Malcolm Herrling lives in Brunswick.

I have been trying to understand the world that Nelson Dorsey III describes in his op-ed published on Nov. 9, “For Democrats, it’s political posturing at any price.”

The Democratic Party, the ACLU and the courts are the only forces saving our republic from the misguided and criminal behavior of President Donald Trump and his cronies. Trump and congressional Republicans wanted the government shutdown to prevent the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files that contradicted Trump’s lie he didn’t know about the man and his predatory sex trafficking.

House Speaker Mike Johnson held the House out of session for over 50 days while he illegally refused to swear in Representative-Elect Adelita Grijalva, D-Arizona, who represented the 218th vote to force the release of Epstein’s emails.

Democrats are the only adults in the room when it comes to protecting Americans from a failed GOP health plan, an illegal immigration program and a reckless use of tariffs that have raised costs for middle class Americans, the very people Trump and Dorsey have claimed to be helping.

Democrats rightly withheld support for a “clean” bill when it was clear that was the only leverage they had to keep ACA subsidies for millions of Americans. Even the staid United States Conference of Catholic Bishops spoke out against Trump’s immoral immigration policy. They “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”

The Supreme Court is highly skeptical of the legality of the Trump tariffs (taxes) that have disrupted a century of free and equitable trade. At least a dozen of the hundreds of Jan. 6, 2020 traitors have been convicted of other crimes ranging from fraud to assault to murder since their pardon by Trump.

This president pardoned crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao right after Zhao’s company, according to The Wall Street Journal, “took steps that catapulted the Trump family venture’s new stablecoin product, enhancing its credibility and pushing its market capitalization up from $127 million to over $2.1 billion.”

Many presidents have misused pardons, including Joe Biden, but Trump is perfecting his role as a corrupt tyrant by pardoning those who profit himself and his family. He is willing to pay his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, millions of taxpayer dollars over a specious claim of malicious prosecution after he lied to the FBI.

Trump wants $230 million of taxpayer money shelled out to himself for supposed privacy violations during a 2022 Mar-a-Lago home search. Even he admits on his ironically named platform Truth Social “…it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself….”

Trump uses constant political posturing to get his way. It is the Republican Party that “punishes
moderation and rewards tantrums,” to quote Dorsey. “Competent” GOP leadership? The current defense secretary had to settle a sexual assault case out of court and was removed from a Joe Biden protection force for having a white supremacist tattoo on his chest.

Trump’s national intelligence chief admires dictator Vladimir Putin and former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and is admired by Klansman David Duke. And the education secretary is a former professional wrestling executive.

To top it off, Trump’s first executive order was titled “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government.” Of course that is exactly what this regime is doing to anyone who disagrees with them. Such as asking the Justice Department to investigate any Democrats on Epstein’s contact list. Is there any compromise with such a partisan government?

Americans do care about results. As prices continue to rise, Trump uses his power as a cudgel to cut funding for farmers, the unemployed, the poor and children here in Maine. Thirty-eight percent of Americans think Donald Trump is doing a good job while 62% think he is failing.

Finally, Dorsey is head of a Christian athletic group at Bowdoin. Doesn’t Matthew say “Truly I tell you whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me?”

Muckraking journalist and advocate Ida Tarbell condemned millionaire David Rockefeller’s immoral and ruthless business tactics and emphasized “our national life is on every side distinctly poorer, uglier, meaner, for the kind of influence he exercises.” It is an apt description of Donald Trump and the influence he has unleashed on our country.

All of us want to make America fairer, kinder and just. This is one moral argument we all need to win. Let’s pray for deliverance in 2026.