FROM THE EDITOR: The Real Pain Is Just Beginning - How Will We Respond?
We live in a land defined by political battles; we can learn some lessons from our friends to the West in self-sufficiency during these trying days.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Email Martin
Colorado creates a sense of place that is unrivaled in the United States. For its citizens, that sense is grounded in a fierce sense of self-reliance. Strengthening our own sense of self-reliance — both personal and communal — could benefit us all.
While vacationing in Longmont, Colorado, this past week, it was refreshing to be reminded that most of the country doesn’t spend its days rolling in the mud to the steady drumbeat of political crisis that seems to define every conversation in our region.
It’s not that politics aren't present in Colorado. The state is wrestling with a significant budget shortfall, and federal cuts are likely to hit the state hard. The very real fears and concerns such cuts generate are a regular part of local discussions. But speak with locals in the state, and the concerns over what will have to be cut — and what the federal government is recklessly taking away — is tempered with a commitment at the community level to finding a way forward.
Perhaps it’s because Colorado’s economy has gone through numerous boom and bust cycles in its recent history, or because those who live in the state reflect a sense of rugged individualism that is lacking on much of the East Coast.
Whatever feeds the state’s sense of self-reliance, Fredericksburg and its surrounding counties could use a healthy dose of that mindset right now.
What is happening in Washington is happening because that’s what people voted for in November. Few people have neutral feelings about the current administration. But hate it or love it, the country made this decision.
Should people decide that we’re headed in the wrong direction, we have opportunities in 2026 and 2028 to reverse course. And every citizen should vote their conscience in those two elections and do what they feel is best.
But between now and Election Day in 2028, there are 1,318 days to be navigated. As a community, we can do a lot in those days if we turn our attention to our neighbors and find ways to better support ourselves.
On the other hand, 1,318 days of wailing about what happened will only deepen the sense of helplessness that since about 2010 has defined those in our region who are in the minority party. From Obama and Trump I, through Biden and into Trump II, Democrats and Republicans have whined and complained and bemoaned the party in power, focusing more on change in the upcoming election than on strengthening our communities between elections.
And here’s where that Colorado mindset comes into play. Yes, our local community is in for some significant pain owing to federal cuts. But unlike Colorado, Virginia’s economy is in good shape, and instead of the state facing budget cuts, we are facing — again — a budget surplus. In my time talking with Colorado residents, what I witnessed was citizens digging in and getting to work to help their communities. Colorado has a lot of work to find new ways to support the things they value.
And so do we.
In just the week I’ve been away, deliveries of food to the food bank have stalled (for how long is anyone’s guess); the Friends of the Rappahannock has seen $2 million in funding frozen (with some of the money already spent and no clear idea if the government will honor its contract to reimburse); and the school nutrition programs that feed students in Fredericksburg City Schools and Caroline County Schools is now in DOGE’s eye sight. This is on top of the already painful job losses and cuts the Advance has been chronicling via the Executive Orders Project.
The challenge now is how we aid those who are going to be adversely affected.
There are a number of realities we all need to face.
The federal safety net is going away for at least the near term. It is incumbent upon us to get serious about finding a way to strengthen local safety nets that the federal government is abandoning. There are organizations we could learn from. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does extraordinary work supporting its members in need. And established local organizations already have the infrastructure in place and the knowledge needed to help fill gaps; supporting them is critical.
Children and those living at or near the poverty line should move to the top of our list of people that deserve immediate attention. We all need to donate our time and our money to the organizations that look after the most vulnerable in our population.
It’s budget season, and our localities may have to face the reality that modest increases in property taxes may be necessary to help us weather this storm.
We should all be petitioning our state legislators and our governor to free up more money for social service organizations. Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Friday was in Fredericksburg crowing about the $10 billion in extra money the state has taken in since becoming governor. His favorite way to deal with that money has been tax cuts — which overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. Perhaps it’s time to look at using that money to strengthen the state’s ailing human services systems — especially mental health and public health.
Check in on your neighbors (or just get to know them). The number of people who live around us who may be in pain would probably surprise most of us. It’s time to come to their aid.
We can’t replace all the federal dollars that will be lost, and we can’t meet all the needs that are being created by the slashing of federal funds. But as a community, we can make a substantial dent in the problems that we are confronting.
More important, we’ll learn what many in Colorado have long known. Communities are built on the backs of its citizens. And communities survive only when those citizens look first to one another in times of need.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”
Man, this is tiring. Yet, on a different level, informative.
One, for a mistake that I put on myself, though I do ask plead the naivety of youth as a reason.
Because one of the most enjoyable memories that I have from being a father, is now tinged with a bitterness and irony that age and experience have brought. It has to do with a movie, of all things.
The Blues Brother premiered in 1980, the year I graduated high school.
I remember, because of Gary Anderson and Lynwood Cannaday dressing up as them on a regular basis for attention.
However, I did not see the movie at that time, as whatever money I was making from my minimum wage job from Burger King went to gas, beer, or the other necessities of life on a Williamson Road in the last vestiges of American Graffiti that had existed for 30 years in a town that refused to see that it was dying.
