history – Susan Feathers

Any Grown-ups in the Room?

The hourly dismantling of the American Republic demands that grown-ups stand and exert their authority as citizens. Afterall, this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Since 2015, Donald J. Trump has intended to rid us of the rule of law. His principal tool has been obfuscation of fact, otherwise known as lies. The Heritage Foundation, which brought billions of dollars to elect Trump and crafted Project 2025, engaged Russell Vought as its principal writer. Later installed by Trump as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Vought is orchestrating the takeover and destruction of democracy at an unrelenting pace.

Because Trump doesn’t read or investigate, he is a stooge for powerful ideologues. A barrage of Executive Orders signed in the first quarter of his term were lifted directly from Project 2025. This plan cloaks itself in the language of patriotism and democratic values, while the intent is its opposite: the wholesale destruction of the guardrails in the Constitution to check executive power. Now that Trump et al have functionally dismantled or made ineffective federal agencies and branches of government, the intent is clear: empower the Executive to Install a new form of governance: authoritarian. All of it is unconstitutional. A raft of lawsuits in pursuit of these thieves has made some progress in holding back full scale implementation. However, a Supreme Court dominated by Trump nominees, is preventing just outcomes that are within the scope of a true Republic as shown in our history.

Onerous still is the outright rewriting of our history. This is accomplished on a large scale while the American public watches in shock. So preposterous in scope, the dismantling of historic buildings, art and information in our museums, National Archives, federal buildings, and even the architecture of the White House, has temporarily stunned Americans. Some make jokes about it, but Trump is dead serious. I imagine closets filled with cans of white paint and gold leaf off the Oval Office and a meandering president doing touch ups late at night. Its about image with Trump. But the people who made him president intend to take what is ours.

The most recent outrage is the announcement that there will be no national holiday commemorating the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. who advanced civil rights through faith and leadership, and built a powerful nonviolent movement that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Instead, we will celebrate the birthday of Donald the Trump.

One of the most tragic periods in recollection, history will not forget the mean intent and childish actions of a mentally dysfunctional leader installed by a party and minority electorate intent on imposing their warped, racist ideology on all the rest of us. We must resist! Citizens and courts are the last bastions of the Republic. Recall the warning of John Adams when asked the outcome of the Constitutional Congress. “You have a Republic, if you can keep it.”

To me this is the strongest statement of our shared responsibility to be ever vigilant and willing to defend the government that emerged from our founders best ideas. Now, as the jaws of injustice aim to rip asunder both the physical and ideological bulwarks of Freedom and Justice, we must stand up as adults and resist these forces that fool an unwary citizenry through lies and the theft of democratic language to mean its opposite.

Wherever each of us resides, we must be willing to speak truth to power, to correct lies and misleading language. Pick your battles, friends, for such is the multi-pronged attack on American laws, customs and values that there is plenty of room for everyone to choose their cause.

Make no mistake. These are dangerous people running our Republic. Free and fair elections are their next target. If we lose that battle, I fear it will harken the end of our democratic society.

Tolerate no fools. We must be the adults in the room. We must restore our liberties and place our trust in each other to do so justly.

https://open.substack.com/pub/anntelnaes/p/trump-dusting-off-the-old-playbook?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Update: Today’s Substack post from Heather Cox Richardson pay tribute to Rob Reiner and his wife by quoting from the film by Reiner, The American President.

In this clip, the American President speaks to an opponent about character and the requirement of the Office of President which depends of good character. In our current situation, this should be said to the current occupant of the White House Office of the President whose name I shall not utter for he has violated every aspect of character Americans have come to value in their President.

Eisenhower’s Warning and A National Security Plan at Odds with American Values and History

Below is a section of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech to the American people on January 17, 1961.

“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

“Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peace time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

On Friday, December 5, the Trump administration released its National Security Plan. Below is the summary. I juxtapose the two statements – one from a President upholding the alliance with NATO allies and the principles beneath that enduring plan to protect democratic governments against the rise of autocratic governments. It is clear that Trump’s plans are the later and in fact seek to destroy democracy as a form of governance in favor of autocratic rule and a transactional relationship with other governments based on financial advantages to the industrial/technology complex over liberty and rule of law.

This will not be accepted by the American public. This is NOT who we are. We are not perfect, but we have always held the values of freedom and rule of law as the basis for our governance and relationships across the world. I also cringe as the language which is clearly racist to its core. Very dangerous words.

WE MUST REJECT THESE IDEAS AND PLANS WHOLE CLOTH.

