Washington is Lost. The New Frontline is Hometown America

Winning this war will take a relentless campaign aimed at exposing how Trump and Musk's actions, and the docile complicity of Republicans in Congress, will squeeze Americans in every local community.

What’s the target here as we move forward? Sure, we can waste time coming up with nasty nicknames for Donald Trump, yell out slogans in protest marches and whine about the mainstream media’s coverage.

It’s easy, even fun, and these actions do make a point. But they accomplish little. They harden the view of Trump voters and, frankly, he couldn’t care less about the protests. But most importantly, it’s distracting us from the bigger conflict playing out in our local communities.

When Trump won, we were shocked and our outrage had clear and easy targets: him and his unelected puppet master, the billionaire chaos agent Elon Musk. But they are merely the frontmen for a government takeover that’s been in the works since the 1970s, driven by hard-right political extremists and embraced by the tech world as a means to protect their interests.

You want to stop their advance? The real frontline isn’t in Washington any more. Like roughly 20% of Ukraine, Washington is a territory that’s been lost to the bad guys. The real frontline in this war runs though hometown America.

We’re at a tipping point. Winning this war requires a disciplined and relentless campaign to expose how Musk’s sabotage, Project 2025, and the ruthless anti-Democratic machine propping up Trump—along with the docile complicity of Republicans in Congress—will tighten their grip on every American, affecting local communities and every aspect of daily life.

This dangerous cabal seized power by the slimmest of voting margins, yet it threatens almost every aspect of our lives. It is attacking our health, workplace protections, support for the vulnerable, children’s education, the cost of essentials, our retirement security, food and water safety, along with the rights of Black Americans and an LGBTQ+ community that’s done nothing wrong.

Look around your community, at least the part of it where the millionaires and billionaires don’t live. There’s not a single person there who won’t be hurt in some way or another by what’s happening in Washington right now. And your local Republican representatives are helping to make it all possible, despite its negative effects on you and yours.

Your parent is becoming forgetful? The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research on Long Island, where I live, identified key markers in the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, advancing early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and allowing it to be differentiated from other dementias. That allows families to better prepare for the future.

But this extraordinary institution is set to lose almost $20 million in federal funding, part of an $850 million loss among all of New York’s medical science centers, mandated by Musk. This is an institution that pioneered the "Double Neural Bypass," a groundbreaking brain-computer interface that restores movement and touch in paralyzed individuals. An AI-powered tool named iNav was developed there that enhanced early detection of pancreatic cancer, leading to a 50% drop in the all- important time-to-treatment.

Do we really want the Feinstein Institute’s research limited moving forward by highly partisan political operatives with no medical or science background?

We need to know explicitly what the two Republicans representing Long Island in Washington — Andrew Garbarino and Nick Lalota —plan to do about this, if anything. And they need to be pressed on this question every time they make an appearance.

Battered Women

These cuts aren’t the only ones hurting Long Islanders, not by a long shot. Long Island’s Newsday writes today on how non-profits that handle critical services for women are being hamstrung by Musk. He’s holding up grants that provide housing for women who have survived violent attacks.

These are battered women who “might have to recover from physical injuries or emotional trauma,” Newsday’s Nicholas Spangler quotes Dolores Kordon, the head of the nonprofit Brighter Tomorrows, as saying in the story. “Or say someone is having a baby or just gave birth. That’s who we usually put in.”

Sure, they can wait! The man in their household might even have voted for Trump, so it’s a win-win for the MAGA “manosphere,” right?

Garbarino, who is my representative in Congress, has signed on a letter complaining about cuts to research institutions on Long Island. But isn’t this kind of an empty gesture,? There’s no threat of action behind it. He was also quick to provide a statement on the importance of funding for the nonprofits. Sure why not? And in that particular statement, he managed to slyly mimic Trump’s language — with a wink and a nudge — on the need to “identify waste, fraud and abuse.”

