Leo, thank you — this is a serious comment, and I'd rather have it than agreement.
You're right about more than you may expect. Voters did put this President in office, and Congress stays silent largely because members fear their own primary electorates. And Tutu's line about neutrality has teeth. I'd only add that my column was aimed at that very point: when officials won't hold the standard, citizens have to.
Let me say something else plainly. Many of us who did not vote for Trump, or for the Republicans now in Congress, share your concerns and your frustration. I'm not writing from calm detachment. My own inclination is often to go at this head-on, and I have to talk myself out of it more often than I'd like.
I choose persuasion anyway — not because it feels good, and not as a substitute for confrontation. Appeasement is staying quiet to keep the peace. Persuasion is telling someone they're wrong in language that can actually reach them. I've done both in uniform in government, and in consulting and I know which one changes conduct.
There's also arithmetic. Congress changes hands through majorities, and majorities require people who voted the other way last time or didn't vote at all. If we write off everyone who voted for this President as beyond reach, there's no majority left to build. Resistance that can't win an election is a posture, not a remedy.
So I'd put your own logic back to you: if voters created this, voters can end it. Reaching them is the resistance, not an alternative to it. And a sternly worded letter isn't enough—on that, we agree completely.
Colonel, I think you're on the right track. I respect that. Truly.
But as much as I hate to say it, I don't think you've, nor many other Dems/Independents/erstwhile Republicans, have gotten where you ought to be yet. Really, where you should have always been. Certainly, since 2024.
Though, interestingly, it seems many of the Republicans have gotten there sooner.
In that, the problem is not Trump. Nor to a lesser degree, is it the Republicans in Congress.
It's much closer to home, but curiously, the one good folks are loath to address. I suspect, because it IS so close to home. Often inside it. Or at the least; next door, in the next pew, the doctor's office, restaurant, worksite.
It's the people who knowingly, willingly - CHOSE this man, this party, these actions.
Often, someone such as yourself will come out and sagely say that we need to reach across the aisle, listen to their pain, ease their suffering. Be open to their point of view. Understand. Forgive, Ignore. Placate.
A masked man is hired to shoot Americans in the head, whilst in the process of meeting his quota of tortured brown people for the month before sending them to some gulag for hire in a totalitarian state that most of us couldn't find on a map if we tried, because that brown person committed a civil violation which our business community (which means us, it's shareholders), profits from as a matter of business?
We're sad.....that wasn't very nice. But more importantly, what are you bringing to the potluck next Wednesday?
We commit open murder on the high seas, whilst other criminals are pardoned for a small donation - wars started at the urging of the President of Israel, by a secret assassination that would put Pearl Harbor to shame while we are in the middle of negotiations - but NOT with the approval of Congress - and that's just smart strategy.
No matter what the atrocity or outrage, the best we can hope for from someone with the current Democratic mindset is a sternly worded letter read slowly on the Capitol steps with a slow stare for emphasis.
Wow. That'll show them. When we know that guy happens to be taking money from the same AIPAC that appears to have more say in what our nation's policies are, than the people who live here.
Point being, the problem is not Trump. Nor Congress. Though certainly they are implicit.
It's the voters who put Trump there. And the rest of us who are willing to accommodate it to maintain the status quo.
After all, we may not like the inequality, the injustice, the ignorance, but our 401Ks are in the stock market too.
And that's my dentist. Or mechanic, girlfriend's dad, buddy from college.
But that's also the person who knew Trump was a liar, a felon, an assaulter of women - paradigm of ignorance, greed, and really every other vice you could think of - and they went with him anyway.
Don't ask what it says about him. What did it say about them?
If you are not willingly to actively resist such atrocities, whatever your reasons, what does it say about you at this point.
Archbishop Tutu put it best.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
Trump could not do what he does without Congress. Yet they don't stand up to him because they know Republican voters will get rid of them.
THEY are the issue. Give me an El-Sayed or Mamdani that's willing to stand up to them rather than a Schumer who thinks it doesn't matter. Accommodation and appeasement isn't working. At any level.
Leo, thank you — this is a serious comment, and I'd rather have it than agreement.
You're right about more than you may expect. Voters did put this President in office, and Congress stays silent largely because members fear their own primary electorates. And Tutu's line about neutrality has teeth. I'd only add that my column was aimed at that very point: when officials won't hold the standard, citizens have to.
Let me say something else plainly. Many of us who did not vote for Trump, or for the Republicans now in Congress, share your concerns and your frustration. I'm not writing from calm detachment. My own inclination is often to go at this head-on, and I have to talk myself out of it more often than I'd like.
I choose persuasion anyway — not because it feels good, and not as a substitute for confrontation. Appeasement is staying quiet to keep the peace. Persuasion is telling someone they're wrong in language that can actually reach them. I've done both in uniform in government, and in consulting and I know which one changes conduct.
There's also arithmetic. Congress changes hands through majorities, and majorities require people who voted the other way last time or didn't vote at all. If we write off everyone who voted for this President as beyond reach, there's no majority left to build. Resistance that can't win an election is a posture, not a remedy.
So I'd put your own logic back to you: if voters created this, voters can end it. Reaching them is the resistance, not an alternative to it. And a sternly worded letter isn't enough—on that, we agree completely.
