Philomel means lover of song. In classic literature and prose, philomel was substituted with the nightingale. William Shakespeare, for example, employed the nightingale, or even philomel, at least 33 times in his plays and sonnets as symbols of song, grief, and trauma. Its’ origins trace back to Greek and Roman mythology; of how the gods created the nightingale.
It is a tragic story, and like many Greek and Roman mythologies, is racked with violence, sexual violence in particular. This story contains such tales. There are several versions of the myth, I learned, and over the ages this story has been reinterpreted in prose and art.
The story I still thing resonates today, Greek and Roman Gods were powerful beings, they not only abused their powers to indulge their thirst for vengeance and lusts but also silence their victims. They also had soft spots and intervened at the last second in supposed acts of generosity and kindness. Today we have powerful men who use their money and office to silence victims.
The story of Philomela is one such example. Philomela was the younger sister of Pronce who was married to Tereus, the king of the Thracians. Philomela’s voice was considered beautiful, like a birds song. Tereus developed an obsession for Philomela. He raped her, and to stop her from telling his wife much less anyone else, cut out her tongue. Philomela, however, used her master weaving skills to make a purple robe or shawl with hidden messages of the rape. Through the symbols woven into the shawl or robe, Pronce learned of the rape, and in a rage killed her (Pronce’s) and Tereus’ son, cooked him, and served him to Tereus.
When Tereus found out, he raged, grabbed an axe, and chased Philomela and Ponce out of his palace, intending to murder them. He caught up with them, but, at that point, before he killed them, the Gods turned all three into birds. Ponce became a swallow, Philomela a nightingale, and Tereus a hoopoe, a very orangey, colorful bird known for its feathered crown.
Over a week ago, news media reported that E. Jean Carroll, was being investigated by the Department of Justice for perjury. Carroll, famously sued Trump for defamation a few years ago, and won a $83.3 million settlement. The civil jury found that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room in New York City. The judge called it rape. Trump has appealed the civil courts verdict, asking that the settlement be set aside. It sits before the Supreme Court today.
You can smell the corruption all the way from Illinois and the White House. Trump, as President, presides over the Department of Justice. The acting Attorney General is a former attorney for Trump. The Trump appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Andrew Bourtos, is overseeing the investigation. As a side note he is an alumnus of UVA law school.
As the fate of the civil case and judgment against Trump rests before the Supreme Court, Trump is using the Department of Justice to ‘cut out the tongue’ of E. Jean Carroll. She is today’s Philomela. It is outrageous. It is also meant, I think, to silence victims of Epstein and his many friends from coming forward.
Trump is a vile and heinous man and thinks nothing to use the full weight of his immense presidential powers, both legal and illegal, to go after and silence his accusers. He fancies himself a deity. Congress and the Supreme Court have allowed him to be a king and deity.
He needs to be turned into a hoopoe, orange feathered crown and all. A massive turn out this November will effectively turn him into a flightless Hoopoe of sorts. The Greek and Roman gods did have a sense of humor, however. Perhaps they would turn Trump into the Dodo bird or better yet a fluffy-backed tit-babbler or a blue-footed booby.
In the late 18th century Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe completed a play loosely based on the late 16th century Italian poet Torquato Tasso. Part autobiographical, according to one scholar, Goethe explores Tasso’s real-life moments of inspired poems created in the throes of mental illness, perhaps during episodes of manic depression or schizophrenia.
At one point Tasso was confined to a ‘madhouse’ for pulling a knife on his patron, the Duke of Ferrara, Alfons. In the play, the protagonist also was placed under house arrest for threats and pulling a knife. Goethe uses the play to explore the ‘tensions between the rational and the irrational,’ according to one academic article. From this play comes the much-quoted saying, “the coward only threatens when he is safe.”
This is a cogent observation of the human condition, even if the quote has become something of a truism. It worries me because our President seems to be threatening everyone and everything as he too shuttles between the rational and the irrational. His knife is our military and domestic paramilitary police.
Things are not going well for Trump – mentally or politically — it seems.
His war with Iran is a military, strategic, and political disaster. Iran checkmated him. Meanwhile, as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and America’s main street economy tanks, Trump fiddles with childlike vanity projects.
Inflation is rising at a quick pace, all because of Trump’s disastrous tariff wars and his catastrophe of a war with Iran, a war of choice. Last week gas prices were at this country’s highest national average cost per gallon ….ever. Americans, according to a new report, are falling behind in debt payments “at the fastest pace since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.” Credit card delinquencies rose to 13 plus percent in the first quarter of 2026. Additionally, auto loan delinquencies are also at record numbers. His polls are lower than sleepy Joes ever were.
