I spent my Saturday morning drafting the letter below and then emailing it to every Republican senator. A few limited the word count, so I had to cut a few things, but most received this letter in its entirety. I share it with you hoping that you will be inspired to send your own email to Republican senators or to make your support for our nation and its constitution and laws known. Don’t allow your silence to become consent.
Letter:
Sleeping is difficult these days. I find myself waking up filled with anxiety, outrage, or sadness over our country’s turn away from creating a more perfect union where liberty and justice for all is an actual aspiration. I miss the country where I believed that our elected officials were decent people working to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for our common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our future children.
Instead, I am greeted each day with human beings being grabbed off the streets and forcibly detained based on the color of their skin and the language they speak. I am greeted by stupid if not unconstitutional executive orders of a president who uses foul and false accusations against immigrants, journalists, judges, teachers, prosecutors, scientists, women, transgender people, and his political enemies. The constant lying, blatant corruption, ridiculous appointments, and unjustified attacks on law firms, universities, and diversity, equity, and inclusion frustrates me to no end.
To these horrific actions coming from our White House, most of you elected officials either remain silent and too many of you are complicit. The Congress is a co-equal branch of government, but you have collectively abdicated your duty under Republican rule. The American people voted for greater safety, an end to wars, and real problem solving, even if some of the threats, underlying war issues, and problems were fabricated and misrepresented by Trump, conservative podcasters, and Fox News. People voted for false promises to address fabricated fears. People groomed to be afraid of immigrants, people of color, and trans people voted for protection. People deceived into believing that scientists are wasting their money on “transgender mice” and lying to them about vaccines and climate voted to end waste, fraud and abuse. People convinced that diversity, equity, and inclusion are the reason for their failure to get ahead voted for a false merit-based system that is nothing more than white male cronyism. Republican representatives failed to demand that their presidential candidate be worthy of the office.
The fact is that no one voted for a tariff war with the entire world that is harming businesses and raising prices. No one voted for hard working (non-criminal) mothers, fathers, and children to be disappeared off the streets because they look to be immigrants. No one voted for government workers to be sloppily fired without understanding their contribution, due cause, nor due process. No one voted to defund medical and scientific research that address human challenges. No one voted to have the safety net pulled from under the feet of the most vulnerable so that the wealthiest among us could save a few more tax dollars. No one voted to erase history, destroy public education, and roll back consumer protections. No one voted to subject themselves to climate change disasters without relief. No one voted to pardon actual criminals who did real harm. No one voted to dismantle the protections of our public health, our food, our drinkable water, and clean air. No one voted for the reverse brain-drain among students, scholars, and researchers at our universities. No one voted to destroy the tourism industry by terrorizing tourists. And certainly, no one voted to waste our tax-payer dollars on a military parade to inflate one man’s ego.
While I still have a Constitutional right to petition government, I request that you find the courage and the moral compass to reject the unconstitutional and immoral actions of President Trump. It is not enough to complain behind closed doors about actions you know are harmful to the American people and to the world. You must stand up for those who voted for you, not cower before a bully who proves every day that he wishes we were North Korea.
I want my government to work as the founders intended. Therefore, I ask that you stop this “Big Beautiful Bill” and provide us with a bill that taxes people and corporations fairly in order to pay for our priorities. As a citizen, I want you to ensure funding for an ongoing safety net for vulnerable people, to upgrade our infrastructure, to fully fund FEMA, to protect and fund medical and scientific research, to end the tariff war, to protect the rights and civil liberties of every American, to fund public education and job training, to address the broken immigration system and provide adequate temporary work visas, to safeguard public health, to protect law firms and universities from frivolous attacks, to protect our elections from billionaire influence moving forward, and to conduct oversight over the executive branch.
Like most Americans, I know this country isn’t perfect. But we can and should do better. Investing in the American people is investing in our future prosperity. Right now, we are moving in a dangerous direction, toward increasing public corruption, poorer health outcomes, indecency, ignorance, and the loss of basic civil rights. Please save us from this daily nightmare!