2025-National-Security-Strategy Download

Americans Under Assault

Well-fed people can enhance their dignity, their health and their learning capacity. Putting resources into social programs is not expenditure. It is investment. ~ Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

Tonight I opened a notice from the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore. This organization serves hundreds of thousands of people living in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Right now, 152,720 people in Southeastern Virginia are having trouble accessing fresh and nutritious food… ~ Christopher Tan, President and CEO of the Foodbank.

Today, I talked to a nonprofit customer of mine whose organization assists people experiencing homelessness or near eviction. She said the need was rising sharply as households are unable to pay the rising rental or mortgage payments. Families who never dreamed they’d be on the street are facing that possibility as the cost and availability of affordable housing rises out of reach.

Then I opened a letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center which has worked on behalf of a healthy environment for 40 years.

The streams and rivers that provide our drinking water. The air we breathe. The wild places and wildlife we love. The communities we call home, from the coast to the mountains. …Right now, they are all at risk. And amidst it all, we face a changing climate-one that’s intensifying our storms, eroding our beaches, and supercharging summers. ~ Southern Environmental Law Center

The current administration has cut back social and environmental programs intended for the betterment of the people, and ended policies all legally and constitutionally passed by the Congress of the USA. Legally, the Republicans have impounded funds delegated for the American people. By doing so, deaths have already occurred and suffering is growing among citizens in what was once a prosperous, strong democratic governing body which adhered to the principle that a democracy is rule by consent of the governed. But Trump and his despicable helpmates have damaged and intend to destroy democratic governance in our country.

Friends we are only in the first year of this destruction. Forces are being amassed in major cities and along borders to control the people, but its all in the name of cleaning up crime or getting rid of dangerous criminals. It is not.

Project 2025, conceived by the likes of Steve Miller and Russell Vought and the Heritage Foundation – supported by far right conservatives – intends to destroy democracy and replace it with autocratic rule.

It’s almost all in place. The only thing left to do is rise up en mass and break down the barriers and take back the country. That would be the start. Then the long but potentially powerful remaking of our democracy. This will be the project of generations.

Look around. The signs of suffering are everywhere.

Standing Up: Be a Citizen

For the first American citizens of a new democracy, people who had been “subjects of a monarchy” had to learn how to be a citizen. What did that mean? Require? In early American homes, taverns and gatherings, this was the topic. All agreed it meant something important. Something was required. Acting in another way meant being involved, and contributing to maintain the rights the democracy asserts belong to all of us. It is active, not reactionary.

A recent conversation between Heather Cox Richardson, American historian and author of Letters from An American Substack publication, and Joanne Freeman, Yale Professor of early American history, discussed the behavior of our current legislators. Richardson posed that their current behavior, with exceptions, overall is not about principles of democracy but rather about keeping their seat and about a consumer economy.

Listen here to their 20 minute discussion.

Questions: 1. Have we forgotten how to be a citizen and what is required? 2. Have our representatives forgotten what their role is in representing us and defending a democracy?

Richardson points out that around the 1980s our discourse and our representatives no longer shared a common understanding of what a democracy is and does. The original consensus shared by the majority of Americans regardless of party?

Richardson continues to conjecture that being a good citizen has changed from defending principles to defending political parties and a form of economic policy, to the point that the majority of us, including leaders, have lost sight of our responsibility as citizens.

Joanne Freeman believes we assumed that as we are going about our lives that the democracy would just hum along without our oversight, without our participation. Making money, following economic indicators, obtaining power through how much money you make have taken over our sense of the country to which we belong.

Richardson and Freeman both believe that we must regain self-empowerment in order to empower a government to protect and nourish the democracy.

Self-empowerment (self-actualization) leads to democracy empowerment when we come together to act for decency, right and wrong and stand together against oligarchy.

Self-actualization comes from values of behavior and action in a democratic society, self-improvement (hard work, education, and engagement with fellow citizens) to keep the conditions of freedom healthy and alive through collective action: stand up for principles whenever they are challenged.

What do you think?

Certain About Democracy

“In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I love this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt for its wisdom and emphasis that our government, our democracy, is no better and no worse than each of us.

My parents, born during the Depression, taught their daughters that being in a democracy requires us to do our part in exercising the rights of citizens. They were always engaged in voting, reading history and political analysis. Wherever we lived (we moved frequently as a military family), my parents joined a church community, showed up at PTA and school functions, and loved engaging with neighbors. Of course there was a web of relationships because TV was just three major channels, and Americans on the whole shared similar beliefs about democracy no matter their declared political party.

