Opposing American authoritarianism will require dedicated action and avoiding the temptation to fall into “grim despair” over its advances, said Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.
“It is always a matter of courage and, to be clear, courage is consequential. But we must answer the call anyway because democracy never defends itself,” Jackson said during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Jacksonville, Fla.
“All of us don’t need to show up doing the same thing to secure the freedom of our state, our nation, but we all must show up and do something,” Jackson said during her keynote address at CBF Advocacy’s June 18 Breakfast.
Those who cannot march on the front line should support the effort in other ways as volunteers or donors, she said.
“This is a life-and-death situation right now. This is not just some political swing. This is not just some academic exercise. For those who don’t know, we are not just slipping and backsliding from our democracy. We are there. We are in an authoritarian regime.”
“We are not just slipping and backsliding from our democracy. We are there. We are in an authoritarian regime.”
For the ACLU, showing up included filing more than 430 lawsuits against the first Trump administration and, as of May, filing more than 300 lawsuits and other legal actions since Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025.
The civil rights group also has been actively opposing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose anti-democratic initiatives have led the authoritarian movement, Jackson explained. “In Florida, we have seen a calculated concentration of executive power that has been the model for what is unfolding at the national level.”
DeSantis and his allies have targeted Black, brown, immigrant, low-income and LGBTQ communities with militaristic policies, concentrated wealth and replaced local officials with loyalists regardless of their qualifications, she said.
“The governor has deliberately stretched executive power to its legal limits and beyond its legal limits regardless of our longstanding norms and of our state constitution. He has strong-armed his agenda to feed political ambitions, and the Legislature has been a willing participant in enacting a repressive agenda.”
The challenges Floridians are enduring are not isolated but part of a sustained campaign to reshape democratic participation, erode constitutional rights and consolidate power, Jackson said. “It’s created a dynamic of attrition, one that is designed to overwhelm us, to overwhelm institutions, advocates and communities who are trying to protect these norms.”
And she warned those attending the assembly from other states to take DeSantis’ actions seriously. “Sadly, for all of you who sometimes might ignore states like Texas and Florida, it’s to your peril because what happens here does not stay here.”
Effective response requires organization, education and engagement, Jackson said.
“For people who are committed to protecting democracy, the question is no longer whether additional challenges will emerge, it’s whether we will have the capacity, the infrastructure, the support, the courage to meet them. Each new restriction demands a response. Each unconstitutional law requires legal action, and we are answering the call.”
Jackson said she has “a lot of hope” because of the work of groups like the ACLU and because the advances made by previous generations of civil rights activists who faced immense obstacles.
“The assault on our rights is not new — it’s as American as apple pie. But we can do something about it if we decide that we want to declare our independence, that we want to create a nation of which our descendants would be proud. We can decide to create that right here, right now in this room.”