I am just horrified by what President Trump and Elon Musk are doing to our country. I want to share my thoughts with you because I feel our democracy is in great danger. All of us, of all parties, must unite to keep our country from sliding into authoritarianism.
You know, less than half the country voted for Trump. And nobody voted for Musk. Certainly nobody would have intentionally voted to demolish our democracy and submit to being governed by an unrestrained oligarch. But that’s what is happening. Trump’s actions show utter disdain for the other co-equal branches of government, and he is trying to usurp their authority and govern as an autocrat. “The President’s agenda” is being invoked like the word of God.
Trump is trampling the authority of Congress by teaming up with Musk to unlawfully dismantle and defund agencies that have a mission and budget approved by Congress and a purpose to promote the general welfare as the Constitution prescribes.
In an unprecedented move, Trump is dangerously politicizing the military by firing top officers and JAG officers. Five former Democratic and Republican secretaries of defense joined in condemning this, saying this had nothing to do with warfighting and was done for partisan purposes against all tradition. George Washington warned against politicizing the military.
Now, Trump and his people are attacking the judiciary with unrelenting venom. We even saw his border czar Tom Homan saying “I don’t care what the judge thinks.” This is a blatant attempt to undermine the rule of law and is increasing actual harassment and threats against judges. And we know from experience Trump’s capacity to incite violence. Conservative former judges (who are definitely not “radical lunatic leftists”) are speaking out against Trump’s attempt to subvert the constitutional authority of the courts. Trump is fashioning an authoritarian regime.
And outrages just keep coming.
Just this week, there’s the serious security breach on the Signal chat app that at least eight top officials, including top intelligence officials (isn’t that rich!), participated in. They should all be fired. Any other federal worker would be. There’s our head Russia negotiator saying that Trump’s peace plan is to let Russia keep all the Ukrainian territory it occupies and even get some it does not. And today there is the Speaker of the House talking about abolishing some federal courts. And I haven’t even mentioned Canada. I mean, who else in the whole country even wants to attack Canada?
Donald Trump dishonors our Constitution, egregiously lies to us, and is funneling money away from us to give to the rich. We wanted policies that would lead to lower grocery prices, affordable housing, greater income equality, reduction of the national debt and security on the world stage. That’s certainly not what we’re getting from Donald Trump.
All I can say is that We the People have to stick together because as long as Trump and Musk are in charge this is not going to end well for anybody but the oligarchs.
Kathryn Lassiter
La Center
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