Leo, thank you — this is a serious comment, and I'd rather have it than agreement.
You're right about more than you may expect. Voters did put this President in office, and Congress stays silent largely because members fear their own primary electorates. And Tutu's line about neutrality has teeth. I'd only add that my column was aimed at that very point: when officials won't hold the standard, citizens have to.
Let me say something else plainly. Many of us who did not vote for Trump, or for the Republicans now in Congress, share your concerns and your frustration. I'm not writing from calm detachment. My own inclination is often to go at this head-on, and I have to talk myself out of it more often than I'd like.
I choose persuasion anyway — not because it feels good, and not as a substitute for confrontation. Appeasement is staying quiet to keep the peace. Persuasion is telling someone they're wrong in language that can actually reach them. I've done both in uniform in government, and in consulting and I know which one changes conduct.
There's also arithmetic. Congress changes hands through majorities, and majorities require people who voted the other way last time or didn't vote at all. If we write off everyone who voted for this President as beyond reach, there's no majority left to build. Resistance that can't win an election is a posture, not a remedy.
So I'd put your own logic back to you: if voters created this, voters can end it. Reaching them is the resistance, not an alternative to it. And a sternly worded letter isn't enough—on that, we agree completely.
Colonel, I think you're on the right track. I respect that. Truly.
But as much as I hate to say it, I don't think you've, nor many other Dems/Independents/erstwhile Republicans, have gotten where you ought to be yet. Really, where you should have always been. Certainly, since 2024.
Though, interestingly, it seems many of the Republicans have gotten there sooner.
In that, the problem is not Trump. Nor to a lesser degree, is it the Republicans in Congress.
It's much closer to home, but curiously, the one good folks are loath to address. I suspect, because it IS so close to home. Often inside it. Or at the least; next door, in the next pew, the doctor's office, restaurant, worksite.
It's the people who knowingly, willingly - CHOSE this man, this party, these actions.
Often, someone such as yourself will come out and sagely say that we need to reach across the aisle, listen to their pain, ease their suffering. Be open to their point of view. Understand. Forgive, Ignore. Placate.
A masked man is hired to shoot Americans in the head, whilst in the process of meeting his quota of tortured brown people for the month before sending them to some gulag for hire in a totalitarian state that most of us couldn't find on a map if we tried, because that brown person committed a civil violation which our business community (which means us, it's shareholders), profits from as a matter of business?
We're sad.....that wasn't very nice. But more importantly, what are you bringing to the potluck next Wednesday?
We commit open murder on the high seas, whilst other criminals are pardoned for a small donation - wars started at the urging of the President of Israel, by a secret assassination that would put Pearl Harbor to shame while we are in the middle of negotiations - but NOT with the approval of Congress - and that's just smart strategy.
No matter what the atrocity or outrage, the best we can hope for from someone with the current Democratic mindset is a sternly worded letter read slowly on the Capitol steps with a slow stare for emphasis.
Wow. That'll show them. When we know that guy happens to be taking money from the same AIPAC that appears to have more say in what our nation's policies are, than the people who live here.
Point being, the problem is not Trump. Nor Congress. Though certainly they are implicit.
It's the voters who put Trump there. And the rest of us who are willing to accommodate it to maintain the status quo.
After all, we may not like the inequality, the injustice, the ignorance, but our 401Ks are in the stock market too.
And that's my dentist. Or mechanic, girlfriend's dad, buddy from college.
But that's also the person who knew Trump was a liar, a felon, an assaulter of women - paradigm of ignorance, greed, and really every other vice you could think of - and they went with him anyway.
Don't ask what it says about him. What did it say about them?
If you are not willingly to actively resist such atrocities, whatever your reasons, what does it say about you at this point.
Archbishop Tutu put it best.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
Trump could not do what he does without Congress. Yet they don't stand up to him because they know Republican voters will get rid of them.
THEY are the issue. Give me an El-Sayed or Mamdani that's willing to stand up to them rather than a Schumer who thinks it doesn't matter. Accommodation and appeasement isn't working. At any level.
Enough.
Leo, thank you — this is a serious comment, and I'd rather have it than agreement.
You're right about more than you may expect. Voters did put this President in office, and Congress stays silent largely because members fear their own primary electorates. And Tutu's line about neutrality has teeth. I'd only add that my column was aimed at that very point: when officials won't hold the standard, citizens have to.
Let me say something else plainly. Many of us who did not vote for Trump, or for the Republicans now in Congress, share your concerns and your frustration. I'm not writing from calm detachment. My own inclination is often to go at this head-on, and I have to talk myself out of it more often than I'd like.
I choose persuasion anyway — not because it feels good, and not as a substitute for confrontation. Appeasement is staying quiet to keep the peace. Persuasion is telling someone they're wrong in language that can actually reach them. I've done both in uniform in government, and in consulting and I know which one changes conduct.
There's also arithmetic. Congress changes hands through majorities, and majorities require people who voted the other way last time or didn't vote at all. If we write off everyone who voted for this President as beyond reach, there's no majority left to build. Resistance that can't win an election is a posture, not a remedy.
So I'd put your own logic back to you: if voters created this, voters can end it. Reaching them is the resistance, not an alternative to it. And a sternly worded letter isn't enough—on that, we agree completely.