If you’re like me, you just can’t take it anymore. Every day it’s another travesty, another insane, infuriating action, more posturing, evasion, and lies, more threats to a midterm election, along with a heightened possibility of expanding wars, a global economic crisis, increased likelihood of living in a full-blown fascist autocracy, and on a planet in doubt of survival.
Post-Greenland and Venezuela, fantasies of controlling Canada and Cuba keep appearing, while admired oligarchs see a window to controlling Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Add to that the copious fears of what is already happening here. Enormous ICE prison camps are about to exist in several states where increasing brutality and violence towards people of color, unwelcome religious beliefs, human rights violations - including withheld healthcare, wormy food, floor sleeping and bodily abuse are ubiquitous - as is denial of habeas corpus, and access to family or lawyers. A ramped up domestic police force drunk on power enjoys assaulting mostly innocent people and dragging them into unmarked vans heading for deportation airports and lockups.
Along with that Senator Adam Schiff noted in a Facebook post last month that the buildup of lethal military weapons is happening on a “scale [that] is staggering and the intent is terrifying.”
An alarming possibility is increased terror attacks by cells already in this country. Historian Timothy Snyder raised this issue in a recent Substack post, quoting himself from his book On Tyranny. “Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book.” He adds “If we choose to be surprised, we co-create a moment that Trump will exploit to undo what remains of our democracy.”
All the while Republicans in Congress and incompetent sycophants who lack relevant experience in Trump’s Cabinet refuse to grow backbones or study the lessons of history, preferring to kiss their king’s gold ring to avoid being accountable so they can hold onto what little power they have. Meanwhile the king is happy to sign off on whatever Steven Miller and others present to him. He is too busy trying to build a ballroom, plaster his image on buildings, cultural centers, airports, and possibly currency, while arranging praise and parades, while blathering incoherently in public appearances and dragging out press briefings. It’s pure Stalinism, except perhaps for the incoherence.
Meanwhile we’ve already seen Americans suffering because of cuts to agencies like FEMA, NOAA, EPA, NIH, CDC, HHS, FAA, the Departments of Education and Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, CDC, HHS, Commerce, Energy, and USAID. Other vital organizations that keep us healthy and safe in times of crisis, often with the help of research funds, have had to cancel key programs that help avert disasters in almost every sector of society. Healthcare is a good example. So are environmental protective programs that obviously link to preventive measures related to health status.
There aren’t enough column inches to talk about the disastrous impact of budget cuts the current administration has made but here’s a sampling.
Americans of every socioeconomic status or geographical location are feeling the pinch when it comes to healthcare. Families and individuals are skipping meals or forgoing filling their tanks, or they can’t afford childcare or help with elder care. A recent report by the Gallup Poll revealed that people are dropping their health insurance, skipping medications, and borrowing money to get by.
We know that maternal and child health is dramatically impacted by budget cuts that affect critical and preventive care for that vulnerable group. But there are other healthcare crises arising every day that we don’t think about. Take lung disease as just one example.
A report in The Guardian revealed that policies are likely to drive up rates of lung disease and premature death. It included an analysis done by The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine that examined policies adopted during Trump’s second term across 10 areas, including healthcare access, environmental regulation, workplace protections and vaccine uptake.
The interconnections of various sectors including public health, environmental safety, agriculture, and disaster relief, for example, are clear. Over the past year, the Trump administration has reduced dozens of air pollution standards aimed at increased profits for companies even though they lead to more asthma cases and hospitalizations for respiratory illness.
The list goes on and on as the focus shifts to war and aggression. and is grounded in the way the president and his minions ignore the Constitution, the courts, public opinion and our former global partners who, along with institutional safeguards, raise serious concerns about the future. Added to that the president’s continual abuse and censoring of the free press, and people exercising their right to free speech, so vital to democracy, while applauding and emulating long time dictators.
We cannot allow him to continue destroying our country. As the late John Lewis said, “We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.” This is clearly the time to “Make good trouble.”
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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt.