Hands Off! Our Democracy

A throng of people, most carrying homemade signs, gathered and chanted at the G.W. Andrews Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Opelika last Saturday morning (April 5), one of more than 1,000 Hands Off! demonstrations protesting the policies of the Trump administration.

Hands off! was the appropriate epithet for opposing funding cuts to federal programs and the wholesale firing of federal employees.

I was so pleased to see this turnout and read of other protests around the country — even internationally.

Our Democracy Burns While the Republican Congress Watches

Inflicted by the daily horrors of the Trump administration, I finally channeled my anguish into words and sent the following to my Congressional Representative and Alabama's Senators.

Campaigning for president, Donald Trump promised to reduce inflation and the prices Americans pay for food and gas. He promised to end the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on his first day in office and bring peace to the Middle East.

After being sworn in, however, Donald Trump rewound the clock to a pre-Copernican view that puts the U.S. at the center of the universe. Reflecting this philosophy, he has launched a delusional trade war that will increase prices and inflation and likely start a recession. We’ve already seen the market respond, with companies losing trillions in market value.

To help him dismember the federal government, the president appointed Elon Musk to lead DOGE. Musk — either a government employee or not, depending on who asks the question — was neither on the ballot nor approved by the Senate like the president’s cabinet and other key officials.

Musk’s strategy of moving fast and breaking things may have worked for Twitter, yet it is dangerous when applied to the complex federal government — like giving Musk a scalpel and inviting him to do brain surgery. The impact on many Americans will at least be disruptive, if not tragic. These are our fellow Americans who are being sacrificed to provide tax cuts for the wealthy.

Musk’s power to access federal computer systems and terminate personnel without due process is egregious, especially considering his decisions reflect tremendous conflicts of interest. SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla, X, cyber currency, and other Musk ventures benefit from this corruption. Add Musk flagrantly buying voters, if not votes, proves the Trump administration is converting America to a “democracy” of plutocrats.

The president has made corruption the coin of the realm, a quid-pro-quo currency of campaign contributions, meme coins, and intimidation in the form of executive orders, funding cuts, and social media threats.

Refusing to admit that Russia invaded Ukraine, as he refused to admit that he lost the 2020 election, the president showed his cards to Putin, displaying his longheld animosity for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and undermining the negotiating strength of the U.S.-European-Ukrainian alliance. Putin strung him along, ceding nothing. Only now does the president appear to be waking up, yet with a weak hand to play.

In the Middle East, the president’s peace plan is to evict more than a million Palestinians to who-knows-where, offering no compensation, so he can create a resort built atop the shallow graves of thousands of women and children.

Amidst all this chaos, the Republican-controlled Congress is content to let the administration neuter the legislative branch and convert America to an imperialist kingdom off to conquer Greenland, Panama, and Canada, while renaming landmarks to stroke the president’s ego.

The absurdity would be funny if not tragic.

Have you ever wondered what you would have done if you were in Congress when the Japanese were interned during World War II? You’re doing it now.

Starve the Poor to Feed the Wealthy

The New York Times headline reads

House Passes G.O.P. Budget Teeing Up Enormous Tax and Spending Cuts
The vote cleared the way to enact major elements of President Trump’s domestic agenda and escalated a bitter fight among Republicans over what federal programs to shrink to finance major tax cuts.

Before the vote, I sent the following email to my Congressional representative, Mike Rogers:

I am horrified by President Trump's agenda to dismember the federal government and Congress abdicating its role as co-equal to the executive branch.

To focus on a specific concern, the proposed cuts to Medicaid will impose unconscionable suffering on many Alabamian families — particularly children — while using those "found funds" to further enrich the wealthy. They need no financial assistance and should be paying far more in taxes to support the country that enabled them to become wealthy.

Please put your country above your fealty to the president.