Early Days, Startling Changes

It’s clear that the first three weeks of Trump’s presidency have brought nothing but bad news. A coup is a hostile, undemocratic takeover of government. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, took over the payment system that allows the American people and organizations to securely receive all funds and grants guaranteed to them by Congress. Musk and his young techies, have locked out federal employees at Treasury from doing their congressionally authorized work. This clearly constitutes a coup.

   Additionally, the Administration has fired military generals, and vast numbers of civil service and FBI employees. They are eliminating USAID, meaning millions of people, research groups, and clinics around the world will not receive the foreign aid they depend on to survive. Trump has eliminated the Consumer Protection Bureau; he intends to eliminate the Department of Education. A new White House office of Faith is headed by some sort of holy roller woman. Trump & co. have eliminated government oversight by firing seventeen Inspectors General. The Supreme Court is at Trump’s beck and call as well. It’s a dire situation, although vigorous public reaction, and the filing of forty separate lawsuits against Trump’s brazen moves, may influence some of these actions. However, when any of the lawsuits rule against Trump and Musk, it remains to be seen whether Trump and Musk will comply.

  Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes that the various factions in power—Musk and the tech billionaires, MAGA and the ideologues--are undertaking to “rearrange government around an extremist ideological project of Christian nationalism and White supremacy.” Tim Snyder sees the ultimate goal differently: it’s nothing less than to destroy our national government, and to drain its vast wealth and retain power indefinitely. Whatever the framework, it is clear that America’s grand democratic experiment of 250 years is in great peril. Whether the Administration can achieve its aims depends on what we the people do: we can roll over and retreat into our private lives of gardening and novel-reading, or we act, protest loudly, flood the phone lines, and participate in creating a mass movement.

  National groups such as Move On and Indivisible emphasize the importance of calling our senators – and calling Republican senators in other states, too. Letter-writing isn’t as powerful as phone calls--senators’ staffs actually keep tallies of the number of calls for specific issues, pro and con. Normally, calls from Republican callers have outnumbered the pro-democracy ones, so it’s really crucial for every one of us to keep doing it. Place calls especially to Maria Cantwell, who has been voting to confirm some of Trump’s appointments.  

   So that’s the national level. Where we can have an even greater impact is at the local level. We must continue to strategize and adapt in the face of constant change.  Remember, what was a good idea a month ago might not be as effective a strategy now, and what we plan to do now might require radical re-thinking in a week or a month.

   Also remember that we can’t address everything at once. Trump is deliberately causing chaos, undoing countless things we hold dear about democracy and statesmanship. The goal is to make us feel helpless and overwhelmed. But what each citizen must do is focus on a specific one or two (or three) things and address it, whether it’s education or immigrant rights or health care or environmental justice or supporting programs we value.

  A recent finding: if 3.5 percent of the people protest and demonstrate in the streets, that’s the magic number that changes public opinion. Just a couple of months ago, Poulsbo City Hall flooded with people concerned about the unfair management of a mobile home park, and suddenly there was a fast response on the part of city government. The voice of the people united makes a difference. 3.5% of Poulsbo’s population is only 455 people! We are building our power and we must act locally.

   We also need to understand the extent of Christian nationalism in our area. A good number of local churches preach this ideology, which now sees Trump as a savior, queer people as the devil, and so forth. Cristian nationalism is what makes the religious factor of MAGA so unyielding and so unconcerned with “earthly” law. Throughout the country it’s Christian nationalists who are getting themselves elected onto school boards and bringing faith (their faith) into public education. Poulsbo city government has a close relationship to these churches—e.g., the contracts they have with the Gateway megachurch. An excellent documentary on Christian nationalism is called God and Country, and is available on Netflix. It’s a revelation, so to speak.