BY HENRY BRIGMAN
We heard him say it: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” (thefulcrum.us/ethics-leadership/ donald-trump-shoot-someone).
And we know exactly who made such a garish and preposterous claim. If a prophet had told me many years ago that a U.S. President could shoot a person dead without consequences such as losing voters, I would not have believed it. Time has proven I was abundantly wrong.
President Trump’s appointee, Elon Musk, cancelled USAID food and medical supplies. We remember him parading around the stage, hoisting a chainsaw, and bragging about putting that essential program “in the woodchipper.”
An estimated six-hundred-thousand people, mostly children, have died from starvation and diseases because those supplies were ended. Essential food and medicine are still locked up in storage (www.newyorker.com/culture/ the-new-yorker-documentary/theshutdown- of-usaid-has-already-killedhundreds- of-thousands).
We tend to look the other way when something terrible is happening on another continent, but what if it is happening here?
I.C.E. agents are patrolling our streets, wearing full combat gear, masked and without personal identification, and have killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti without just cause.
Also, I.C.E. agents dragged a naturalborn American citizen, Marimar Martinez, a teacher, from her car while she was on her way to donate clothing at her church. The one who shot her five times texted others, arrogantly boasting, “Five bullets and seven holes. Put
SEE that in your book, boys” (newrepublic. com/post/206100/ republican-skip-hearing-renee- good-brothers-testify).
Trump bragged he could kill someone and not lose supporters. Has he lost any supporters because of all these senseless deaths? Maybe, because we know his approval rating has gone down in recent months, now hovering somewhere in the ‘thirties (depending on the specific poll). But perhaps he hasn’t lost enough for that reason.
We have known Donald Trump is a racist. This was proven in court many years ago, when he and his father were found guilty of repeatedly refusing to rent apartments to qualified Black applicants (www.congress.gov/118/ meeting/house/117470/documents/ HHRG-118-GO0020240627-SD010.pdf).
A much more recent example is Trump’s behavior at the annual Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2026. Pastors mentioned Jesus, prayers were offered, and Scriptures were quoted. Notable clergy prayed for the president before the microphone was handed over to him to speak.
He then gave his typical performance of self-congratulation, grievances about elections supposedly stolen from him, and calling immigrants criminals. Opponents were ridiculed. He said he didn’t know how any person of faith could vote for a Democrat.
Trump warned the pastors that faithfulness to him would be rewarded by their not having their tax-exempt status revoked, but disloyalty to him could result in having it revoked (www.theguardian. com/us-news/2026/feb/05/ trump-religious-right-republicans).
The most grievous thing, in my view, was the enthusiastic applause of those in the room who claimed to follow Jesus.
It was the very night after this Prayer Breakfast that Trump posted that horrendous video depicting our first Black president and his wife as apes.
I have been sickened during many decades by the vulgar, racist, and profane graffiti drawn on stalls in truck-stop restrooms. I never dreamed that messages like those would come from any President of the United States of America.
When people show you who they are, believe them. Have you had enough? I urge us to call and write our legislators, stating our abhorrence at the way President Trump’s actions are eating away at the fabric of our beloved nation’s values of honesty and compassion.
I am certain that we must now make our peaceful protests known, louder and clearer than we have ever before thought necessary.