Where to start? Where to start?

Tariffs, the assault on free speech, the indiscriminate firing of thousands of federal workers, the elimination of inspectors general at federal agencies, the retributive targeting of perceived enemies of the president, the threats to major law firms having the temerity to represent critics of the administration, the replacement of the Kennedy Center Board with Trump sycophants united by Trump himself, the intended scrubbing of the Smithsonian Institution of any reference to historically accurate information that documents the darker side of American history, the dissing of America’s traditional Western allies, the refusal to require the return of a man with no criminal record deported through “administrative error” to a Salvadoran prison despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that the administration must do what it can to “facilitate” the return, the elimination by Executive Order of restrictive showerhead flows…? And the list goes on.

I am confident that three months into the current administration an ever increasing number of Chautauqua County residents understand the intentions of Trump 2.0 and are accordingly alarmed, ashamed, furious and/or downright scared. I thank the PJ for providing a platform to share specific escalating concerns associated with the administration’s actions. Among the most egregious is the attack on free speech.

Is not the First Amendment right sacred to the legitimacy of the democracy? How then to interpret the arrest and detention of student activists for having voiced outrage over the slaughter in Gaza? Most readers, I will assume, are aware of the matter of Mahmoud Kahlil. Kahlil is the former Columbia graduate student arrested by ICE at his home in the presence of his pregnant wife, an American citizen, for having organized and spoken at a protest rally near the Columbia campus. He was flown immediately to detention in Louisiana where the administration understood that his case would receive more favorable treatment than in any New York courtroom. He is currently incarcerated in New Jersey after his legal team, including the ACLU, secured his release and return to detention in New Jersey.

The administration intends to deport him, and at this moment a Louisiana judge has ruled he may be deported on the grounds that he poses a threat to the country’s foreign policy agenda. Kahlil has no criminal record, nor has he been charged with any crime. He is in the country legitimately. He is, or was, the holder of a “green card” allowing him permission to work here. Apparently, the card was taken from him at his arrest. That he was removed from New York to Louisiana for detention is an act of cruelty designed to inspire fear among potential deportees. Tricia McGlaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security described the action as being “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.” It should be abundantly clear to anyone with even a modicum of information that such a declaration is no more than an argument for prosecuting dissent. Do we remember that Trump called neo Nazis in Charlottsville “fine people”, that he entertained antisemites at Mar-a-Lago, that he remarked that Jews who didn’t vote for him were not loyal Americans?

On March 25 six plainclothes ICE agents arrested Tufts University PHD student Rumeysa Ozturk on a street corner in Somerville, Massachusetts. Ozturk, a Fulbright Scholarship winner to Columbia, had, according to a Homeland Security spokesperson, “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” Unsurprisingly, there was no evidence to support the accusation. What Ozturk had done was to coauthor an Op Ed in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s response to student activism. She was taken to detention centers first in New Hampshire, then in Vermont and finally to Louisiana where she remains awaiting deportation proceedings. The administration can’t get enough of deportations and visa revocations. Chautauqua County residents should understand that under the Trump administration we are living in a police state.

The administration has targeted sixty American universities for investigation into whether their programs constitute antisemitic propaganda. Columbia was the first. The administration threatened to withhold four hundred million dollars of federal money intended for research unless Columbia agreed to certain terms relating to its programs. Defunding is the administration’s playbook to silence free speech on American campuses. Universities are placed in a devil’s bargain position. Columbia caved to the administration’s demands. Other universities, most notably Harvard, have not. As of this week Harvard has refused to comply with the administration’s demands that it eliminate programs, revise hiring and acceptance practices, and even permit (i.e. hire) an overseer to insure that the university submits to its requirements. At stake is nine billion dollars in federal aid.

The administration is waging a war on science. More than nineteen hundred members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have signed an open letter, what they have called an SOS, warning the public that “the nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated.” Funding cuts require universities to curtail research and dismiss faculty. Research on matters the administration scorns such as climate change are targeted. The letter states in no uncertain terms: “The administration is blocking research on topics it finds objectionable…or yields results it does not like.” As with the determined concentration on mass deportations the attack on science is ideologically driven.

So where do we go from here? What actions might Chautauqua County residents take to object to the administration’s fascistic impulses? I would suggest that a crescendo of voices be continually raised in the streets. I would suggest that immediate imperative action be undertaken to repudiate the MAGA majority in Congress. Locally, that means repudiating our 23rd Congressional district MAGA representative, Nick Langworthy.

Paul Leone is a Jamestown resident.