Internationally, the world is aghast at Trump’s pretenses of not only being King of America but seeking to rule the world. At every opportunity he channels the evil emperor Ming the Merciless of Flash Gordon fame. Trump’s daily mental ruptures are rattling global markets. The 10-year government bond yield is at record highs, meaning sureness in the U.S. government ability to pay off its debts is declining. Because mortgage rates are linked to the 10-year bond, not to the Fed’s rate that banks get, it means that mortgage rates remain stubbornly high, making it harder to buy a home. That’s Trump’s doing, not the Chairman of the Fed. In short, international confidence in America is in freefall.
Yet, Trump seems wholly unconcerned with the mid-terms or 2028. Just pleasing his MAGA base and ignoring the basic sensibilities of democracy and the democratic process. As if they no longer exist. He even posted an image of himself with a rifle and the carcass of a rhino. Threatening Republicans who don’t back him 100 percent.
Why? What does he have up his sleeve that makes him think he is safe from political disaster and reversal?
I can only guess he isn’t concerned about the Republicans losing the house and senate this November or the White House with a democratic incumbent in 2028. That the outcomes of the vote of 2026 and 2028 are irrelevant; that he intends, and believes, he can and will stay in power.
As Trump vacillates between the rational and irrational, he increasingly lives in the latter camp. I am deeply concerned that a mental health driven constitutional breakdown is becoming increasingly likely should neither his Cabinet or Congress intervene. Given the cowardice of his cabinet Secretaries, Vice President, Roberts, Johnson, and Thune, Trump has nothing to fear and continues his campaigns of threats.
Corrupt is a word much used nowadays to describe Trump and his administration. I even heard it in Louisa in an establishment that I would say is part of MAGA country. A few weeks ago, when my wife and I were in a store in the Louisa and Mineral area, the owner standing behind the counter, went on a tirade about Trump and his corruption. Stating that Trump and his family pocketed over $1.4 billion.
I have been to this store several times and there has been, on occasion, anti-liberal, anti-progressive, anti-democratic party bantering and comments made by folks in the store and behind the counter. For instance, if something was free, it was a “democratic discount.” I stopped going to the store, but sometimes they were the only game in town.
That said, when I heard the owner dis Trump recently, I got a grin on my face as wide as the Grand Canyon, said nothing, paid for my stuff, and left. “Damn,” I said to my wife in the truck, adding, “holy shit that was interesting.”
Whether that anger translates at the polls to a dem vote, is to be seen. It may turn into low republican turnout, which will benefit the democrats. But who knows. Who knows whether a corrupt White House will try and cancel the November election by declaring a national emergency, or, if there is an election, whether Trump will nullify democratic wins by claiming fraud and seize ballots. That is the $1.4 billion dollar question.
Corrupt, however, is more expansive than simple bribery, self-dealing, insider trading, and all unethical things Trump is doing to enrich himself, his family, and those loyal to him. It has a much richer and broader meaning. Corruption is plush in adjectives and verbs dating back to the 14th century.
Like many words in English, it has a Latin origin. It’s root meaning corrumpere, simply means to destroy to spoil. In the English language starting in the 1300s it took on the modern sense of how we understand corruption, both physically and spiritually. Most folks nowadays think just bribery, but it has many meanings. Sadly, I think you can put a check mark by each of the words below and say, “yep, that’s Trump.”
Debased in character, unhealthy, uncouth, bribe, to break, decrepit, putrid, putrefy, spoiled, depraved morally, pervert, contaminate, impair the purity of, seduce or violate (woman or child), render impure, and finally, influence by bribe or other motive.
Not only is Trump using the office of the Presidency to corruptly enrich himself and his family, but the list of his other corrupt acts is deep, and America decays and putrefies every day he remains in power:
he demolishes the rule of law in America every opportunity he has.
he routinely perverts the course of justice;
he broke America’s social contract;
he debases America and its allies daily with wildly crazy midnight social media posts;
he orders extrajudicial killings on the high seas and starts unjust wars without cause and without the people’s consent.
he violated a woman in a department store dressing room, a civil jury found;
he was accused by a woman of raping her when she was 13, per FBI documents;
he was a longtime friend with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein;
he posts images of himself as Jesus.
And finally, he is personally uncouth, not worthy of the highest office in our great land.
So, what to do. The first order is to vote in November, make pleas to friends and family to get out and vote. That’s the easy party. If Trump cancels the election or nullifies the election or tells congress not to seat the new congress, what then? What’s the response? I think, and I believe this, it will be the beginning of the end of the union. I don’t think disenfranchised states will wait for the courts.
