To be subjected, on a daily basis, at multiple times throughout the day, to the dangerous, dehumanizing ramblings of a person devoid of any moral fiber, is to be subjected to abuse. The trauma is evident in the fact that you already know who we are talking about. The entire country, along with much of the world, is being psychologically abused to a degree that we already have evidence of negative physical health impacts to go with worsening geopolitical crisis. 

• That physical abuse is happening through imposed stress and grief, which are made far worse by the experience of having foundational ideals and moral values overturned and dismissed with impunity.
• It is also happening, because corrupt actions are leading to the removal of protections against toxic pollution of air and water, the manipulation of labeling and public health standards, so that food companies can more easily slip chemicals into food without consumers knowing it. The pollution presidency is hurting people in real, ongoing, and serious ways, and the harm will play out for decades to come.
• And there is a third layer to this—the moral rot that actually kills large numbers of people.

Over 20 years, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is estimated to have saved 92 million lives. That’s 4.6 million lives per year, on average. That historic, humanizing, world-building achievement, cost Americans just $79 each in the last year it was operating. 

In January 2025, Donald Trump claimed an authority that does not exist in law to unilaterally seize all funds related to USAID and other international humanitarian aid. The President has no such authority and is, in fact, explicitly prohibited from doing this under US federal law. Trump, his budget director, the Secretary of State, and Congress, were all warned: This will kill millions of innocent people and devastate the reputation of the United States for generations to come.

They went ahead anyway, breaking contracts and illegally repurposing funds allocated by federal law to a specific purpose. It is estimated more than 761,700 people have lost their lives as a result, including more than 514,400 children. Those lives ended as a direct result of an intentional choice made by high-ranking officials to engage in illegal activity, abdicating their oath and betraying humanity itself.

The right to a government that operates faithfully, honestly, and for the benefit of human rights and wellbeing, is implicit in the entire process of the founding, and is guaranteed protection under the Ninth Amendment and numerous provisions of federal law. That this is questioned not only in words but by the lethal abandonment of people to whom the nation had made formal, legally binding commitments, is a breach beyond words.

People of conscience have to ask: How can we make this right, while our government behaves as if this horror is a kind of dark victory? And that question must be asked while innocent people across the U.S. are intentionally harmed, with their fundamental human rights violated and due process denied.

The President cannot simply take the country and the wider world to war, because he has feelings of personal disappointment, or wants to show off his brutality, or refuses to acknowledge the limits of his role. No official, at any level, can just wipe away the Bill of Rights, as if its absolute constraints on power were merely nice ideas. 

The first thing must be to resist and reject the lawless celebration of cruelty. 

• Do not let our spiritual sense that rights are paramount be degraded. 
• Rights are paramount. 
• Do not let yourself be driven to give up on the demand that authorities be better; they are obligated to be better by law. 
• Eventually, we will right the ship.

We need to let people know decency endures. 

• Outside the U.S., people want to know that this madness does not represent us, so spread the word. Demand better. 
• To reinforce the demand, pay attention, document what is happening—safely and peacefully—and tell people around you that you can see the difference between right and what is happening. 

Then, we need to establish new policies, laws, and practices that prevent abuses by high-ranking officials. 

• One founding principle is that the President is an administrator—of high rank, yes, but no less bound by law to do what the law describes, and to ensure others do.
• Another is that lawmakers and other officials, across all three branches of government, are barred from using their position to advance personal or partisan interest, so… party-line votes in Congress should be rare, and campaign cash and other personal desires should have no sway over official decisions.

We also need to be more honest about brazen deception by top officials. 

• Federal law characterizes deception intended to conceal and advance illicit intent not only as evidence but as a crime in itself. Conspiracy to violate rights is also a crime. 
• Elected officials at all levels need to hear clearly and consistently that we do not want a government that behaves irrationally, lawlessly, or with even the slightest indifference toward the rights and dignity of anyone. 

Part of what has so many people beside themselves with grief is that a large number of elected officials either seem to celebrate these abuses or express an inability to imagine how they can be countered. The madness is maddening. The institutional indifference destroys trust. We cannot let despair convert grief into consent. 

In Minnesota, where basic American freedoms are under paramilitary attack, people of faith are singing decency into being and consolidating its hold on the future by providing humanitarian aid to neighbors in need. Nothing is greater than defending the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. 

It should be obvious to everyone that violent crime is not reduced by masked agents shooting random civilians, launching chemical weapons in residential communities, grabbing mothers and children from cars, homes, and sidewalks, separating them, and sending them more than a thousand miles away to concentration camps in Texas. 

Let’s talk openly and constantly about these needed upgrades as the reasonable way to co-manage our republic. There can be less grief and more decency, less damage and more constructive civics. Remember, the 10th Amendment concludes with the recognition that power ultimately resides with the people.