March 22, 2025
Town Hall with Jared Golden
“The fundamental weakness is empathy,” Elon Musk recently told radio podcast host Joe Rogan. “There is a bug, which is the empathy response.”
Sums up a lot, doesn’t it. Between that and The Art of the Deal where the objective is to win, to get your way, to dominate…
In the human sphere, these are not successful strategies. Humans, at root, are relational, empathetic, starting with fierce mama love and the extraordinary power of birth, giving life to another. Communities work because of mutuality, respect, and care beyond one’s own immediate boundary. Society, on a wider scale, needs government, civic groups, churches and other community groups to build that out further. Empathy is the gift and practice of being able to see ourselves in the other, the other in ourselves. In reality, even for Elon and Donald, the truth is that we depend on each other to live.
The past weeks have been filled with such disregard for our humanity, so filled with antipathy for our fellows, whether in the mass firings devoid of any context or evaluation; in the mass deportations, often done for show and to effect terror; in the endless threats and use of government to hurt. Everywhere division and cruelty and lies.
Cruelty may seem to project power but it is, in reality, sprung from weakness and cowardice. But the fear it can generate, especially when the vast machinery of government is tuned to create that cruelty, is quite real and, sadly, contagious and sometimes crippling.
I don’t think, Representative Golden, that you knew what you were signing up for – a full moral and constitutional crisis - but here you are. We have urgent and real problems that only cooperation and good governance can address: national problems of housing affordability, homelessness, childhood poverty and drug addiciton; global problems of climate change; spreading nuclear arsenals; massive refugee populations on the move because of war, environmental catastrophe, economic failures; the devastating inequality that leaves billions in dire need. That we are instead bogged down in the meanness of the administration’s divisive attacks on immigrants, universities, the media, our allies, the United Nations, the very rule of law and face an unprecedented slide into lawlessness, vengenace and the abandonment of the public good for the short-term profits of corporations and the wealthy - it’s heartbreaking, mind-numbing, but it can also be stopped.
We must rise and rise together. You are one of four voices from Maine in the legislature. We need you to face this moment with courage. Our future and that of our children and grandchildren depends on Congress renewing its pledge to work for the people and to push back with your full authority against the outrages of this administration. So far Congress is woefully failing. True, it’s not been in Congress’ playbook for several decades to work together and we know that many in Congress are themselves truly afraid of the administration – afraid for their jobs, their families, sometimes afraid for their lives.
It will not get better cowering and trying to get along or cravenly acquiescing to tyranny. It is a time to be present with those getting laid off, to be present with those being deported without due process, to call out the injustices and threats, to fight for democracy and each other. We need you to do that, not just behind the scenes but publicly and every day.
We need you here today.
It is time for Congress to do its job, to oversee the executive branch, to insist that Musk be expelled from his role as super-president, to affirm and assert the rule of law, to guide our country with compassion and empathy as well as being careful with our resources.
I get several emails a week from your re-election campaign asking for donations, citing how you’ve been singled out by Republicans. I can only urge you to lay aside your campaign and get to work on speaking the truth of the dire situation we’re in - to your colleagues, to your constituents, to the press. It’s time to walk the walk on the big issues. Lead if you can. Failing that, there may not be much democracy left to be part of. Being faithful and courageous and present will serve us better and you might be surprised to see how people rally around if you do that.
Courage and Love,
Brian Dyer Stewart
Harrington, Maine