Civil War? I hope not, and most Americans do not want this. It would be fratricidal. Problem is Trump is an insane, corrupt nihilist who likes to play the madman, when he is in effect really a madman, surrounded by sycophantic child like nihilists like Vance, Miller, and Hegseth. The question is, what will a depraved Trump do when massive demonstrations erupt across the country and in Washington DC should he cancel or nullify the elections?
Let’s begin with a very short quiz. True or false: Up to 1926 non-citizens in many States could vote in local, state, and national elections.
If you answered True, you are ………correct.
If you carefully read the original ratified constitution, you will note that it did not explicitly define who could vote. Or, for that matter even define citizen or citizenship. In fact, and practice, voting rights in the several states at our founding tended to be based on the big three: acquired wealth, gender, and race. These three qualifications defined who could and, consequently, who could not vote. While property qualifications pretty much disappeared in the early 19th century, gender and race defined who could vote, not citizenship, for many, many decades.
Some state constitutions merely asserted “white males” could vote with no mention of citizenship. As the country expanded westward voting by aliens was encouraged, for instance in the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 “freehold aliens” could vote. Some states required aliens to take an oath that they were upstanding inhabitants and intended to become citizens. Becoming a naturalized citizenship was linked to race, however, in our early Republic.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 stated that only “free white person of good character’ could become citizens after two years of residence, however, several following Acts raised the residency requirements first to five years, and then in 1798 the Alien and Sedition Act raised the residency requirement to 14 years. This last requirement did not last long and was in response to fears of dastardly French influences.
The Constitution of 1789, while never linking voting to citizenship, clearly stated, however, that the President, Representatives, and Senators must be citizens, and added an additional modifier for President, they must be a ‘natural born citizen.’ The absence of any express statement in the constitution linking citizenship to voting suggests that voting by non-citizens was such common practice that it was deemed a common law right, at least in the American colonies which, before the revolution, were generally governed by written charters.
Americans, it seems, before they were technically American, were better off than their fellow Englishmen in Great Britian in terms of suffrage. In Great Britian, voting in the 18th century was extremely restricted and it was not until a series of reforms in the 19th century did Great Britian enlarge the voting franchise.
For about 150 years then, many states permitted aliens, that is non-citizens, to vote. I think Scalia, were he alive, and other constitutional originalists would vomit at that thought.
Voting by non-citizens did ebb and flow over time, however. Wars resulted in contractions of voting rights by non-citizens, for instance the War of 1812 and the First World War saw pushback. The rise of nativist movements as waves of immigrants arrived provoked some pushback as well on non-citizen voting rights in the mid 19th century. This accelerated when immigrants from eastern or southern Europe — such as Greece or Italy — began arriving in huge numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[i]
Basically, folks from an earlier list of shithole countries or representing threatening religions, you know, the ever-dangerous Catholic or Jew. Claims of intellectual, genetic, and moral inferiority abounded. They couldn’t assimilate many claimed. Does that not sound familiar?
As we have seen, voting rights in America has a peculiar history and was (and is it seems) very much tied with gender and race, not citizenship. Citizenship was a variable state by state. Women gained the right to vote 105 years ago. African American men in 1870. Asian immigrants could not become U.S. citizens until 1952, and therefore ineligible to vote.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 did much to enforce and federalize and nationalize the right to vote. It did much to ensure all citizens, regardless of race or origin, were given equal opportunity to vote. That is no longer the case. While the reversals of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have been articulated in terms of impacts on black and brown voters, the demise of the Act will have broader impacts on other communities: Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, and other diaspora communities.
Trump’s new immigration policy is designed to impact the make-up of the next generation of voters. Afrikaners over Africans, whites over others. And, with the help of the Robert’s court, making it harder for everyday Americans of color to vote in states with long histories of denying black and brown people the right to vote. The attack on the Voting Rights Act is just one part of a broader, systemic attack on who is an American, who can become an American, and therefore, who has a voice in America’s present and future.
This November we are voting for more than just neutering Trump politically, we are fighting for whose America this is, and who will inherit America from us once we are gone. This is a generational vote, a vote for our kids, our grandkids, and our generations of unborn Americans.
Post Script: The Supreme Court recently invalidated Louisiana’s congressional district voting map because districts were gerrymandered by race. A normal grace period of a month was set aside by the Court to allow immediate action by Louisiana. Voting was already underway. The Louisiana governor is currently refusing to count over 30k mail-in votes already received.
