Letter Sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune 9 February 2025

 

Dear (Senator Thune and Speaker Johnson),

I am a veteran of the US Army who, until the past ten years or so, took pride in  caring less about which party a candidate belonged to than what their record said they’d do. Recent Republican politics have shown the party to be less interested in governing than it is in taking over, which has altered my voting pattern.

Republicans have long taken pride in referring to themselves as the party of law and order, yet seem perfectly willing to stand by while the current administration runs roughshod over not only established law, but Constitutional principles. Indeed, many of your peers encourage this behavior.

While Elon Musk and his unauthorized Department of Government Efficiency try to cut not only the federal workforce but the levers of government itself, where is your outrage? You appear to be, at best, indifferent to a situation where silence indicates complicity.

What is your end game? Appearances indicate it is to gut the democratic principles to create at best an autocracy and at worst a dictatorship. If so, I, and millions of others, will use everything at our disposal to fight you. I did not serve this country – nor did my father and uncles in World War II – so you could walk away from the principles so many you claim to honor died for. I will join any effort to relegate the Republican party to the same historical footnotes as the Whigs and the Anti-Masonic party.

It’s already past time for you to honor your oaths to the Constitution. If you ever intended to.

 

Dana King

Laurel MD

Letter Sent to My Representative, Senators, and Democratic Leadership on 2 February 2025

(Recipients include Glenn Ivey (MD4), Chis van Hollen (D-MD), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and the Democratic National Committee. Messages sent to Mssrs. Ivey and Jefferies were lightly edited to meet a 2000 character limit on their web sites.)

I have been a registered Democrat for more than forty years. I vote in every election – federal, state, local, and primaries, including special elections – and for at least ten years have voted a straight Democratic ticket. I live on Social Security and a relatively small 401(k); last year I sent $1200 to the campaigns of Biden, Harris, and both the House and Senate election committees. I’m writing today to express my frustration with the party’s leadership and management.

The Trump Administration is running amuck. Where is the outrage from Democratic officials? Senators in the confirmation hearings are doing what they can, but where is the fury that can effectively be magnified by the public?

I’ve always thought a lot of Chuck Schumer, but his recent statements about trying to work with Republicans are misguided, counterproductive, and representative of the approach that led us to the brink of constitutional catastrophe. Right now the Democrats’ job is to obstruct Trump by every means at their disposal while making sure the voting public knows what’s going on.

Where’s Kamala Harris? She should be running a shadow presidency to publicly call out what Trump and his minions are doing, how it hurts the country long term, and what Democrats would do differently. Other high-profile Democrats should be doing the same unless they are currently fighting in the legislative trenches in Washington. Pete Buttigieg comes to mind. Beto O’Rourke. Jennifer Granholm. Others of lower profile might have appeal to specific groups, such as Tom Vilsack and farmers. There should be a well-known Democrat on the evening news every night to offer sound bites that counter whatever Trump is up to that day, but also to keep him from monopolizing the airwaves.

Appeals for donations are likely to fall on deaf ears until the party demonstrates it understands this is not the time for business as usual. Until you do, Democrats will have to share the blame for the demise of our democracy.

There are millions willing to take to the streets to support you if only the Democrats stopped bringing knives to gunfights. What you’ve been doing clearly isn’t working. Try something else before it’s too late, if it isn’t already.

Sincerely,

Dana King