True Story: My great grandfather on my Dad’s side of the family tree was Andrew Jackson Feathers. He was a small farmer in East Tennessee and, according to Dad, a real raconteur of his village (Watauga). My Dad as a young boy accompanied Andy Jackson on his horse drawn wagon filled with fresh produce from his farm. They would stop at small markets in the hollers and hills in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. At each stop, there would be an ongoing discussion among locals about politics, economics and news of the day. Dad was an active listener and adopted the habit of engagement in his time and government.

Gatherings were common in my family. We entertained ourselves with lively discussions.

We need to think clearly about the elements of our current social structure on the family to federal levels. What was working in a time when we shared the basic beliefs about democratic governance sans party considerations?

It’s easy to grow sentimental about the “good old days” which of course were not good for many Americans. But, I think there was something very wholesome about America when we actually all agreed that democracy was a precious thing worthy of protection and the exercise of its basic principles.

National Constitution Center is a great source of civic education!

The Greatest Steal: American Liberty

“Sell not liberty to purchase power.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Freedom loving Americans feel the crumbling foundation of what generations of Americans strove to create and preserve: a republic founded on principles of freedom and fairness. A governance structure that protects the rights of everyone and works for the betterment of its people and people everywhere.

We are not a naive people yet even the most politically active citizen and public servant is in a state of shock as we watch the brazen violation of our laws to achieve another kind of society with autocratic governance. A nation not conceived in liberty but rather for control of the individual by the powerful.

There are no words to describe how I feel at this moment. It is like watching someone you love being drawn and quartered. Our collective screams and sobs are everywhere now as the full impact of destruction becomes apparent.

To listen to Donald Trump rant and rave, burble and goo, to witness his making a travesty of our seats of government, throw off and denigrate our allies and alliances bought with the blood of Americans, is simply a horror.

Behind him are the men and women doing the hacking and imprisoning: Steven Miller, Kristy Noem, Pam Bondi, and the king of it all, Russell Vought. Like automatons with weapons they bow and scrape in front of the menace while checking off their list of targets. Vought is the man behind the Project 2025, their Playbook of Terribles. Developed with the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 intends to create what it believes was the true America. But it has been corrupted with Christian Nationalism and white male supremacy and turns its blade to people it perceives as enemies and to the “other”.

There is only this now: rise and go forth and join the growing throngs of Americans willing to lay down their lives and livelihoods for Liberty. Rise and never rest until the whole lot of the MAGAs are removed. Then we must rebuild all that has been destroyed and with greater energy and purpose.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We know that now.

Pronouncements are not laws. Still …

Trump’s gusher of executive decrees cannot conceal that he has been spectacularly inept in effectuating many of his objectives, nor can they mask Congress’s fecklessness. It has passed only 5 bills this year, several of which merely express disapproval of regulations.

We have a do-nothing Congress, a president claiming bizarre, unlimited powers to pursue revenge, but—thank goodness—judges across the country who appear determined to protect our constitutional system from Trump’s predations. If it rediscovers its constitutional responsibilities, Congress might tip the balance in favor of the rule of law. ~ The Contrarian, May 5, 2025

At the same time, this fact should not relieve us of the citizen imperative that is before everyone of us. In my own city and region, DEI policies in public schools are on the block with many school boards already voting to end this policy; citizens are losing jobs and food security is rising as USDA and USAID have weakened food programs such as SNAP and farmers’ markets that they depend on to stay in business. Veterans have lost jobs and services; healthcare is being withdrawn or removed altogether.

Disinformation abounds. Public education and higher education are threatened with loss of funding if they do not comply with executive orders coming down in a steady stream, day to day. A chill has fallen over press staffs in our local media for fear of retribution or loss of income. It is all illegal yet, overwhelmed and generally underfunded even in a democratic space, these key institution for a strong democracy are failing. Some are forming alliances to resist the threats from a rogue leader and administration, but we need more and better coordinated mass action.

The Weekend Show: Project 2025 Discussed with David Graham, Author of The Project.

AMID DESTRUCTION, TRUTH EMERGES UNDAUNTED

We can thank the destructive forces let into the heart of Democracy for showing us the truth of our founding principles among which are consent of the governed and the rule of law.

We witness an attempt to overthrow our government by a despot and the foolish people who follow in his path. Mostly, it is a party of grievances against the restraints imposed by principles established at our founding. These establish how we treat each other and live together.

Individuals who throw off the restraining standards of behavior toward one another and detest those principles of decency, respect and caring for each other are tyrants.

Further, neglect of the Earth from devouring forces that eat at her heartwood, not only rob our children of a future but imperil all life on the planet.

Our collective culpability is grave.