[i] Texas permitted non-citizens to vote until 1921. Indiana as well. Kansas 1918. Oregon 1914. Virginia 1818. Pennsylvania 1838. See Ron Hayduk, Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States, 2006.
The Supreme Court last week gave a final, mortal blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Et tu Roberts. The Court’s majority opinion, penned by Justice Alito, argued that America has changed since the 1960s, that the racial animus predicating the denial of black and brown people from voting or having the chance to be represented in Congress, had magically evaporated.
The Louisiana congressional district map, which was at the heart of this recent case, was therefore unconstitutional, according to six of the justices. Voting districts, per the Court could be gerrymandered to reflect political favoritism toward a political party but not race. To add insult to injury, the Court then granted Louisiana the immediate ability to change the map. Normally, there is a month’s long grace period giving the losing side an opportunity to prepare arguments in lower courts before the ruling comes into effect.
The central premise that America has changed is facile and flawed and misguided. Yes, America has become a more pluralistic society, black and brown representation did increase since the late 1960s. However, in many deep south states with large black and brown populations, white’s continue to be overrepresented in state houses and the House of Representatives. It ignores repeated and continual attempts to disenfranchise black and brown voters through ostensibly race neutral laws.
On another level, the racial animus towards black and brown folks is as strong as ever. Take Trump’s words that immigrants from ‘shit hole’ countries are polluting American blood, or that Haitians eat folks’ pets, or that Somalis are low IQ, or that non-white immigrants are destroying western civilization. I don’t think these thoughts are outliers in MAGA world, or for that matter in the minds of some of the Supreme Court justices.
A week before the riots in Charlottesville in August 2017, in which Heather Heyer was murdered and dozens more were injured when a white supremacist drove his car into peaceful protestors, I posted this essay. An essay about my community here in Louisa. Given the Court’s decision last week, I believe the essay deserves a repost. I repost it in its entirety below followed by a brief postscript:
Four ladies were sitting in a pie and coffee joint. In walk a priest, a rabbi, and an Imam. Naw, in walk my wife and I. What follows, disappointingly, is a true, but sad story. As we walk in the four women were playing bridge and conversationally engaged. As I ordered coffee and tea, a slice of rhubarb pie, and a muffin, at the counter my wife selected a table cattycorner from this bridge quartet, well within earshot, especially as they spoke in upturned voices.
Given the closeness of the tables, it was impossible not to be encompassed in the conversation, even as detached, unwilling silent witnesses. Eavesdropping into the conversation mid-way found us somewhere in a conversation about church business followed quickly by a lamentation that a friend, who apparently was pictured in a Ku Klux Klan photograph, was being unfairly associated with the racism. “Guilt by association” chuckled one woman slightly. It was like walking into a Kafka soliloquy. This tête-à-tête then veered onto the hot local subject of the removal of a confederate statue from a nearby university town. All expressed bitterness, with one speaking out loud for their little group, that it was a disgrace, that you “can’t change history.”
She’s right, but apparently, she can’t fathom or acknowledge that the South’s history is more than about white heritage. Then, in a deeply submerged psychological association, the statue controversy was instantaneously linked to the public schools — think 1954 and Brown v. Board of Education declaring racial segregation unconstitutional – when one exclaimed in the next breath to mutual concord, that “We provide them with a free education” and if ‘they don’t take advantage of that, it isn’t our problem.’ Oh, that set me off. We and them. WE and THEM! That basically sums it up. At that point my wife shot me that ‘not now’ look with a little Mona Lisa smirk, part threat, part calm down. I mumbled aloud about walking into a ‘daughters of the confederacy’ meeting.
My back was to this bridge playing klavern and I was facing out the pie shop’s picture window taking in the Mayberry-like main street, named of course Main Street. Across the street was the antebellum circuit courthouse, a little red brick jail stood off to the left of the courthouse. A statue of a confederate soldier stands a silent vigil; his gaze forever fixed towards the northeast watching over the town square and all who approach. Sheriff Andy Taylor or Atticus Finch may walk by if you close your eyes for a second. This American circuit courthouse was a facilitator of slavery and racial oppression. No doubt, slaves seized from indebted planters were most likely sold just yards away. Wills that directed the selling off or gifting of slaves, breaking up families, were filed in that courthouse. I wondered too about the little jail and imagined whether slave traders, with their coffles of slaves heading down from Alexandria to Richmond, and then on to New Orleans, would bed down their walking inventory in the local jail overnight for a small fee.
