servant signing up to run for elected office. It is the underpaid and overworked social worker who sends a bit of money to a local cause.

Courage was my decision to remove Donald Trump from the ballot last winter because of his support for the January 6th insurrection, as cowardly and grotesque and un-American an event as there has ever been on our soil.

And courage was you, being with me in that decision and signing up to support this campaign and its devotion to our country’s promise and this nation’s future.

Even with so much at stake and so much to risk, we will not stand idly by. We will move, and our movements will become a movement, and that movement will be rooted in our values, our communities, and the hopes and dreams that have inspired a young nation from its birth. A movement that will grow and spread and thrive, breathing life into this country’s future.

Courage is contagious. On not just Patriots’ Day, but every day, I vow to you to not just have courage, but to act courageously. For our families, for our futures, and for each other. And I hope you will do it with me.