Though I did have a fondness for Chicago, even then. For, if I was at a certain part of the parking lot at Williamson and Hershberger, and it was a cloudy yet calm night, I could pick up WLS radio at 890 on the am dial. And just for a while, be transported away. Atmospheric skip, they call it. So I had a predisposition towards the town.
But I did finally see the movie was about 10 years later, when it was one of those movies that Ted Turner picked up to fill his cable channels and played about 10 times a month.
My daughter was about 3 years old then. A time of innocence that is pure pleasure for a child. And joy for a parent. To watch someone you love learn and develop into themselves. To sing their own song, as we all must.
And if ever there was a movie with a soundtrack for a father to dance with his young daughter too, that was it.
And like most great movies, TBB also had things to offer adults. That was really my first exposure to the blues, which now I listen to regularly. But today's bitterness comes from one scene in that otherwise joyful and laughing work of art. Do you remember it?
It's at the beginning. They're in the Blues mobile, stuck in traffic at a bridge, and Jake finds out from the local cop that the cause of the holdup is the Illinois Nazis got their permit and are marching that day. Jake and Elwood break up the demonstration in a manner that is not as funny in a post-Charlottesville world, but seemed funny at the time (if you have the mental capacity to differentiate between art and reality - which isn't the give that I once presumed). And various hijinks subsequently ensued, each more outrageous than the last.
What leaves me bitter, yet more sober now, is WHY that was funny.
Which is that I, and I suspect many others, thought we were talking about our past. We were beyond that. The racism, the ignorance, inequality, etc. It was an ideal whose time was past, so it was safe to laugh. I mean sure, it was still there - you saw it, but it was ebbing. Would age out, pass out.
I was wrong.
If 30-40 years of Newt Gingrich, the Tea Party, Birthers, Trump I, Jan 6, FJBiden, and now the orgy of chainsaw destruction Trump 2 and his klan of oligarchs and self-justifying theocrats have taught me anything; it is that hate, fear, ignorance, greed, dishonor, dishonesty it is that they won't disappear as long as there are people.
It's a cycle, and it will pass. Or rather, they will evolve, as they have now. Back when I was dancing with my daughter, they were on the low side, but starting back up.
I hope right now they are peaking, before they do too much damage to the things and people I care about. I maintain hope still, that the things I value, the environment, rule of law, the Constitution, kindness, caring, honor, diversity, and decency are also evolving - and that as they come back - we will find ourselves a little further down the road toward betterment and enlightment. Though there is no guarantee that it will happen here, or that we won't destroy ourselves in the process. There can be no doubt that the world is a much less safe place today than we were 3 months ago.
Right now, after American Republicans have ripped up treaties, threatened former allies, and destroyed an unprecedented era of relative peace and prosperity - behemoths such as Germany are negotiating to come under Britain and France's nuclear umbrella, as all of Europe girds to defend itself from us as well as Russia.
And your solution is to just keep our heads down and never hold local Republicans to account for their actions? Just pretend that it is something that is happening somewhere else, and none of our business??!?!
WTF, dude?
You presume that we can have elections in the future, and that their results will be honored? Did you not even hear about Jan 6? Or see the pardons afterward? Hear that Republicans are considering setting up a fund to compensate those who beat down cops at their behest for their "pain and suffering"? Republicans even published a plan through the Viktor Orban Heritage Foundation which is being implemented as we speak, and you don't think that includes holding onto power?
Inspector Generals fired, scientists and anyone showing principle or honesty being run off, etc. and you find that to be activity you can trust? And you call yourself a journalist?
How?
FYI, Trump in recent days has made it clear that he is considering an unconstitutional 3rd term. Why is Robb Wittman not challenging that? Why aren't you?
I take particular offense to this section:
"On the other hand, 1,318 days of wailing about what happened will only deepen the sense of helplessness that since about 2010 has defined those in our region who are in the minority party. From Obama and Trump I, through Biden and into Trump II, Democrats and Republicans have whined and complained and bemoaned the party in power, focusing more on change in the upcoming election than on strengthening our communities between elections."
Dems have made no secret about wanting universal healthcare. Yet have accepted compromises such as Obamacare.
Have wanted to use the power and resources of the nation to defend everyday people from the power of oligarchs and corporations who have undue influence through rulings such as Citizen's United, etc. They have succeeded on many fronts with agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, EPA, etc. Which is why Republicans are systemically destroying those things.
And your solution is to ignore those actions for the purpose of comity? As our 250th anniversary comes up, I suspect King George would have loved to have you as a major part of the 4th estate at that time. I also suspect King Donald and all of his local supporters appreciate you being here now.
Yes feed the children. But also openly and clearly hold those who chose their hunger accountable. Clean the river, protect the law. Etc.
But don't, don't, please please don't pretend that what happens in Washington or Richmond does not matter here. That fallacy, that local Republicans should not be accountable for what their national party does, believes, and says. They have chosen to associate with that party. No one has forced them.
We need to quit pretending we have a Trump problem or a Musk problem. We have a Republican problem and the ones across the street need to be held as accountable for their party as the ones across the nation.