I am not sure the irony of their conversation juxtaposed so close to slavery’s ghosts was apparent to these card players. Nonetheless, the carefree and unguarded manner the conversation played out in a public space underscored, I think, the impulsive racist bigotry that pervades many American towns. It is as natural as breathing it seems. The fact that they spoke in raised voices like it was 1859 or 1955 leads me to believe these women intuitively assumed, that because my wife and I are white, we automatically subscribe to their philosophy.
Shamefully, I sat mute, halfway between cowardice and rage, sipping tepid tea, but felt my anger and words would not change what has been etched in these women’s minds since before their mothers’ mothers were even born. Their banter was wide ranging and not all about race. At some point one commented about CNN “yapping on” about the “Russia thing,” “brain washing of liberals,” and what to do about North Korea. On North Korea, at least, there was disagreement. While it isn’t fair to put all the white folks in this corner of the South into a box and label it “toxic bigots, handle with care” racism’s complexities remains deep in this part of the woods and the women playing bridge no doubt have already infested their children and grandchildren with their septic views of race, supremacy, and obligation. At least the muffin was good, but the conversation left a bitter, sad after taste.
On reflection, “WE and THEM” is at the heart of America’s political divide. It always has been. At its core is the fundamental question about “whose America is this?” America belongs to the descendants of African captives forced into generational slavery, the new African citizen, the fifth generation Mexican American, the Coptic Christian immigrant from Egypt, the Shia Muslim from Syria, the offspring of Puritan New Englanders, the Chinese Americans whose ancestors helped build America’s western railroads, native Americans. And yes, even the fearful daughters of the confederacy who indifferently sip the tepid tears of those lost to slavery while playing bridge, should have equal access to a piece of the American pie.
Post Script: The Supreme Court made another decision antithetical to American democracy and misjudges the residual racial animus and antipathy still much alive in this country. This decision highlights the need for every vote this November. A democratic majority in the House and Senate will put a dead stop to Trump’s rule by decree. The Senate will ensure no more supreme court justices appointed by Trump are confirmed should any retire or die during the last two years of Trump’s term.
Gardens have been used as metaphor for ages and even has a starring role in many religions. Many early modern political commentators invoked gardens, for instance, that democracy was a garden that needed tending to thrive. And we know some gardens harbor snakes.
Tending my garden is a year’s long endeavor, but spring is my favorite time. It’s a time of renewal and growth, bumblebee queens seek the brilliant yellow dandelion flowers — a critical food source – while perennials begin to poke their heads up. Weeds start to reappear as well, like the dreaded bindweed. You must get them early, ripping them out root and all, before the flowers turn to seeds. However, as any gardener who has dealt with bindweed knows, it is a war of attrition.
A noxious bindweed has invaded our government, and Congress is an untended garden, overrun with weeds and invasive species of autocracy, blocking out America’s native species of the rule of law, equal rights, and the doctrine of coequal branches of government. It is time to weed Congress and relocate some of the slithering critters lurking in dark crevices. Voting YES to redistrict Virginia’s congressional districts is one way. Time is essential as the last day to vote is Tuesday, April 21.
I am imagining by now most registered voters in Virginian have voted in the referendum to draw new congressional district maps. Tuesday is your last day to vote, so, if you have not yet voted, do so. A YES vote is one for sanity and restoring our national social contract. Ensuring that Congress stands up to and reins in a corrupt and malevolent president. The current House of Representatives is a disaster. For those in Central Virginia’s 5thCongressional District, this November we will have the opportunity to vote out Rep. John McGuire, a Trump vassal.
If the disastrous war of choice against the Iranian people is not convincing enough, Trump’s self-appointment and deification as God’s prophet and latter-day Jesus, should get you across the finish line and vote YES.
Redistricting Virginia is not my preferred course of action, but if I am to ever have a voice in Congress again, I feel strongly, redistricting is my only option at this time. I acknowledge the paradox of gerrymandering Virginia to elect more Democrats while arguing that democracy is in trouble. I get it. Trump’s direct order to Republican governed states to redistrict crossed a line, however. Many states obeyed Trump. An eye for an eye, right? Virginia Republicans have only themselves and Trump to blame. You thought you “owned the libs.” But when you whack a hornets’ nest often enough…… You get my point. If you are angry at what the Democrats are doing in Virginia, write Trump at the White House and tell him he screwed you.
You can tell this referendum has got the MAGA folks up in arms, almost literally. Vote NO signs are more plentiful than dandelions in Louisa County. When I was up in Northern Virginia a few weeks ago, there was a small rally at the intersection of Routes 29 and 50 in Fairfax at 9 AM on a weekday. They were animated. We need to respond with similar commitment and get the YES vote out.
