To our Republican friends and neighbors:
In the few short weeks since Inauguration Day, our new “leader” of the Free World has:
Conceded to Vladimir Putin – ahead of any meaningful discussions either with our allies or with Ukraine – his objectives in any settlement that would end his bloody invasion of Ukraine, and accused President Zelensky of starting the war in the first place;
Sent his Vice President to Europe to denigrate our NATO allies and to support the election of the far-right AfD party in Germany;
Threatened to impose tariffs on our partners in USMCA – Canada and Mexico – and other countries, which would worsen inflation in our country and do little to achieve campaign promises – such as protecting American jobs or raising revenues to pay for tax cuts for millionaires;
Fired thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of federal employees without cause and without notice as required for Civil Service employees;
Gutted the work of USAID – the agency charged with the responsibility to distribute American foreign aid, including the produce of American farmers, to needy countries throughout the world – by withholding funding and firing much of its workforce;
Unleashed Elon Musk and his gang of un-vetted “DOGE boys” to capture the files of agencies like the IRS, Social Security, etc., which puts at risk the personal (and formerly private) information of fellow Americans;
Proclaimed himself ”THE KING” in a tweet released on his Truth Social media site on February 18 – and more.
In short, our world is about to become a more dangerous and unfriendly place under our current President. So my question to our friends and neighbors is:
How do you like this guy now?
Steve Clineburg
Easton
Jennifer Beatty Bodine says
I back packed across Western Europe in 1970. Vietnam war was raging. I was not a supporter of the conflict. As I traveled, several fellow travellers suggested I put a Canadian patch/flag on my pack. I would not deny my being an American. There were negative feelings about America’s Vietnam role at the time, but I was proud to be an American. I can no longer say this. The betrayal/extortion of Ukraine is a low I never expected my country to do. I am ashamed of my country. I never thought this could happen.
Hal De Bona says
Sadly, the chirping from the peanut gallery (if any) will likely include either the words or phrase “this is what 77 million voted for” or “he has a mandate.” Which in my opinion is nothing more than a place to hide behind because of embarrassment or shame. Oh, and let’s not forget “look at all the money” that is being saved by reducing waste and fraud! I call BS!! At best, the states will have to pick up the slack of this shell game. And what will be the tab for unemployment benefits to be paid?
Boycott the businesses (Target, Amazon perhaps) that eliminated DEI. RESIST
Deirdre LaMotte says
Agree. The Inspector Generals that were the watch dogs of corruption and have all been fired
found $183.5 BILLION in waste. Trump/Musk wanted them out so they can continue their
corruption of rewarding themselves and their corporate friends.
It is all about the money. For them.
James Wilson says
He can and has set our country back by years. Firing all 1st year probationary hires lost the expertise we will need in the coming years. As for saving money, these salaries are just a pittance compared to the overall scheme of things. And now Musk wants to give back to Americans 20% of the money he is saving the government by illegally firing these employees. Why not give it to the families of those who lost jobs after they have spent thousands to move to a new job, find living spaces, furnishing them, etc, etc. God save us from these madmen and mad men.
Lucy Miziolek says
He is an utter disgrace, a liar, and a fool. Many of our representatives in Congress and the Senate are equally disgraceful and cowardly for not saying what they know is the truth. The cruel and reckless actions coming from the chief of our executive branch are beyond shameful. When will someone have the courage to slay this proverbial monster by standing up for what is right and good. Please, won’t one, just one of our elected republican brain washed and frightened leaders stand up and say yet again, “have you no decency.” How long must we wait before all is lost.
darrell parsons says
And it’s not just the president and Musk. It’s the Republican congress which is enabling both of them. For example, the House of Representatives has proposed a budget in which Medicaid is by far the largest source of spending cuts targeted by their budget resolution. In fact, 44% of their proposed cuts—or $880 billion out of the $2 trillion—are coming from Medicaid, targeting poor children and the disabled. When are we all going to stand up and speak up about this?
Kent Robertson says
Our Federal government has grown unchecked and exponentially for decades. Our Congress has become so polarized that they either can’t or won’t do their job (eg fiscal responsible spending, bureaucratic oversight, comprehensive immigration reform…). Maybe it’s just that the Federal government has gotten TOO BIG for them to control.
We are drowning in debt, I suspect on the precipice of fiscal collapse.
Our schools are failing.
I could go on, but that’s how the conservatives and moderate liberals who voted for Trump see it.
We are delighted to see an administration actually doing what was promised in the campaign.
Do we all like Trump’s style? No, to be sure. But we love his policies.
Surely with such sweeping reform, mistakes will be made. We are willing to watch and wait and see.
Note that I haven’t denigrated or demonized your views. I am just telling you how I and most conservatives see things. That’s what you asked for, wasn’t it?
