Overwhelmed Yet Taking Notes

Nearing seven months of the second Trump presidency, I’m overwhelmed with the steps this administration has already taken to pervert and dismember our democracy. Their strategy of flooding the zone is working. Every day, something egregious, at least one if not multiple actions.

Commenting on Robert Hubble’s Substack post today, a reader copied a list of Trump’s authoritarian actions published by the Caledonian-Record, a conservative newspaper in St. Johnsbury, Vermont (in the northeast corner of Vermont, not far from New Hampshire). This is the publisher’s list:

For the record, our concern about Donald Trump’s leadership is not about party loyalty; it’s about democratic norms. His record includes:

Capturing the justice system through politicized prosecutions and intimidation of judges and lawyers;

Purging and politicizing the civil service via loyalty tests, watchlists, and removals;

Overusing emergency powers to bypass Congress on trade, immigration, and security;

Manipulating elections through extreme gerrymandering, weakening voting-rights enforcement, and politicizing election machinery;

Using domestic militarization for routine policing and threatening cross-border military actions;

Pressuring universities and civil society through funding freezes, punitive settlements, and licensing leverage;

Politicizing science by deleting datasets, blocking research, and controlling grant decisions;

Undermining independent media through defunding, blacklists, and legal harassment;

Profiting from public office through conflicts of interest, foreign gifts, and opaque schemes;

Weaponizing tariffs against allies;

Undermining immigration rights, including birthright citizenship;

Attacking diversity, equity, inclusion, and civil rights infrastructure;

Rolling back equal-protection enforcement;

Weakening social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and student debt relief.

We believe these are not conservative values — they are authoritarian ones. Between the loss of local journalism and the normalization of such tactics, all Americans, regardless of politics, stand to lose.

Now, if I’m asked why I don’t support the president, rather than staring like a deer in the headlights at the incredulity of the question, I can simply show this list and say, “Pick one.”

I and Thou: Bridging the Divide

I led the service at the Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (AUUF) on July 20, asking whether constructive conversations can help bridge the political polarization in this country.

Help is an important qualifier: I believe constructive conversations can help if we approach them with an open heart. In the words of Ghandi,

"If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him... We need not wait to see what others do".

Listen to the podcast version of my homily.

The Depravity Just Keeps Piling On

Like my mother's old pressure cooker, when the pressure builds to a certain level, the valve must release it. In this case, it was this news about the SecDef that triggered an email to Senator Britt.

Pete Hegseth’s recent post on X, sharing the CNN documentary with Pastor Doug Wilson of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches and adding “All of Christ for All of Life,” is troubling:

How does the SecDef have time to post on X, given his vast responsibilities to preserve national security? Hegseth should be focused on ensuring that the U.S. defense capability will counter the threat from China. Instead, he seems focused on culture war issues like cruelly discharging trans people from the service. China’s president Xi Jinping and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin must relish every moment U.S. officials are distracted from their core responsibilities.

Also troubling is the inferred endorsement of a theology that repeals a woman’s right to vote and returns women to the household to submit to their husbands. Senator, if you can’t vote, you certainly can’t serve in the U.S. Senate. I hope you regret your vote to confirm Hegseth as SecDef.

Prices are rising. Legal immigrants and U.S. citizens are being kidnapped by masked ICE goons, detained and deported without due process. Off-and-on tariffs are stalling business investment. After being interviewed by the Deputy Attorney General, Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a minimum security prison, suggesting a quid pro quo to preserve the president’s “innocence.” The president’s new golf resort in Scotland adds to a growing list of corrupt actions, from the meme coin to accepting a 747 from Qatar that will require close to $1 billion to serve as Air Force One. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is ongoing, while innocent Palestinians are dying in Gaza with no clear path to freeing the remaining Israeli hostages.

The Republican Congress is enabling this authoritarian regime. You’ve lost all moral standing and will be judged harshly by history. Is this the legacy you want to leave for your children?

One Big Beautiful Bill Passes

Vice President J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to approve the BBB in the Senate; today, the House passed the bill — despite the substantial changes in the Senate — by 218 to 214. The president will sign it tomorrow, July 4, the deadline he imposed.

Perhaps this will give the Democrats a needed boost. We'll have to await the 2026 midterm election to see whose narrative prevails: the Republican's extending the tax cuts and securing the border or the Democrat's taking from the poor (cutting Medicaid and SNAP) to give tax breaks to the rich.

Not content to wait for the midterms, I shared my views with Senator Britt and Representative Rogers:

The passage of the misnamed One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the low point of my 72 years as an American. A corrupt president and a sycophant, Republican-led Congress have enacted legislation that robs services from the poor and infirm to reward the richest Americans, who do not need financial support yet provide the money to line Congressional pockets.

With the passage of this legislation, your own Congressional Budget Office estimates at least 11 million will lose health insurance due to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts. More than 3 million will lose SNAP benefits. These numbers belie the absurd Republican claim that the bill will only reduce waste and fraud.