In addition, the Republicans on-line and streaming ad campaign is desperate. The latest version is a video that portrays Governor Spanberger as an arsonist burning down a barn; replete with sinister narration claiming the redistricting is a ruse to take away guns, impose higher taxes, and give welfare to illegal immigrants. That last claim about welfare is usually made by a “Virginia Farmer” in a dead pan pitch. That is rich, given the billions of tax dollars flowing into farmers’ pockets to offset rising costs to operate farms due to Trump’s tariffs and his war against Iran. They sense they are losing, I think.
Let’s work together and start tending the garden of democracy once again. If you have not voted yet, please do so, and vote YES.
Small town America. Louisa residents rallied at the county courthouse April 28, 2026. A good showing in a deeply red rural county on a crisp spring day. A spirited and exuberant assembly of the young, the old, veterans, …. A diversity of voices. There were two Trump counterprotestors, one of whom loudly claimed that Trump was “his King.”
Virginias farmers are once again being sacrificed on Trump’s altar of stupidity and foolishness. His Noble Great Mightiness’s war has already cost the lives of thousands in the Middle East, 13 of which are American service men and women. In treasure every week, the war costs American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. Americans are also paying at the gas pumps and in grocery stores. The defense department just presented a $200 billion reapers bill to Congress.
Virginia’s farmers will pay additional costs as well. Not only in the rising costs of fuel and fertilizer but in sons and daughters. Rural Americans are overrepresented in our armed forces. Close to 45 percent of those in uniform come from counties like Louisa.
Didn’t Trump know it’s planting season. Virginia farmers must decide what to plant this year. Corn or soy or both. Decisions about spending capital on new equipment must be made as well. The soil must be tilled, the land prepped for seed. Yet, uncertainty abounds because of the war. The confused and contradictory messages coming from the administration are unhelpful as to the war’s objectives, and most importantly, its end point. The feeds the uncertainty for farmers across Virginia and the nation. It seems that while Iran is losing the war militarily, it is winning the war politically, strategically. Hope and hubris are not war plans.
While this administration postures and dithers and twirls about like whirling dervishers, the supply of nitrates for fertilizer remains plugged up in the Persian Gulf, unable to make the passage through the Strait of Hormuz, that strategic strait of water on Iran’s southern shores. Fertilizer prices have jumped as a result, on average about 20 percent. It will take months to fix the fertilizer supply chain disruption caused by Trump’s chaotic war.
Even if the war should end today, perhaps it’s too late for the farmers who need to make purchases now, or bet wrong earlier. Soy doesn’t need nitrated based fertilizers, corn does. Farmers may not take the risk of planting corn and go with soy instead. That, however, will create a surplus of soy, thus lowering the price per bushel. Can’t win either way.
That’s not all, because of this questionable war of choice, Trump cancelled his state visit with Xi of China. China is the largest importer of soy in the world and last year not one American grown soybean was bought by China in retaliation for Trump’s punitive, and in some instances illegal, tariffs. Virginia farmers lost tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in exports because of Trump’s actions. Virginia exports over a billion dollars’ worth of farm products to China. Not anymore. The announcement of the cancelled meeting caused the price of soy to drop.
It’s pain at the gas pumps. We’ve all been to the gas station and noted the rise of gas and diesel prices. Not fun paying $3.99 a gallon for gas and over $5 for diesel. They won’t be going down anytime soon. Not with the Strait of Hormuz closed for the indefinite future and Trump threatening to put boots on Iranian ground.
I did some research on what it cost in gas or diesel to plant and grow corn and soy, from seed to market. Purdue University has some pretty good charts and tables that show the costs at each step of farming those crops. There are at least 14 phases, I learned, taken in sequence to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, weed the fields, harvest the crops, and get them to market. Most require tractors or combines or other farm vehicles.
Basically, according to these Purdue University tables, to plant 300 acres or corn and 300 acres of soy, a farmer would use approximately 3655 gallons of fuel. Broken down per acre, that would be $5.94 gallons per acre. Of course there are variables like soil conditions, age of equipment, etc, that determine individual costs. Diesel now cost about $5.59 per gallon (I didn’t deduct the taxes farmers are exempted from). That comes out to almost $20,000 in diesel costs. In prewar prices, it comes out to almost $13,000. That’s a seven-thousand-dollar war tax on Virginia farmers. Yes, it is a war tax.
Did not Trump, his Noble Great Mightiness, this genius of all things, not see this coming? And his equally impressive “We negotiate with bombs” Secretary of War, did he not see the potential consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz? Fools, the lot of them.
