Deny, Delay, Make the Record Clear

The Mantra for our Opposition to Trump and his Free State Republicans

Are our elected leaders doing all they can to oppose Trump and his in-state counterparts?

My wife Amy is a gifted fiber artist. She was the artist on a project with her colleague, Dr. Bea, and a group called the “Victory Women of Vision,” a not for profit located in Manchester. The Victory Women is the kind of non-profit that Trump is targeting with budget cuts and exactly the kind of organization we need. Their mission “is to encourage, empower, and nurture immigrant and refugee families to thrive by embracing their cultural heritage as they build their new lives.”

Amy and Dr. Bea helped the “knitting sisters,” a group of women of a certain age, design a mural of knitted pieces that compared the lives they left in Africa to their new lives in Manchester. On the left of the mural are images of the elders’ homes in Africa and of animals grazing under a bright blue sky. On the right are images of the Amoskeag Mills, a basketball court and a dog in a park under that same blue sky. The elders used the mural to teach middle-school aged children in their community to knit. The project, most importantly, was about building bonds and strengthening community.

The mural was unveiled on Wednesday. The women were decked out in their finest, most colorful dresses. The dresses were so vibrant that the women appeared to be dancing without getting up from their chairs. The mayor came. At one point, he asked what they did at the Victory Women. A couple of the women answered at once. They said they’d each lost their husband and this was where they found family.

Projects like this capture the essence of what is good in America. With some notable exceptions, we are mostly immigrants. Our best efforts are directed towards incorporating our diverse backgrounds into a productive, cohesive nation that respects our differences, not punishes them.

WE ARE NOT TRUMP’S AMERICA.

WE CANNOT ALLOW HIM TO DESTROY OUR COMPASSION AND UNDERSTANDING FOR ONE ANOTHER.

My thoughts about the Victory Women and their efforts leads me to consider our elected leaders and to wonder if they are doing all they can to oppose Trump.

We who knock the doors, hang the lit, make the phone calls, and contribute the small dollars must take elected officials at their word when they say we are important to them. This means they must listen to us. Mindful of this, here is the mantra I suggest they adopt going forward. It is what I did as a NH Executive Councilor when I knew we didn’t have the votes to stop Frank Edelblut from becoming Sununu’s Education Commissioner.

We must deny Trump’s new laws, his orders, his appointments, his narratives when we can.

Where we can’t deny, we must delay his efforts to villainize immigrants, academics, students, and people who are Black or Brown or Queer.

Our elected leaders must be unequivocal.

And where we can’t delay, we must make the record clear about what he is doing and about where we stand.

This must be our mantra: DENY—DELAY—MAKE THE RECORD CLEAR.

Bipartisanship can no longer be the goal for its own sake. (I don’t even know where you can draw the line to compromise with his evil.) There will hopefully again be a time where we can work in a bipartisan fashion and seek compromise where appropriate. Now is not that time.

DENY, DELAY or MAKE THE RECORD CLEAR.

Our federal leaders are much too prone to pursue bipartisanship for its own sake. This is not a philosophical exercise. Our state leaders cower before William Loeb’s Pledge. At a gathering last Saturday, every state leader who spoke said they would reduce property taxes. It is not enough for state leaders to say they want to reduce the burden of property taxes. They must remove the single largest barrier to that goal and free themselves to work towards a system of fair school funding that will reduce property taxes.

Both Senators Hassan and Shaheen have voted for Trump cabinet nominees:

· Chris Wright from the fracking industry, to lead the Department of Energy;

· Douglas Burgum, who wants to silence the public so he can give public lands to the oil and gas industry, to lead the Department of the Interior;

· Brooke Rollins, the former co-founder and CEO of Trump’s America First Institute, who, as Secretary of Agriculture, cut off funds to feed Maine’s school children and to bully Maine Governor Janet Mills.

And both Senators Shaheen and Hassan voted in support of

· Kristi Noem, Trump’s dog-shooting Secretary of Homeland Security who posed with her $50,000 watch in front of cages where fellow Americans are detained in El Salvador.

Members of Congress Chris Pappas and Maggie Goodlander were among the very few Democrats to vote for Trump’s first bill on his road to villainizing and victimizing immigrants, the Riley Laken Act. Three times as many Democratic House members voted against the bill as voted for it. All the Republicans in the Senate co-sponsored the bill. It was the first bill Trump signed into law this term.

Pappas and Goodlander chose to stand with President Trump, Speaker Johnson and Senate Leader Thune rather than with those of us who believe good, protective immigration policy can be achieved without exploiting a narrative of hatred and scapegoating.

We have much work to do if we are to win back important legislative and executive offices in 2026. Our work must start with our ourselves. We must be uniform in opposition to what is happening to our country and, if our elected leaders don’t agree, we must find new leaders.

Next on the Book Tour:

Claremont Savings Bank Community Center, May 8th at 6:30p

Franklin Public Library, May 12th at 6:00p.