I started taking notes for this piece on Inauguration Day. After only a week and a half, I have enough to fill a book. A nonfiction book, since the only thing novel about what is happening is that it’s new to our country’s history.

However, we have seen things like it repeated in other countries now and in the past.

I want to take one last, longing look at President Joe Biden’s term in office. I believe that Biden’s approval rating will be proven way too low in comparison with the havoc that has already ensued with the new Trump administration and in the hindsight of history. He got the PACT Act passed, which expanded medical care for our veterans; the Chips and Science Act, which funds manufacturing of semiconductors in the U.S. and science and technology research, taking back some of our dependence on China; the bipartisan Infrastructure bill, which created jobs building and repairing roads and bridges across the country, investing in clean energy development. All these actions provided new employment opportunities that are now jeopardized by Trump’s potential funding freezes. Funds already appropriated by Congress. Did you vote to eliminate all those jobs that benefit our infrastructure and environment?

Many Americans are alive today due to Biden’s quick implementation of a plan to fight COVID and distribution of vaccinations and tests. His American Rescue Plan doled out aid to families to recover from the impact of the pandemic. Trump’s solution, when faced with this global crisis, was to hide it from the American public and hope it would go away.

He allowed anti-vaxers to turn the public against getting life-saving prevention while benefiting from it himself. He neglected to promote masks as an effective protection. Now one of his piles of executive orders attempts to ban the wearing of masks in public.

His nominee for Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., is opposed to vaccinations and many other advances in medicine that have improved our lives over the decades. Vaccinations eradicated polio, only a generation ago. Measles, mumps, rubella that used to plague children all but vanished from the country, until this crazy anti-vax campaign got started. Now we’re seeing cases of measles, and even an outbreak of tuberculosis recently in Kansas. RFK Jr. says raw milk is good for you. Raw milk can be contaminated and transmit tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and diphtheria. That’s why pasteurization was developed.

Trump has withdrawn us from the World Health Organization and has forbidden the CDC from any communications. There is an avian flu pandemic brewing and we will not be prepared, just like we weren’t prepared for COVID. Did you vote to keep our children unprotected from these horrible diseases?

Sometimes a kernel of truth manages to get lodged in the teeth of Fox viewers. Recently, Fox reporter Jessica Tarlov actually gave Hannity a lesson in flossing. She challenged him not to “deny the reality” of the results of Biden’s term. She pointed out that the unemployment rate was at a 4.1% low, gas prices were dropping, gross domestic product grew, and yes, border crossings decreased. Biden managed to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and get hostages released. She said that there’s a reason that Trump wants to take credit for these things. Trump’s first four years produced 1.9 million deportations. Biden’s, 4 million. To match that, Trump’s current ICE raids have their work cut out for them. Did you vote for border security? Biden attempted to pass a bill for that, defeated by Trump.

So far, the results have been mostly to stoke fear in neighborhoods everywhere. New York is one of his first targets. We were repeatedly promised that only dangerous violent immigrants would be the focus of the deportations, but of the arrests that occurred on Jan 26, 48% were innocent of any criminal behavior. As Bishop Mariann Budde pointed out to Trump’s face, “the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. … They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”

These folks are being deported in military planes, at a cost to us of more than double the chartered planes that Biden and Obama used. All for show, for attention misdirection. Did you vote for all the smoke and mirrors and are you prepared to hide friends, neighbors, family members, who look like they may be Hispanic?

Had Biden not left Trump with such a stable situation he would not have had time to focus on creating chaos. Trump has just tried to unilaterally halt all federal funding.

He has no legal authority to do that, it’s the responsibility of Congress. Money goes to Meals on Wheels, HEAP, VA loans, Veteran Suicide Prevention Programs, Head Start, local law enforcement, Cancer research, food assistance, school lunches, grants to nonprofits. The FDIC which protects your bank accounts. FEMA, with the recent disastrous wildfires in California. This is only a cross-section of what affects every single person in this country. This must be what Elon Musk meant about temporary discomfort so that they could “fix” things. Fix things by rearranging the funding to reward the billionaires in Trump’s camp and punish those who haven’t bowed down to the king. Vice President J.D. Vance has brought the doctrine of RAGE to the plan — Retire All Government Employees. Delete the government. Install a CEO dictator. They already have offered a buyout plan to make the job easier. Did you vote to throw away our democracy?

All employees connected with any Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs have lost their jobs. Among the purposes of DEI was helping with adaptations for those with physical challenges, including veterans with disabilities, so that they too could find successful employment. There have been multiple career civil servants fired with no lawful cause; they are the experience necessary to run the government smoothly. Trump’s nominees are a long list of characters who are unqualified, who are selected for their allegiance. Inspectors general of 18 agencies have been let go. They are responsible for rooting out corruption. Did you vote in favor of nepotism and corruption?

Then there’s the blanket pardon of all the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

A militia at the ready, beholden to Trump, a paramilitary armed and dangerous. Did you vote for 1,500 convicted criminals, many of violence against our police, to be put back on the street? Trump also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, serving a life sentence for running a dark web online black market, allowing illegal drugs and other illicit services and money laundering to take place anonymously via bitcoin. So with the blessing of the crypto-currency crowd, he launched his own crypto-crap. Did you vote in favor of crypto-grift? Of illegal online drug commerce?

Maybe what hits your breakfast table will hit home to you. No scrambled eggs because the bird flu will wipe out the poultry population. No orange juice because there will be no cheap migrant labor to pick the oranges. No coffee because Trump has started a row with Colombia. Be careful of your bacon, no FDA to make sure it’s not tainted. So better eat your Wheaties, you’ll need your strength to get through this. Did you vote for grocery prices to climb due to tariff wars with our trade partners?

Trump thinks he’s God by proclaiming how many sexes can exist. That’s God’s job. We’re taught that we are all made in God’s image.

What people need to be comfortable in their identities is not our business. Or should the government intervene unless it is hurting someone else. Did you vote to replace God?

If we are going to have a legitimate semiquincentennial, we have to fight these authoritarian moves. Think about what’s happening. Process. Persist. Resist … to be continued.

Susan Bigler is a Sheridan resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com