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82nd Indivisible Group: With suffering, chaos & fear, authoritarian Trump moves in
Op-Ed · March 12, 2025
It has been a week. Pushback is growing against the wholesale firing of federal employees in the VA, FAA, National Park Service, Federal Arsenals, US Geological Survey and other public agencies.
The head of the Republican National Committee has instructed their Congressional members to stop holding town halls.
Meanwhile, Trump and Musk are throwing up shiny objects (annexing Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico) to distract us from the dismantling of our Constitutional democratic republic.
Then we would have to rely on businesses to fulfill the functions previously performed by our elected government.
Trump is operating from the same playbook Russian oligarchs used during the fall of the Soviet Union that benefitted his hero Putin.
More members of the public are starting to realize these actions are encouraging suffering, chaos and fear.
Historically, this causes people to seek an authoritarian leader, flying in the face of the open government that has worked productively with private enterprise throughout our nation’s history.
Yes, Trump was elected, though his enthusiastic thanks to tech mogul Elon Musk and reports of voter scrubbing in some states makes us wonder.
He aims to be an intimidating authoritarian, brooking no disagreement.
In this he has a worthy follower in our state representative, who can be civil and respectful until disagreement arises.
Then he often interrupts and threatens to have even polite challengers leave his “listening posts” rather than hearing them out. Isn’t that what a listening post is for?
However, he and our state senator listen well when they agree with a concern raised, like the high rate of turnover for nursing home care staff in Iowa.
We encourage you to contact your elected representatives to make your concerns known and request town halls from members of Congress.
Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Please join us on Thursday, March 13, at 5:30 at El Patio in West Liberty for a social hour.
The 82nd Indivisible promotes government accountability, quality public services, clean water and more among residents of the 82nd Iowa House District. Columns are vetted by steering committee members Jeanette Wigim, Doug Schneider, Suzan Erem, Melissa Bickford, Jim Glasson and Linda Carillo. Connect at 82nd.Indivisible@gmail.com.
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