Because of Trump’s strategic failures, Virginia’s farmers are left with footing the bill for higher fertilizer costs, collapsing soy markets, and staggeringly high fuel costs at a critical time in the planting season.
How long can Virginia’s farmers survive with this type of love from Trump? Blind obedience he demands. ‘Suck it up,’ he says; ‘be patriotic,’ he says; ‘it’s only temporary pain,’ he says. Last year Trump authorized the payment of $30 billion in farmer bailouts because of his tariff fiasco. This year he is already demanding that Congress pass a farm bill, immediately. He’s turning farmers into bailout junkies.
Another bailout is coming, a bribe to his “Farmers for Trump” tribe. He thinks he can buy their silence and acquiescence. He’s right it appears, but some are starting to see the light, it seems. Not only is he bankrupting hard working farmers, he’s also sending many of their sons and daughters into harms way. His uber patriotic sons and daughters never deigned to serve. Hell, they wouldn’t be caught dead in uniform. Barron isn’t running down to the recruiting station. No, he was just named to the board of directors of a new company. Another Nepo baby enriching himself and missing the wars, while our kids fight the wars.
Two piles of money, one $45 million the other $50 million: What do they say about America?
The latter is the amount of money that American taxpayers are spending every day to pay for Trump’s War on Iran. A week or so after hosting his Board of Peace, the president announced his preemptive war against Iran from his lavish country estate in Florida, the same night he hosted a million dollar a plate fund raiser.
The former is the value of medical care provided to Virginians by Remote Area Medicine over the years. This includes 30,000 glasses, 56,000 tooth extractions, 38,000 filing, thousands of exams, mammograms, and hearing aids.
While Trump offers to send a hospital ship to Greenland, ostensibly because, he says, he understands their medical care is not very good. Meanwhile, rural American healthcare languishes and degrades under Trump. This month Remote Area Medicine will offer a clinic in Fisherville, Virginia. That’s an hour and a half from Louisa, and where about 21 percent of folks in that Shenandoah congressional district are on Medicaid. Additional Remote Area Medical clinics in Virginia are also scheduled for Emporia (April), Luray (September), and Grundy (October). Welcome to Trump’s Golden Age.
This past September, following the passing of the Big Beautiful Bill, the Augusta Medical Group, which provides medical clinics in the Shenandoah Valley, announced the closure of three rural clinics: One urgent care and two primary care clinics. They blamed the closings and consolidation of services on Trump’s signature bill.
Trump’s promised golden era was supposed to be one with prosperity, no foreign wars, no regime changes. He is failing. On the other hand, he and his Epstein Class are living in a golden era. Trump has lined his pockets with gold and literally lined the White House walls with gold, putting his name on anything that can’t move. Meanwhile, everyday Americans suffer through stubborn inflations (it just grew again), unaffordable housing, low wage growth, and shrinking job opportunities.
He is detached from the suffering he has caused in America in general, and the carnage he is causing by his illegal and unjust war against Iran. He callously characterized the death of American servicemen as, “that’s the way things are.” As a reminder, he has a history of calling those who died in the service of our country “suckers.”
To hone this point about Trump’s disinterest, the other day when giving remarks at a Medal of Honor award ceremony, of all things, Trump drifted off point and began talking about the golden drapes behind him, saving money, and the magnificent ball room he is building. All about him as is his usual style. Americans and Iranians are dying, and he talks about is himself and the golden drapes?
Americans in November have an opportunity to change the trajectory of this country. Make our own regime change. A change of power in Congress is just the start, however. We can’t just pat ourselves on the back and say America is back. Our reputation is destroyed. No one trusts us, no one likes us, no one wishes us well, no one will come to our aid. We are the axis of evil.
Yet, we see the work of Remote Area Medicine, and if you squint your eyes, you can make out that embryo of American goodness. A country that once prided itself on the rule of law, civil society, volunteerism, fairness, and justice. We can reclaim that title, but we need to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work not for days, weeks, or months, but in the years and decades to follow.
Many of us recall the doomsday clock during the Cold War. It was always minutes before midnight: Nuclear Armageddon. Today there is another clock ticking away as our democracy ebbs. If midnight was the hour when democracy ends, the clock today would read 15 minutes past midnight. Yes, we have crossed that line into the shadow of autocracy. We can, however, reset that clock, but we must do it quickly and the first step is to vote.
Election day is upon us here in Virginia and we have an opportunity to reset that clock. It will be a consequential election with generational impacts for Virginians. Think of the world your child, or grandchild, or great grandchild will be born into if Trump has his way.
