Miranda Levi

I do not think now is the time to stay quiet.

I think silence is being manufactured and rewarded. I think there are powerful men in this country who are counting on people being tired, scared, distracted, and isolated enough to keep their heads down while cruelty is dressed up as policy. I think they want our silence because silence is useful to them.

Mine is not for sale.

So let me be plain about who I am and where I stand: I am not ashamed to be a democratic socialist. I am not ashamed to believe that people deserve food, housing, healthcare, education, bodily autonomy, and dignity. I am not ashamed to believe that a government should take care of human beings before it takes care of billionaires, bombs, detention centers, and men who think power is the same thing as virtue.

I am done pretending this country is broke.

Congress found $170.7 billion for immigration and border enforcement in H.R. 1, including $45 billion for detention, and Reuters later reported that ICE planned to spend $38.3 billion in 2026 alone on detention centers. At the same time, the administration is pushing a $1.5 trillion defense budget, while the White House budget director said he could not estimate the cost of the war with Iran. There is money. There has always been money. They are choosing cages and war over people.

That is the part I need people to sit with. We are constantly told that helping people is too expensive. Feeding children is too expensive. Housing families is too expensive. Healthcare is too expensive. Student debt relief is too expensive. But SNAP spending was about $101.7 billion in FY2025, which means the immigration enforcement package alone is worth more than a year and a half of federal food assistance at recent levels. This is not about scarcity. It is about priorities. It is about who gets treated like a human being and who gets treated like a problem to be managed.

So yes, I am saying this clearly: ICE should be abolished.

Not renamed. Not softened with better branding. Not wrapped in gentler language. Abolished.

An agency handed tens of billions to expand detention is not being built for mercy. It is being built for control and to process human suffering more efficiently. That is not moral and I don’t believe that it’s necessary. History won’t look kindly on the people who defended it.

This war with Iran is not okay.

I don’t care what slogan gets slapped on it. I don’t care how many flags they wave while they do it. If you are asking people to accept a war you cannot even price honestly while ordinary families are struggling to buy groceries, pay rent, afford medication, or survive one emergency without falling apart, then what you are asking for is not patriotism. It is obedience. I am not interested in offering it. Reuters reported that the administration is seeking that $1.5 trillion military budget even while it has offered no real estimate for what this war will cost. That should outrage everyone.

Women have already paid for Donald Trump’s politics.

Reuters reported that Trump’s Supreme Court appointees were decisive in overturning Roe v. Wade. Since then, abortion bans have spread across the country. Guttmacher reporting cited in 2026 coverage says 13 states have strict abortion bans in effect, and Johns Hopkins researchers estimated that abortion bans were associated with 478 excess infant deaths across the states they studied. These are not abstract culture-war talking points. These are rights taken away, bodies controlled, fear institutionalized, and real harm measured after the fact.

And on Epstein, I do not have a complicated position.

Every single person proven to have trafficked children, raped children, bought access to children, assaulted women, or enabled that abuse should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Every one of them. I do not care how rich they are. I do not care how famous they are. I do not care which party they belong to, which donor list they are on, or how many favors they have traded over expensive dinners. If they hurt children, if they trafficked women, if they protected abusers, they should face the highest legal consequences available.

At the same time, I care about truth, which means I am not going to pretend that rumor is the same thing as proof. The DOJ says it released nearly 3.5 million pages under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but it also warned that the production includes material that may be fake or falsely submitted. Fine. Then investigate all of it. Bring evidence. Build cases. File charges. Stop letting wealth and power function like a shield.

This is the part where some people get nervous and want women especially to soften what we mean. To say it prettier. To make it more polite. To leave room for everyone’s comfort.

I am not interested in comforting cruelty, so let me say it louder for the people in the back row.

I am interested in people.
I am interested in whether children eat.
I am interested in whether families have housing.
I am interested in whether women can control their own bodies.
I am interested in whether immigrants are treated like human beings.
I am interested in whether powerful predators are finally dragged into the light and prosecuted.
I am interested in whether we can build a country that values care more than punishment.

That is not extremism. That is humanity.

So yes: tax the wealthy. Feed the poor. House people. Fund healthcare. Protect bodily autonomy. End the machinery of cruelty. Stop pouring billions into cages and war while pretending compassion is unaffordable.

And if you support caging immigrants, stripping away women’s rights, funding war while people suffer, or protecting men who prey on women and children because they are rich, powerful, or politically useful, then do not buy my books. You are not my audience. You are not aligned with anything I value. And the moment I know the truth of what you believe, I will know exactly where to place my respect.

People matter.

Human life matters.

And I am done acting like that should be controversial.