![\"Sabrina](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Sabrina-Haake007.jpg\")
Sabrina Haake<\/p>\nSabrina Haake<\/p>\n
Yesterday I played tennis with a couple players I\u2019d never met before.\u00a0 We met at Chicago\u2019s\u00a0Waveland Park<\/a>\u00a0along Lake Michigan, where we played next to a leafy municipal golf course\u00a0built in 1901.<\/a><\/p>\n About 30 minutes into our set, something extraordinary happened. Just as I was serving, ten or so ominous-looking helicopters came flying out of nowhere from the east. Matte brown, thundering low to the ground, they reminded me of military tanks Trump recently sent to scare people in LA\u2019s\u00a0MacArthur\u2019s Park<\/a>. The choppers didn\u2019t say \u2018ICE,\u2019 \u201cCoast Guard,\u2019 or any words I could see, but they were on a loud and intimidating mission all the same.<\/p>\n I stood transfixed. For a moment, standing safely on a tennis court, in a grand municipal park of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I caught a glimpse of living under siege. I thought of cities turned to rubble under direct orders from Hitler,\u00a0Putin<\/a>,\u00a0Netanyahu<\/a>\u00a0and other\u00a0authoritarians cursing the planet<\/a>\u00a0who brutalize the \u201cother\u201d for power. In that instant, intuiting that Trump\u00a0calls Democrat-run cities<\/a>\u00a0\u201cwar zones\u201d because\u00a0he plans to make them so<\/a>, I saw the violence to come from\u00a0republicans giving Trump $170 billion to arm domestic ICE<\/a>\u00a0agents: the deafening noise, the surprise of imminent sweep.<\/p>\n But instead of feeling intimidated or afraid, I was overwhelmed with an odd emotion: anger. I instinctively swung my racket at the helicopters with my left hand, while the middle finger of my right hand shot up to the sky. I started jumping in place and screaming at the helicopters like an insane person, \u201cFuck You!! Fuck You!! Fuck You!!,\u201d wet with tears of rage.<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t embarrassed. I didn\u2019t care if I\u2019d embarrassed the friend who\u2019d invited me, either. I didn\u2019t know if her friends were MAGA and it didn\u2019t matter. I screamed with righteous abandon, even as I imagined the choppers turning back to open fire on the lot of us.<\/p>\n Defiance is patriotic<\/strong><\/p>\n My middle finger has a recurrent case of\u00a0Tourrets<\/a>; it gets stuck upright every time I walk by the\u00a0Trump<\/a>\u00a0high rise defacing Chicago\u2019s\u00a0river view<\/a>. But that\u2019s not remarkable.<\/p>\n What\u00a0was\u00a0extraordinary was that, while I assumed my playmates were either disgusted at my outburst or waiting for my serve, they weren\u2019t. All three of these middle aged, white women some would call\u00a0bougie<\/a>\u00a0were giving the same salute to the helicopters, perhaps with a tad less vigor.<\/p>\n Then I looked at the courts surrounding us\u2014we were playing on the second of six full courts\u2014 and saw that we weren\u2019t alone. Standing on one court to the west and four courts to the east, every single player, singles or doubles, had stopped playing, arrested by the rumbling sky overhead.<\/p>\n When I saw that all the players around me were doing the exact same thing I was doing, the bitter tears turned sweet.<\/p>\n Conflicted emotions<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to say it was a proud moment. I don\u2019t feel proud for hating my government. I don\u2019t feel proud to reflexively disrespect the military by conflating it with the\u00a0drunk who commands it<\/a>.\u00a0 I know that\u2019s unfair, even as I worry about enlisted troops serving under a Fox News clown, especially after he botched\u00a0Signalgate<\/a>, Iran\u2019s enriched\u00a0uranium<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the withholding of weapons for Ukraine.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Plus, I come from a military family. My dad and his dad retired from the Navy, my brother was in the Marines, two aunts and an uncle served in the Air Force, etc.<\/p>\n But my anger, and that of everyone else on the courts that morning, wasn\u2019t at the people in the choppers. It was at their Commander in Chief, an unhinged and dangerous man who should\u2019ve been taken down already\u00a0under the 25th Amendment<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our anger wasn\u2019t subversive. It was patriotic, and it was electrifying. It restored hope just when the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0rapid fire perfidy<\/a>\u00a0had almost erased it.<\/p>\n Politicizing the military puts service members at risk<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m guessing people on the courts saluting the choppers had seen footage of ICE goons, tanks, and roof-mounted military rifles\u00a0terrorizing soccer players at LA\u2019s MacArthur\u2019s park<\/a>. Or maybe they saw the\u00a0video that went viral<\/a>\u00a0of masked criminals with ICE badges repeatedly punching and beating a landscaper, a portly middle-aged father of\u00a0three US Marines<\/a>. Or it could have been a segment on the nightly news showing ICE raiding a farm with\u00a0giddy brutality, using tear gas on peaceful protestors who ran, clutching their eyes.<\/a><\/p>\n Whatever horrors inspired them, their tiny acts of defiance on the tennis courts, as ridiculous as it may sound, made me proud to be an American. It made me proud, even as I know in my bones that Trump\u2019s immigration raids will soon encompass other undesirables, and that I am one such undesirable. It made me proud, even as I sense that his detention centers will likely, within the year, imprison political adversaries and media figures who criticize him.\u00a0<\/p>\n I know the violence and injustice that are coming, and I still feel proud of where it sits with me. I feel proud because, more than fear, I feel anger.<\/p>\n I feel anger at an \u201cAttorney General\u201d telling Americans they\u2019d\u00a0better watch out<\/a>. I feel angry that our \u201cHomeland Security\u201d Secretary says ICE will\u00a0hunt<\/a>\u00a0detractors down. I feel anger\u2014and disgust\u2014 at a \u201cpresident\u201d who announces, on the 4th\u00a0of July,\u00a0that he \u201chates\u201d over half the citizens in our country<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump, Bondi, Hegseth and Noem are grotesqueries wrapped in American flags, and 166 million Americans\u00a0who did not vote for Trump<\/a>\u00a0see them for what they are. Trump may well get the Civil War he\u2019s itching for, but he and his posse will eventually lose, and every one of them will be held to account.<\/p>\n People resisting Trump are the best, brightest and bravest of America; we are the true Revolutionary throwbacks unwilling to love a king. We so fiercely love our imperfect country and the perfect ideals it stands for that no force of darkness will\u00a0ever\u00a0be able to defeat it.<\/p>\n Middle fingers on Chicago tennis courts delivered that optimistic clarity more forcefully than any op ed ever could.<\/p>\n