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Trump’s Cognitive Decline and Authoritarianism
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift When Power and Reality Diverge Most of us know a neighbor, a parent, or a close friend who’s entered a stage of life where age begins to affect how they communicate, move and make decisions. So when we saw all of those same signs in Joe Biden,…
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Trump Epstein Conspiracy Promised Truth — Now It’s Just Puppets, Lawsuits, and Redactions
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift Trump’s unraveling defense over the Epstein files feels like a moment ripped from a Jeff Dunham skit – specifically, when Peanut turns to Jeff and demands, “What…Did…You…Do?!” That same question now ricochets across MAGA circles, media outlets, and courtrooms, fueled by years of speculation around the Trump…
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U.S. Immigration Under Trump: Questions, Consequences and Compassion
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift What I Don’t Know and Why That Matters I don’t claim to have the answers – not about immigration, not about how we responsibly manage resources, and certainly not about how we reconcile compassion with infrastructure. But I do feel the weight of the questions. They press…
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The Myth of the Lone Strongman
← Back to Democratic Backsliding & Authoritarian Drift Tyranny rarely announces itself. It emerges when institutions defer and constraints quietly dissolve. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes in Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, autocrats like Mussolini and Orbán didn’t act alone. They relied on courts, legislatures, and bureaucracies repurposed by enablers of authoritarianism. Modern strongmen gut democracy…
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My Constitution. My Rights. Hands Off Our Civil Liberties
← Back to Community Engagement Civil liberties aren’t a gift from the government. They’re protections from it. They’re the reason I can write this blog without fear, why my neighbor can pray freely, why activists can march and why we can challenge what we believe to be unjust without being silenced or punished. They are…
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The House Next Door — Echoes Across America
← Back to Essays & Commentary Part 6: The Kids Who Stayed Behind After the knock, after the silence – what happens to the children still expected to pledge allegiance, solve for x and turn in their homework? Stillness After the Storm The shoes are still there. Mine and hers.One is leaning against the wall,…
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The House Next Door — Echoes Across America
← Back to Essays & Commentary Part 5 – When Neighbors Become Organizers It didn’t start with petitions. It started with casseroles. With porch lights left on. With neighbors who couldn’t sleep after the black SUVs came. They weren’t elected. They weren’t activists. They were neighbors. Grandparents. Librarians. Teachers. Clerks. Truck drivers. People whose only…
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You’re Fired: A Chairman’s Review of CEO Trump
← Back to Essays & Commentary A Mid-Year Emergency Session of the Board of We the People LLC Opening Statement from the Chairman Subject: Six-Month Performance Review — CEO Donald J. TrumpDate: Fiscal Q2, Reality Optional [Transcript begins] Esteemed Board Members, We reconvene not as optimists, but as survivors – a little over six months…
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The House Next Door — Echoes Across America
← Back to Essays & Commentary Part 4 – The Lawful, the Vulnerable and the Vanished They followed every instruction. Showed up for check-ins. Paid taxes. Kept their appointments. Taught Sunday school. Filled out the forms. They were told to wait. And they did. For years. Then one morning, or afternoon, or evening, they were…
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The House Next Door — Echoes Across America
← Back to Essays & Commentary Part 3 — They Were at My Graduation Last Year It started with one name not called at roll. Then another. And another. In a middle school in Arkansas, two desks remained empty after spring break. Their lockers stayed full. Binders, shoes, a hoodie still on the hook. The…
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Wedding Bells and Welfare Cuts: The One Big Beautiful Bill
And while they danced beneath chandeliers and fireworks, lawmakers in Washington prepared their own celebration; a grotesque tribute to inherited wealth and institutionalized greed. They call it the One Big Beautiful Bill.
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The House Next Door — Echoes Across America
← Back to Essays & Commentary Part 2 – When They Were Taken The shriek of tires. The clash of doors. The sound of lives shattering. It doesn’t always happen in the shadows. Sometimes it happens at school pickup. On the way home from work. While children draw sidewalk chalk hearts in the driveway. That’s…