First and foremost, your vote will help keep Virginia from following several Republican states down the rabbit hole of one-party authoritarian rule. Texas is the architype of such a state: Texasistan.
A neo-theocratic state where women are surveilled and reduced to second class citizen. A state where race equates to citizenship; a state where people of Latino ancestry are subject to constant local, state and federal police stops and detentions for simply having a certain physical appearance, speak Spanish, and work in low wage jobs. Guilty!
Texas is a state that happily offers to deploy its national guard soldiers to occupy cities in Democratic lead states as Trump’s armed enforcers. A state where Christianity is foisted on folks’ children in public schools who worship differently or choose not to believe. Ones relationship to your god is between you and your creator and the state has no place in that relationship. We don’t want to be that kind of state, Winsome Earle-Sears does.
Second, Sears wants to turn the clock back to the 19th century regarding women’s rights. She spent her whole campaign using trans kids as political fodder, ostensible as a women’s rights issue. Meanwhile, she voted ‘no’ on a tie-breaking vote as Lt. Governor on a bill that would have given Virginia women reproductive choice rights, in particular access to contraception.
She claims to protect your daughter from supposed predators while whole heartily supporting a president found by a civil jury to have sexually assaulted a woman in a department store dressing room. And then Sears has the temerity to tell a woman that she has no right to reproductive choices or contraception, the right to choose when and how to have a family.
Third, a medical and insurance crisis is in the offing after the passage of the Republican’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which Sears endorsed. Many Virginians will lose Medicaid coverage starting in 2027 as part of the bill’s multibillion dollar cuts to Medicaid. Three rural health clinics have already closed or plan to close because of the bills impacts.
Approximately 400k Virginians get medical insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Given the lapse in ACA insurance subsidies under the bill’s provisions, many of these Virginians will have to give up medical insurance given that premiums will double and even quadruple as subsidies for low-income folks lapse under the bill by the end of this year. Health care insurance will once again become unaffordable to average Virginians.
Spanberger has a plan. According to the Virginia Mercury, Spanberger said, “It’s essential that we be able to strengthen access to health care, improve affordability, and recognize that for so many Virginians, they’re one medical event away from really substantial ruin,” Spanberger adding. “But for so many, (health care cost) is just one more worry that keeps them up at night.” Sears on the other hand has no plan, except to support the big, beautiful bill.
Fourth, Spanberger will return our schools back to the people, and rid us of the Youngkin and Sears Orwellian thought police. Remember Governor Youngkin’s attempt to turn our schools in to Stasi-like institutions where teachers and students were under constant surveillance for utterances that contradict sacrosanct Republican notions of history. Youngkin even started an informant hotline one could call or email to report thought transgressors. Is that how we raise our children? Turning them into government snitches.
Youngkin’s education policy was a flop at best. Under his administration, standardized test scores that remained essentially the same after four years of his administration, and well below pre-pandemic scores. In short, a failure to achieve one of his top priority goals. Winsome Earle-Sears won’t do much better, I suspect, since she is an advocate for reducing public school funding in favor of private charter schools.
Fifth, Spanberger will be a voice for Virginia’s farmers who are hard hit by Trump’s self-inflicted tariff wars (see last week’s post). Virginia farmers are losing overseas markets, losing income, and being weighed down by unsustainable debt. Bail outs aren’t an answer, the preferred Republican solution. It’s the coward’s way out of not confronting Trump head on. If you are a afraid to criticize Trump, you already live in your own mental dictatorship.
Spanberger will speak truth to power, I believe. Nor cower before Trump like so many Republicans in Congress and state governments.
Sixth, Spanberger will fight for Virginian’s serving in not only our military, but our civil and foreign services as well. Our foreign and civil service Virginians are patriots and deserve much better than mass illegal firings, the constant dehumanization and criminalization, the threats and intimidation.
They, along with the men and women who serve in our armed forces, are the frontline against Trump’s extra-judicial and unconstitutional attempts to turn America into a police state, an autocracy. Congress is AWOL, the lower courts are fighting a brave rearguard action, only to be undermined repeatedly by the Supreme Court in yet another opinionless shadow docket ruling.
States are the bulwark against a tyrannical central government. It’s how our founders envisioned our federal alliance in 1787. States need to stand up to Trump and his federal maladministration. Virginia needs to be one of those states.
Things will get worse for America and Virginia under Trump in the next few weeks, months, and years. We need a strong democratic coalition in Virginia to weather the coming constitutional tempest and damage that may prove fatal to the rule of law. We must fight, and fight to win. A Spanberger win in November will set the tone for 2026 and beyond.
Let’s keep Virginia democratic and its people free: Vote.
