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“To preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution,” words spoken by President-elect George Washington at his first inauguration, are now violated by President Donald Trump’s relentless amassing of personal power.
Our civil liberties, embodied in the Bill of Rights and celebrated on Patriots Day, are directly threatened. Legal immigrants, in defiance of the Supreme Court’s 9-0 order, have been sent to a foreign country’s prison without the benefit of due process. Student protesters against indiscriminate Israeli bombing have been arrested by ICE agents for allegedly supporting Hamas. Moreover, Trump has exploited false charges of antisemitism to threaten universities’ functioning and to destroy academic freedom.
Found liable at trial of sexual abuse, Trump absurdly proclaims himself a protector of women (“whether they like it or not”) by overriding Maine law regarding transgender athletes.
Trump has launched ruinous tariffs that increase the opportunities to “cut deals” with other countries. Dismantling USAID (which could have relieved the famine in Sudan) and other agencies under congressional control and appointing unqualified and inept cabinet officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth go hand in hand.
As for Trump’s war on the equal opportunities that DEI considerations afford, information about Jackie Robinson was briefly removed from a Pentagon website — another instance of his disrespect for veterans.
To the adult world I ask: Is this the example we wish to give our young people as they prepare to vote?
And to Trump and the GOP on bended knee to him I assert in honor of the early colonists under oppressive British rule: Don’t tread on me.
Dave Witham
Bangor