Let’s have a civil dialogue about what the facts are, what common ground we have, and build on that
Deirdre LaMotte says
Please read. All cited below
On Monday, James Marriott of The Times, published in London, noted that the very stability and comfort of the post–World War II liberal order has permitted the seeds of its own destruction to flourish. A society with firm scientific and political guardrails that protect health and freedom, can sustain “an underbelly of madmen and extremists—medical sceptics, conspiracy types and anti-democratic fantasists.”
“Our society has been peaceful and healthy for so long that for many people serious disaster has become inconceivable,” Marriott writes. “Americans who parade around in amateur militia groups and brandish Nazi symbols do so partly because they are unable to conceive of what life would actually be like in a fascist state.” Those who attack modern medicine cannot really comprehend a society without it. And, Marriott adds, those who are cheering the rise of autocracy in the United States “have no serious understanding of what it means to live under an autocratic government.”
Marriott notes that five Texas counties that make up one of the least vaccinated areas in the U.S. are gripped by a measles outbreak that has infected at least 58 people and hospitalized 13. It may be, Marriot writes, that “[t]he paradise of fools is coming to an end.”
The stability of the U.S.-backed international rules-based order apparently meant that few politicians could imagine that order ending. When President Trump threatened to take the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a key guarantor of global security, Congress responded by passing a law in December 2023 that prohibits a president from withdrawing the U.S. from NATO without the approval of two thirds of the Senate or separate legislation passed by Congress. Then-senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was a co-sponsor of the bill.
Now, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio overseeing the dismantling of U.S. support for our allies and a shift toward Russia, Republican senators appear to be discombobulated. As Joe Perticone reported Tuesday in The Bulwark, there appears to be consensus in Congress that “Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal, NATO is critical to European and global security, and the United States has led the common defense. But Republicans just backed a presidential candidate and voted to confirm several key cabinet officials who do not accept those realities. Confronted with the consequences of their support for Trump and votes for his nominees, Perticone notes, Republican lawmakers are apparently shocked.
At home, the relative stability of American democracy in the late twentieth century allowed politicians to win office with the narrative that the government was stifling individualism, taking money from hardworking taxpayers to provide benefits to the undeserving.
Although the actual size of the federal workforce has shrunk slightly in the last fifty years even while the U.S. population has grown by about 68%, the Republican Party insisted that the government was wasting tax dollars, usually on racial, religious, or gender minorities. That claim became an article of faith for MAGA voters and reliably turned them out to vote. Now, political scientist Adam Bonica’s research shows that the firings at DOGE are “a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as…left-leaning.”
But the Trump administration’s massive and random cuts to the federal workforce are revealing that the narrative of government waste does not line up with reality. According to Linda F. Hersey of Stars and Stripes, about one third of all federal workers are veterans, while veterans make up only about 5% of the civilian workforce. In fiscal year 2023, about 25% of the federal government’s new hires were veterans, and they have been hit hard by the firings that cut people who were in their first year or two of service. “Let’s call this what it is—it is a middle finger to our heroes and their lives of service,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) who sits on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs and Armed Services committees and is herself a disabled veteran.
Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported today that Republican lawmakers are panicked over this weekend’s firings, concerned about the fired veterans and the firings of USDA and CDC employees who were dealing with the spreading outbreak of bird flu that is threatening the nation’s poultry, cattle, house cats, and humans.
Since Trump took office just a month ago, cuts to government spending have also hit Republican voters hard, and those hits look to be continuing. In June 2024, Ella Nilsen and Renée Rigdon of CNN reported that nearly 78% of the announced investments from the Inflation Reduction Act in initiatives that address climate change went to Republican congressional districts. Today the Financial Times noted that House Republicans are in the position of cutting the law that brought more than $130 billion to their districts.
Now Republicans are talking about cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and supplemental food programs, although Republican-dominated counties rely on those programs more than Democratic-dominated counties do. Yesterday, on the Fox News Channel, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, praised the Department of Government Efficiency because it was “going to cut a trillion dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse.” Lutnick told personality Jesse Watters, “You know Social Security is wrong, you know Medicare and Medicaid is wrong, so he’s going to cut one trillion.”
The administration and the Department of Government Efficiency insist they are getting rid of “massive waste, fraud, and abuse” that they claim has lurked in the government for decades; House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said that Congress has not been able to make those cuts in the past because “the deep state has hidden it from us.”
In fact, neither the administration nor DOGE has produced evidence for their claims of cutting waste. Instead, fact-checkers have pointed out so many errors and exaggerations in their claims that observers are questioning what they’re really doing. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who ran the Social Security Administration under Biden, told Jane C. Timm of NBC News: “There’s unelected people that are being given powers to go through and rummage through our personal data for reasons that nobody can quite figure out yet. It’s not for efficiency.”
Indeed, federal government spending since Trump took office is actually higher than it’s been in recent years.
Finally, it appears that the strength and stability of American democracy have also meant that lawmakers somehow cannot really believe that the U.S. is falling into authoritarianism. Today, in a 51–49 vote, all but two Republican senators voted to confirm Kash Patel as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voted with all the Democrats and Independents to oppose Patel’s confirmation. In a 2023 book, Patel published a list of more than 50 current or former U.S. officials that he claims are members of the “deep state” and are a “dangerous threat to democracy.” Opponents worry he will use the FBI to target those and other people he thinks are insufficiently loyal to Trump.