Unbridled capitalism is on display in the highest offices of the land, elected by unknowing citizens concerned with the costs of living while forgetting our responsibility to elect leaders who are grounded in the virtues that our founders asserted as a restraint on the forces of tyranny.

Let us join the choir of truth tellers emerging everywhere as our nation awakens to what we have done: we let a fox into the henhouse. This is not political but our individual responsibility to conduct ourselves with respect for each other.

The preservation of our republic is of vital importance today for another reason: the mounting threat to life on Earth. We are a nation that has forgotten that we live here only by the grace of Earth’s living, breathing body and spirit. For too long we have plundered the Earth for coin.

And now we have put a despot at the helm when the Earth is teetering on massive changes which may not include life as we know it. The entire planet is in flux. Even when we watch our fellow Americans fleeing raging fires, epic floods and death, and temperatures that render farmlands barren, this despot denies even his own body and thus imperils all of us.

The first step out of this dilemma is to admit the truth of our present reality. From there, we must resist every attempt of the now unrestrained actions of a man filled with anger and hair-brained ideas detached from the truth.

We may at a time not too far from now have to make bold decisions and risk all to stop him and the hoard who follow hoping for power, money, or at least to duck his vicious nature. If we don’t, we’ll not appear in any history book as standing up for a nation of free people but for the fact that no one will be around to write that history.

Emerging Resources for Citizens Searching for Truth and Community:

The Contrarian

Civil Discourse

Letters from an American

Public Citizen

Emergence Magazine

Capitol Building Rotunda, Photo by Susan Feathers

Democracy Will Not Die in America.

Undaunted: courageously resolute especially in the face of danger or difficulty: not discouraged. Merriam Webster.com

***History and Justice***. Photo by Susan Feathers

A Golden Resource for Americans Who Cherish “Little d” Democracy –

The National Constitution Center Town Halls and Podcast

On the website above scroll down to the Founders Library. The Center has all the key writings by the Founders to understand how this country is founded in wisdom and scholarship about how to govern so that we can pursue our dreams.

A great book, is Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln, Democracy, and The American Experiment by Allen C. Guelzo, Historian.

According to our ancient faith, Lincoln said in 1854, “the just powers of the governments are derived from the consent of the governed…. Lincoln translated…to mean “that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. I say that is the leading principle—the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” From Our Ancient Faith by Allen C. Guelzo, Chapter 1: The Cause of Human Liberty, p. 26.

Freedom, Nation’s Capitol. Photo by Susan L Feathers, 2013

Citizens, those who love and cherish the ideals of our democracy, make it a weekly practice to write to your Senators and Representatives and to members of Key Committees. Here is mine today to Senator Elissa Slotkin who is a member of the U. S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

Ltr to Senator Elissa Slotkin_AG Comm Download

We can never know whether what actions we take are heard but I have faith that if millions of freedom loving American write, call, email or visit their Congresspersons, the flame of democracy will never die in America. She may flicker now and then when despots blown in on hot air and untruths, or when we are temporarily fooled, but freedom has its way, always. We must remain undaunted!

When I Discovered the Living Web

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” ~ Aldo Leopold

When I was 13, my family moved to Plattsburg, New York. We rented a model home built at the edge of the forest surrounding St. Bellarmine College and Noviate. It was housed in what had been the 2nd Hotel Champlain and surrounding grounds with trails winding down to Lake Champlain.

When I left our home, I walked on the monastery trails toward the lake with our family beagle who loved exploring the grounds with nose and long velvet ears with which he breathed in the fragrances of the woods and touched the rocks and trails sensing creatures who had passed by.

I was pensive on this day. Military families, as we were, suffer trauma through moving which separates children and youth from new found friends and causes stress in parents through absense of the father or mother, and often living in less than ideal housing and circumstances. I longed to belong somewhere.

It was fall in the Adirondacks and the woods were aflame in nature’s palette of red, gold, purple, orange and yellow. I stopped in a spot ablaze with autumn leaves which appeared as a mosaic. As I stared into its palette, I became aware that I was becoming a part of the wholeness of it. At that moment “I” no longer existed. I was lifted out of body.

This realization of the oneness of life in varying forms, colors and beingness profoundly changed me. At 13 I realized there is no separation between the “natural world” and me nor any other life form. We are part of a living mosaic moving through space on a spinning planet.

After that seminal day, I have felt that I belonged, wherever I may be; I draw no distinction between myself and the mosaic of life around me. And now, wherever I live, I belong. This has brought me great peace and satisfaction. Desert, mountains, grasslands, tropical zones – I’ve lived in each one loving it and learning from the people and the land, waters, and all the life there.