Beyond Congress ignoring the adverse impact on so many Americans, the CBO estimates the bill will raise the federal debt by some $3.4 trillion to 124 percent of GDP. Increasing the debt used to be the third rail for Republicans — at least when a Democrat was president.

I cannot fathom your “proud” vote to support this legislation and your fealty to a corrupt, authoritarian administration that is desecrating the founding principles and Constitution.

Given your disregard for the values that have been the bedrock of my life as an American. I will do all I can to elect non-MAGA representatives to the Senate and House who will faithfully serve in a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

King Trump and the Republican Congress. Image generated by ChatGPT.

Kill The One Big Beautiful Bill

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act — yes, that's the actual name — is moving through Congress, approved by the House and now being considered by the Senate.

With so many provisions in the legislation, passing it in the House was a near miracle, aided by urging with threats from President Trump. The Senate has started changing the bill while being pushed to pass their version and send it back to the House for approval in time for the president to sign it by July 4.

With significant policy divisions among Republicans in the Senate and between the Senate and the House, passage is uncertain. Yet the president's coaxing and threats that moved it through the House have given it momentum. More coaxing and threats aimed at hesitant Republican Senators may well get the bill through the Senate, with the same strategy used to gain House approval of the Senate's bill.

Despite the odds of betting against the fealty of Congress, I've urged my Senators to vote "no."

Please vote against President Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” Big, yes. Beautiful, no.

The CBO estimates the version approved by the House will increase the debt by $2.8 trillion. Increasing the nation’s debt is supposedly antithetical to Republican orthodoxy, justifying a vote against the bill.

Attempting to minimize this increase, 8–11 million people will lose Medicaid benefits, millions more who receive SNAP assistance. This is hardly just waste, fraud, and abuse. The cuts will hurt the lowest-income Americans to benefit those with the highest incomes. Another reason to vote against the bill.

The provision to shield AI companies from state and local laws for 10 years will simply enable AI companies to exploit the public and the economy without accountability for the adverse effects, which will likely be irreversible. Historically, technology companies have not addressed the negative impact on society until forced by regulation, often too late. Consider the impact social media has on our children. Congress lacks the intelligence and the will to effectively manage AI. Our only hope lies with the states. Yet another reason to vote “no.”

There are numerous other adverse effects hidden within this bill that will take years to discover and will be difficult to undo.

I urge you to vote “no” and demonstrate that Congress is an equal branch of government, not simply a rubber stamp for the president.

Trump’s Tariff Strategy Seeking a Safe Harbor

Long a proponent of the benefits of tariffs, Donald Trump claims they will fund his proposed tax cuts and revive American manufacturing.

There is near-unanimous consensus among economists that tariffs are self-defeating and have a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth. Source: Wikipedia.

Despite the consensus among economists that tariffs are a hidden tax on American consumers, if Donald Trump believes something, it must be so. Well, it can be deemed so if you’re the most powerful person on the globe.

Yet the implementation of his tariff strategy has been highly erratic — on and off, stair-stepping up and down, country to country, product to product. Heather Cox Richardson, in her Letters from an American, reports, “Trump has changed tariff policies at least 50 times” through May 30.

The voyage of the HMS Trump Tariffs, created by ChatGPT.

Trump’s consistently inconsistent behavior has birthed an investment strategy based on TACO, for “Trump always chickens out.” Buy an investment when the price falls after a tariff announcement, then sell at a profit when Trump backs down and the price recovers.

I’m hoping this arm of Trump’s octopus will be cut off after a ruling from the U.S. Court of International Trade earlier this week said a president does not have “unbounded authority” to impose such global tariffs. The U.S. Court of Appeals has granted a temporary stay to allow the judges time to review the ruling and the administration’s arguments in favor of broad, unilateral tariff policiies. May it only be temporary.

Meanwhile, the trade winds keep blowing.

The Big Beautiful Bill

President Trump's so-called big beautiful bill to extend the tax cuts from his first administration and pay for them through cuts to federal spending — programs like Medicaid and SNAP — is struggling to be birthed by the House. Not hopeful that it will die in the House, I felt obligated to express my opposition to my Congressional representative:

Representative Rogers,

While House Republicans were holding middle-of-the-night hearings on the president’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” the CBO was analyzing the impact of the legislation, if passed:

The CBO estimates the tax provisions in the proposed bill will add some $3.8 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

After decades of Republican arguments during Democratic administrations that the federal debt must be reduced, the Republican hypocrisy is unfortunate, although not surprising. The tax cuts of the Bush and first Trump administrations fueled the debt. Why should we expect the second Trump administration to change behavior?

It’s not what you say, but rather what you do.

