March 21, 2025
Dear Representative Golden,
You are serving our country in a historic time. This is a Constitutional Crisis. Our democracy is being dismantled right before our eyes. What you, our other Congress people, our courts, and our citizens do NOW will determine if our democracy survives or dies.
This is NOT business as usual. This is not simply “let’s try to work across the aisle.” This is a coup from within. A billionaire has been elected president, who flaunts his egregious crimes—
• Flagrant conflicts of interest—he’s making money off his position
• Insertion of a private citizen—unvetted by the Senate-- into our government agencies to fire thousands of highly competent and dedicated civil servants, including 2 of my kids
• Elimination of government departments
• Surrender of citizens’ formerly-protected data from government websites to Elon Musk and his team—a private citizen gets our data
• Selective deletion of U.S. history from government websites
• Suppression of free speech, particularly in the area of race, gender and opposition to the war in Gaza
• Disregard of orders by federal judges, thereby destroying the checks & balances built into our system
• Deportation of legal residents & U.S. citizens without due process who exercise their right of peaceful protest
• Punishment of those who hold him accountable (those who have investigated him in the past) or who disagree with him, establishing a dangerous “loyal to the Man, not the Constitution” system
• Declaration of expansionist plans – from Gaza to Canada, Greenland to Panama
• Erasure of the critical safety net of our government—social security, Medicare, Medicaid while billionaires are not required to pay their fair share of taxes.
Donald Trump’s goal is to divide us so that we won’t fight back against this coup. His goal is to threaten his opponents—through unfounded investigations, mafia style threats of “we know where you live”, and withholding funding from universities, states and government entities that don’t cooperate. So far, tragically, these threats mostly have worked in Congress. The longer we give Donald Trump to consolidate his power, the more difficult it will be to save our democracy. The time is now. Waiting for the 2026 elections or the 2028 presidential election is not an option. He will have succeeded in his illegal and unconstitutional takeover by then.
Whether people cooperate with Trump’s agenda and relinquish our democracy without a fight, or stand up and refuse to comply with his dictatorial roadmap, we will suffer in the coming months. But if, together, we stand up for the latter, if we refuse to surrender our democracy, we will be fighting on the right side of history. We will be making a difference for our children and grand children.
Please, use all power that you have as our representative, to sound the alarm, to name this atrocity for what it is, and fight urgently to stop it. It is your job.
Respectfully,
Pam Dyer Stewart
11 Bear Apple Lane
Harrington, ME 04643
