by Barbara Jatkola, LTE Keene Sentinel 5/26/26
Donald Trump has co-opted the national Republican Party, and the Free State Project is threatening to co-opt the New Hampshire Republican Party. Along the way, Republicans are abandoning such core principles as fiscal responsibility; anti-Russian, pro-democracy foreign policy; “Live Free or Die” individualism; respect for basic human dignity; and common decency. For what?
Think about it: Aren’t we better off when there is a social safety net to protect us if we get sick and can no longer work, or we lose our job and need help making it until we find another one? When, after working hard our whole life, we will have Social Security and Medicare to help us through our retirement?
Aren’t we better off when we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink? When all Americans have access to sufficient food, housing, and healthcare?
When we have a strong public education system without restrictions on what it can teach our children, even if we might not agree with all the content? When our communities and our country have the funds to maintain our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure?
Wealthy white men are again dominating and corrupting our political system in order to enrich and empower themselves and to impoverish and disenfranchise the rest of us. Aren’t we better off when citizens of all religions, races, genders, and ethnic groups are allowed to vote for the people they want to represent them and thus are invited to the table to hammer out the best policies to ensure justice and equality for all?
“They think they can draw us out of power [with gerrymandering],” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told an audience in Montgomery, Alabama, on May 16. “They do not know the sleeping giant that they just awakened. . . . Because when . . . the right to vote . . . is protected, our schools get funded. When voting rights are protected, healthcare gets expanded. When voting rights are protected, our country moves forward. And Montgomery, that’s what they’re actually afraid of. They’re afraid of us coming together. They’re afraid of us protecting one another.”
Fear drives Donald Trump and, apparently, Republican Party leaders. Let’s unite as Americans to fight for and defend our democracy and our nation’s long-promised freedom for all. Let’s use our power to give them something to truly be afraid of.