The CBO analysis also projects that the top 10% of earners will receive about 65% of the tax cut benefits. The cuts to social programs like Medicaid and SNAP will cause households in the lowest quintile to lose about $1,035 in income next year. That’s substantial for low-income Alabamians, who are living on the margins.

Not surprisingly, the CBO analysis contradicts Republican claims that the bill will not cut benefits, that it will only eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.

As expected, you’re taking from the poor to further enrich the rich. We see no consideration of increasing the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, who can afford to support the country that has enabled their success.

I urge you to have the courage to oppose this legislation. You were elected by the people of your district, not by President Trump.

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Addensum: The House narrowly passed the bill on Thursday, May 22, by a vote of 215-214. All 212 Democrats present voted against the bill, joined by two Republicans. One Republican representative voted "present," and two did not vote. Mike Rogers supported the bill.

The bill moves on to the Senate.

The People’s Town Hall for Mike Rogers

Indivisible Auburn-Opelika held a town hall meeting for Representative Mike Rogers last night. Well over 100 of us showed up to listen to speakers and express our concerns and questions to the absent Congressman, represented by a cardboard figure.

The invited speakers described the impact of the Trump administration’s funding cuts locally, which have degraded university research, health policy, USAID program support in the U.S., disaster relief, and military preparedness.

I learned many specifics about how the administration’s actions are harming the state and local region and felt the satisfaction of showing up and being seen. “A people united cannot be defeated.”

After the event, I sent the following to Mike Rogers:

I was disappointed that you did not attend tonight’s town hall meeting in Opelika to hear and respond to your constituents’ concerns and questions. Since you weren’t there, I will relay my thoughts via this email.

I have a long, long list of concerns about President Trump’s administration and Republicans in Congress enabling his malfeasance. However, I’ll shorten my list to the following:

Despite the Republican talking points, the proposed budget that the House is developing will slash safety net programs like Medicaid. The cuts will hurt many Alabamians, pushing them even deeper into financial despair.

To propose such cuts to extend Donald Trump’s tax cuts without any tax increase on the richest Americans is unconscionable. Any member of Congress who votes for this draconian legislation seems either tone deaf or uncaring, arguably subservient to the oligarchs.

I ask you to vote against these cuts and, if you’re serious about reducing the deficit, to support tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

Second, President Trump has called for ending the CHIPS and Science Act, claiming his tariffs will restore America’s manufacturing base, including semiconductors.

I’ve spent my 45-year career in the semiconductor industry and have witnessed the loss of U.S. leadership in the latest process technologies and wafer fabs. The CHIPS Act is a successful public-private partnership to establish process technology and manufacturing within the U.S. One focus is developing high-performance and trusted manufacturing capabilities for defense systems.

A new wafer fabrication facility is a multi-billion-dollar investment with a decades-long life cycle. Halting the investments started under the CHIPS Act because of the president’s ignorant, ill-conceived, and mercurial tariffs will undermine the country’s ability to invest in our semiconductor future.

Please oppose any legislation or executive order to curtail or cancel the CHIPS Act.

Restricting the Freedom to Think

We used to cherish freedom in this country, considering it a foundation for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No longer. Trump's America is looking more like Russia and China.

After decrying what they considered censorship of conservative ideas, conservatives are attempting to censor the ideas they find dissonant with their world views. They call these ideas divisive concepts, like racism and the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The library at the Naval Academy has now been purified.

Post by @garylerude@mindly.social

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Trump's Vulnerability Flows Downhill

In a recent Substack post, Timothy Snyder identifies a core weakness of President Trump that weakens America: his belief that everyone is ripping him off, or trying to unless he gets them first. It’s a zero-sum game.

This fueled his apparently long-held belief that a trade deficit is bad and tariffs are the solution, which led him to launch a trade war with virtually every country on the globe. Only the rising interest rate on 10-year Treasury notes prompted him to pause before we saw economic Armegadden.

Snyder’s article inspired me to write my Congressional representatives in Washington. I don’t expect to change their opinions, but I felt better hitting “send.”

Historian Timothy Snyder points to President Trump’s core vulnerability: He always thinks everyone is trying to rip him off. This deep-seated irrationality focused on the balance of trade caused the maelstrom around tariffs. Only the rising rates on 10-year Treasury notes prompted the president to largely retreat — except for tariffs on China, which won’t kiss the president’s ring.

Other than keeping reporters and cable and podcast pundits busy, the outcome of this insanity will be higher prices for consumers.

In a recent Substack article, Snyder writes, “We have thousands of years of political theory and indeed great literature to instruct us on this point: too much power brings out the worst in people — especially among the worst of people. As the founders understood, the purpose of the rule of law, of checks and balances, of regular elections, is to prevent precisely such a situation. Allowing our republic to be compromised has many costs, for example to our rights, and to our dignity. But it also has costs in a very basic economic sense. When you elevate the mad king, you elevate the madness.”

Are you willing to enable four years of madness?

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.