This past week, I participated in a phone-in town hall with my congressional representative. Her muted response to the three-alarm fire facing our nation prompted me to write to the congressional leader of our party, Hakeem Jeffries. Below is the letter I sent him. Please contact your congressional leaders (by phone, email, or letter) and demand that they forcefully respond to the threats to our government, our environment, our livelihood, and our public safety. It is only when our representatives are pushed hard enough by “we the people” will they gain the courage to stand up to this corrupt and lawless bully in the White House.
February 22, 2025
Dear Minority Leader Jeffries,
I am a longtime voting democrat living in Representative Julia Brownley’s district. I’ve written to her multiple times about the need to fight harder and louder to resist the bullying, chaos, lawlessness, cruelty, and corruption coming from Trump, Musk, and complicit and/or cowardly republican representatives. I attended her town hall this past week and she offered little more than a reliance on upcoming budget fights with democrat objections and the pending lawsuits against numerous executive orders. She asked us to share our stories to use as examples of how these Republican policies are hurting the American people. I left the phone-in town hall disappointed and frustrated by the muted response to a five-alarm fire.
The problem is that Trump and Musk are rapidly destroying our government’s ability to function, ruining individual lives, making millions vulnerable to a crisis in public health and climate disasters, and destroying our international relationships. The rising prices on everything is but one of many pains they are inflicting upon us. Tax cuts for the wealthy is an absurdity amidst all these other atrocities they are committing. Musk has announced pain as our patriotic duty to bear. Everything they are doing is in service to Putin, to greedy billionaires, and to the destruction of our Constitution, the rule of law, and our democratic republic. No one voted for this! This is more than about the cost of living. This is about whether or not our civil liberties, human rights, and our ability to live healthy lives remains a possibility.
Democrats are far too docile amid this attack! You’re too polite and too rational with people hellbent on destroying the country and injuring innocent people. I’m a senior citizen. When I go to the senior center, the ladies in my social group are frustrated, fearful, depressed, and fuming with anger over what Congress is allowing to transpire. We fear for the future of our grandchildren. We all know that we have three co-equal branches of government, but none of us can understand how republicans have allowed themselves to be bullied into compliance and worse how democrats are barely saying or doing anything about the true nature of the problem.
We need you to ruthlessly expose the bully and the bullying of your colleagues, judges, governors, and the media. You must ruthlessly expose the liar and all the lies. You must expose the authoritarian aspirations of Trump and Musk and the blatant corruption, lawlessness, and loyalty to Putin. You need to defend Congress’ power of the purse and demand that government civil employees be treated fairly and that allocated funds be distributed. These are laws he is violating, and Congress should be exposing this fact every day and, in every venue, available. There are at least 200 of you who can speak out. Calls for impeachment should be shouted from the rooftops at this point. The sloppy cuts to government jobs and grants are literally endangering our country and negatively affecting the lives of all Americans.
Personally, I refuse to fly right now. I cancelled plans to visit my son and his family this spring because of FAA personnel cuts and the recent accidents. I predict more will be coming. I also predict a far less functional government that affects every part of our lives, including taxes. My friends are fearful of their social security and Medicare benefits being cut. They are already experiencing higher food and drug prices. My daughter in law is a doctor at a research hospital and they rely on NIH funding that goes towards saving lives. You must expose the cruelty of these cuts and the harm that is being done. Not just on the House floor, but on every news media available. You have the numbers to do at least that.
My point is that Democrats are too nice, too rational, and far too quiet to break through. You call them, “Radical Maga Republicans” and they just laugh. You talk about working with them on behalf of the American people and they laugh more. But truly, how can you negotiate in good faith with people who have shown themselves to be faithless? Too many Republicans are more afraid of Trump than the people they represent. You must change that! Stop shielding them!!!
I call upon you and the democrat representatives to take the fight directly to the American people with loud and bold honesty. Speak plainly and truthfully about what is happening and about the danger we are facing. Call out the lies and expose the liars every time and without hesitation. Our country is being destroyed, and lives are being ruined while governors and judges and news media are being threatened by this lawless Administration if they resist. We need you to use your powerful voice and gift of persuasion to inform and encourage people to take action. Represent us!!!!
And finally, you must push your republican colleagues to stand up for what is right, and I urge you to publicly expose them when they don’t. No more shielding their private disagreements with Trump and Musk. It does our country a disservice to allow Republicans to remain in office when they are not representing us. We pay our taxes and we gave our elected congressional representatives, (not Elon Musk or Donald Trump) the responsibility to appropriate those funds. Demand that Trump and Musk follow the law and appropriate the funds as passed into law by our elected representatives and call upon your Republican colleagues to do the same or expose their failure to their constituents.
We had a revolution because of taxation without representation. What Trump is trying to do with our tax dollars is cause for another revolution. He wants to single-handedly determine where and how our tax dollars will be spent as though he were king. Please do not allow it.
Sincerely,
Juanita A. Hall, voting citizen (for now)