The reason Americans created the government that the Trump administration is now dismantling was that in the 1930s, they knew very well the dangers of authoritarianism. On February 20, 1939, in honor of President George Washington’s birthday, Nazis held a rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. More than 20,000 people showed up for the “true Americanism” event, which was held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.
Just two years later, Americans went to war against fascism.
Over the next century they worked to build a liberal order, one that had strong scientific and political guardrails.
—
Notes:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/b3bbc99e-e2dc-480e-92fc-bbd7c7c3abc0
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2025-02-19/measles-cases-spread-in-texas-and-new-mexico-as-trump-purges-federal-health-workers
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-government-too-big-reflections-on-the-size-and-composition-of-todays-federal-government/
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2025-02-19/veterans-federal-firings-trump-musk-16888063.html
https://www.kaine.senate.gov/in-the-news/congress-approves-bill-barring-presidents-from-unilaterally-exiting-nato
https://substack.com/home/post/p-157392624
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/health/bird-flu-cats-michigan.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-cats-wild-coast-raw-recall-warnings/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/opinion/bird-flu-farmers-dairy.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/20/gop-lawmaker-doge-cut-panic-00205282
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/doge-dives-into-core-national-defense-and-data-systems-across-government
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/doge-days-musk-trump-tout-cuts-fraud-claims-are-debunked-rcna192217
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/16/climate/clean-energy-investment-republicans/index.html
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-social-security-medicaid-cuts-howard-lutnick-b2701817.html
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/americans-government-aid-social-security-medicare-unemployment-34e92b19
https://apnews.com/article/medicaid-cuts-work-requirements-congress-republicans-90ec1119f1d95de067c76f79eec7fa87
“22,000 Nazis Hold Rally in Garden,” The New York Times, February 21, 1939; Ryan Bort, “When Nazis Took Over Madison Square Garden,” Rolling Stone, February 19, 2019.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/30/politics/kash-patel-critics-fbi-takeover/index.html
Bluesky:
carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3lime3waaa22t
volts.wtf/post/3limysb6gcc2g
adambonica.bsky.social/post/
Richard Marks says
Kent,
I appreciate your input and agree we need to get our house in order financially. And, I would like to participate in civil discussions, but confess it is difficult to do so when witnessing the actions Trump has taken. When you call yourself the law and order president and then pardon felons; when you dismantle DEI initiatives, but then put unqualified people in critical positions; when you show such little regard for our allies and our veterans and callous disregard for people suffering and belittle people like a schoolyard bully, it is very difficult to ignore the hypocrisy and have a healthy discussion. I have friends who echo your words, “I don’t like his behavior, but I like his policies.” Frankly, I have a hard time understanding his policies since they change so often to fit a situation. And, knowing his past failures in business, I simply do not trust his capabilities. I would like to be wrong since there is so much at stake, but at some point I believe operating transactionally could backfire. Not sure we have time to wait and see.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Hi Richard,
From all the research I have, Trump was picked as an asset in the late 1980s because of his narcissism and neediness, sadly an easy target and common for these spies to charm. A number of KGB operatives now have confirmed this about Trump. It is simple, he is not only a felon but should be tried for treason. Given the richest man in the world, who has access to all our financial and medical information is controlling the GOP with primary dollars, nothing will be done. All must be done on the cellular level: Indivisible and getting involved on Substack.The Contrarian is my new favorite forum as well. Our elected GOP Rep is in the thick of this and most likely behind Jan. 6, 2021. He is following in his Nazi father’s footsteps. Yeah, very grim but the dye has been cast.
Get involved. Speak out. Do not worry about offending because Fascism is the most offensive of all.
Connie Lauffer says
I’m envisioning all the firings, defundings, withholding of support, backing out of alliances and other horrors creating an empathetic group of the offended and that we will begin to see the loud opposition necessary to begin to turn the tide away from madness to sanity.
Reed Fawell 3 says
Connie – hard but critically needed change is not “madness”. It is courage to change a highly dysfunctional republic critically in need of it to survive.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Ah, what was “highly dysfunctional”? Democracy? Is that what you are obviously questioning?
Do you not understand that the whole point of our system is “Checks and Balances”? Do you not
understand that the process is deliberately slow and that is the point? Do you not object to
Patrimonialism? Look it up. That is what Trump is and it is destroying our nation. Oh, unless you are a fascist.
I understand Hungary is hungry for fascist. Just saying…
Gerry Levin says
Putin says jump. Trump says how high?
America is in serious trouble.
John Schreiner says
He’s the jerk I expected only worse. Literally off the wall. What a self centered bully. Clearly needing control and balance.
Joan Murray says
Trump will lay off people, then send them checks with his huge signature on them saying how much money he has saved them. Trump’s supporters will be thrilled and think they have received bonuses.