We can’t root out waste, fraud, and abuse while the money keeps flowing, and these battered women get the help they need? And wasn’t that the specific job of the 18 nonpartisan inspector generals Trump fired so the very partisan Elon Musk could burrow into these agencies, providing little support for why individual cuts are being made?

So far, there’s been no real evidence provided by Musk for “fraud,” and what the Trump Administration describes as “waste” just means it doesn’t fit within their own biased political views. And if you look more closely at the items they bring up, you can often find a legitimate reason for why this money might have been spent, though they do their best to ridicule them.

Finally, honestly, it’s all pretty small potatoes in a $6.7 trillion budget.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of good people are being fired with termination letters citing "performance" issues, when many of them had previously received positive performance evaluations. This, of course, follows Trump’s long-use of blatant lies and “alternative facts” to make a point.

It’s a scam being put on by two hucksters who grew up rich and never lived in the same world as the rest of us, in support of their own interests and power.

Will Garbarino and LaLota join with Democrats to reject cuts that negatively affect important aspects of Long Island life in the budget bill set to be voted on March 14? That’s the one expected to put in place millions of dollars in tax breaks that primarily help the wealthy and corporations — at the expense of budget cuts primarily affect the rest of us.

Somehow, I doubt it, what about you?

So let’s take a second to look at a few other examples of folks in our local communities hurt by these cuts, supported by the deceitful complicity being shown by our Republican congressmen.

9-11 Cutbacks

How about the 9-11 responders, you remember them right?

Many Long Islanders lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida terrorist attacks, and many survivors and heroic first responders live on Long Island. The staff of the World Trade Center Health Program — post Musk —is now 20% smaller, with 16 people fired and others who took the Trump administration’s buyout. The program provides care for more than 130,000 first responders, and the staff also conducts valuable research.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced cuts to research grants that would prevent the Fire Department of New York from providing treatment coverage for new health conditions related to 9/11 and the aftermath.

“Never forget” is such an important slogan for America, right? Musk and Trump have apparently forgotten. Trump, however, didn’t forget the folks who attacked and injured police doing their job protecting our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, pardoning them without a glance at what they might have done that day, and even though some among them were already hardened criminals.

But the heroes of 9-11 are largely ignored.

Seniors, Emergency Responders

OK, one more: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has ordered the digital and physical destruction of 18 publications on workplace safety, Judd Legum wrote the other day in his Popular Information Substack column, saying his information came from a Feb. 7 email sent out by the agency and which he showed online.

The discussions were destroyed because they supposedly were associated with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs that the Trump administration believes is a threat to white folks in America. The problem: They weren’t actually linked to any such program; they merely mentioned a DEI-related keyword.

According to the list provided by Legum, the 18 documents destroyed included OSHA’s “best practices for protecting EMS responders during treatment and transport of victims of hazardous Substance Releases,” safety and health programs for construction, a workplace mental health sheet and guidelines for nursing homes.

Guidelines, for heaven sakes, designed to help heroic EMS RESPONDERS! and old folks — our parents and grandparents — IN NURSING HOMES! Think that over for a moment. Increasingly what we’re seeing is that this cost-cutting by Musk is not only designed to advance Project 2025’s political views and his personal businesses and future, it’s also being executed in a haphazard way and at breakneck speed with no care for its effects.

It’s not too early to focus on the 2026 midterms, folks. The campaign against the dangerous cabal upsetting our lives at every juncture depends on a U.S. Congress that can bring Trump and Musk to heel.

I don’t care about all the nasty nicknames we come up with for Trump or Musk. That won’t help us build a congressional majority in either the House or the Senate. However, by challenging every Republican officeholder to defend these indefensible actions at home at every opportunity leading up to Nov. 5, 2026, we have a chance to at least survive this war, and offer up some hope for the future.

We simply need to put people in office who will actually do the job the U.S. Constitution demands of them. What do you think?