Many of you may think that what is happening in ICE raids with immigrants, and some citizens, and those that protest by marching, those at sit-ins at universities, troops in your backyard, and detention camps being built, won’t happen to you or those you love or your friends.

Hopefully then, your family and friends are white, or your children won’t fall in love with someone of color. Hopefully, your children won’t go to a university and feel a need to protest. Hopefully, if you or someone you care for is not a citizen then they have all the paperwork needed to show that they belong here and hopefully, that will be it. Hopefully, troops won’t march in your streets, ever, or detention camps won’t be built near you. Hopefully, you live in a state that will allow you to vote, remember, state voting regulations apply to every state citizen.

It’s not only the public that needs to be thinking about the future. Take, for instance, our Congress. It’s very interesting how Republicans in Congress keep voting with the President. I imagine that they think that when Congress is dismantled or restructured that they will stay in power, along with the President. If you are one of these people, ask yourself, what does the President need you for if this happens? If he requires a few people to stay in a restructured Congress, to give him a “look” of being a President of the people, like Russia, why would he need 535 bodies? Good luck with that.

One thing we, as citizens, are going to have to learn to do is to say “hi” to as many people as we can and then ask them how their day is going. Whether we are walking down the street, in a subway, on a march, or whatever the circumstance, this is the least we can do to show a small bit of comfort to others.

It doesn’t matter what their political preference is or their “looks or vibe”, simply say “Hi, how is your day going?” Yet there is one more thing that we should do in conjunction with this. Listen to their answer. Without doing this, the greeting doesn’t mean anything. By listening, we are saying we care about their answer. If necessary, we may have to stop for a short conversation. This will hopefully help them to have a better day and even feel better about their current situations. And many of them will be in situations they need to feel better about.

Let’s refocus now and talk about a few of the recent actions of President Trump. He is now taking on the Smithsonian because they are too woke. “As President Trump promised, the Trump Administration is committed to rooting out Woke and divisive ideology in our government and institutions,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said. This quote can be found at www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/white-house-targets-woke-smithsonian-content-in-new-list/ar-AA1KYRup?ocid=BingNewsSerp. First, the Merriam-Webster definition of woke: “Aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” Though there is an emphasis on racial and social justice, this definition refers to all of us. Do you think we should just forget that there was slavery, indigenous cruelty, and Japanese internment to name a few? Do you think that we would never again do these kinds of acts if we forgot? Aren’t we again doing the same thing to many different races with our handling of immigrants? Are people that consider themselves woke really divisive or create disunity or dissension?

Another action by the president was the Executive Order on Elections. “President Trump recently issued an executive order containing election policies that have traditionally been the purview of states.” This quote came from www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/executive-order-on-elections-implications-for-states. Of course, this will be played out in court. My simple reply is why? Why would an executive order that is blatantly against Constitutional law even be followed? This can be said of many of the executive orders that President Trump has signed. Why are these not ignored. Why are these even allowed? Would you say that when it comes to President Trump’s second term that the Constitution doesn’t even exist for this administration?

Again, about elections, President Trump said the following. “Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said, ‘You can’t have an honest election with mail-in voting,’” Trump said. “And he said there’s not a country in the world that uses it now.” This is from www.huffpost.com/entry/putin-expert-manipulation-tactic-trump-talks_n_68a330c4e4b0858c76431e96. Of course, this is all a lie. There are several U.S. states that only allow mail-in voting. And in the same article mentioned above, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance notes that 34 countries allow some form of postal voting, although some have restrictions on which voters can use the method. Why would anyone ever listen to Vladimir Putin anyway? On the website www.rferl.org, they note that “Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a new measure that allows elections at all levels and referendums to be conducted by mail and via the Internet, according to the Kremlin’s website.” This was in 2020, so is Putin just blowing smoke in his conversation with President Trump? Duh!

This is just a small fraction of things our President is trying to accomplish. Is this Democracy? Are these actions following the Constitution that has taken 250 years to write and clarify? “Many have said” to take a quote from our President, that there are no ‘teeth’ in our Constitution and laws. No way to squelch any attempts to change things. Do you agree? Can we do anything about it?

We can march. We can protest. We can write articles. But also, we can call our elected officials in Congress, Republican and Democrat, and tell them to start doing something for us, the ones that voted them in. We can also call or write the President with the same message. We can also let our state officials, from the Governor down, know that we don’t want troops in our cities, ICE on our soil, nor anyone dictating what our elections look like. This is our state, not theirs.

Reed Harris is a longtime Rochelle resident and community volunteer.