Perhaps you—like me and most of my friends—have a grave difficulty discussing politics in our hyper-partisan nation. We often report that civil debates with right-leaning friends are off-limits for fear of destroying valued relationships. When we try, too often the opening response sounds something like, “I agree that Trump is an ogre…but I like his policies!” or “His character stinks, but I love his programs!”

That sounds rationa,l but is actually a cop-out to squash all further conversation. And it is highly irrational.

Why? Because it is extremely difficult to dislike a leader’s character while liking their policies. They are inextricably linked. A leader’s character (like our own) consists of core values and central beliefs that determine how we behave and the key choices we make (like positions and policies).

If a leader is kind, honest, and generous, his policies will be rooted in integrity, care for others, and the common good. A leader who is vengeful, greedy, and dishonest will adopt policies that are vindictive, untruthful, and self-serving. It is impossible to separate the baggage from the bag.

Character drives a leader’s policy and behavior in fundamental ways. To separate the two (as happens in our debates across the aisle) would be like saying, “I don’t care if the coach or teacher of my grandkids is dishonest, mean, and selfish—as long as he wins games and my child gets good grades!” Character determines how we do things. And moral makeup matters.

One of my favorite quotes during my 40-year career in Leadership and Character Development is:

“Character is who you are in the dark.”

It is how we behave when we know nobody’s watching. To be a true leader—or even lead a good life—we have to confront our demons and cover-ups. At least that was once true.

Now we have a President who boasts about his vile character in the light of day. His greed, vengeance, and vanity are broadcast in public to be seen and praised by those who fear him and those who can gain from his bribes and handouts. Or it could be confronted. Given that this President has unprecedented control of all three branches of government—and the recently granted “complete immunity while governing” from the Supreme Court—it needs to be confronted now.

It is clear that serious damage has been done to our democracy by President Trump in just eight months. Americans who care about our sacred Republic must establish some checks and balances soon. The midterm election, roughly one year away, is the best way to do that.

That means not only getting all citizens who are terrified by this self-proclaimed “Dictator” out to vote—it also means getting some of our center-right Republican friends to join us. And that requires reopening the dreaded political debate with friends we know are good and principled people, which is most of them. The ones who dislike the constant bragging, lying, hurting of vulnerable people, abandoning of allies, while amassing huge personal wealth.

We must risk the discomfort of raising the “character question” and tying this President’s moral makeup to his destructive policies. And our ask is not that large: that one of the three branches of government (the House) gain a slight Democratic majority so it can provide a small measure of restraint on this dangerous “King.” All significant power would remain with Republicans.

The wolf is at the door. We must rise up and defend democracy.

Clearly, our resistance should include active protest (like “No Kings”), speaking or writing opinion pieces (like this one), and stumping for honest candidates. But we all have decent friends who do not want our hateful President to go unchecked. It is not too early to reopen a caring, candid exchange with Republican friends one year out from the Midterms.

Trump announces daily how destructive and vindictive he intends to be. The most shocking example occurred recently at the funeral of Charlie Kirk. His grieving widow, Erika, said that she forgave her husband’s killer:

“I forgive him because it is what Christ did and what Charlie would do.”

In reply, Donald Trump declared:

“I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”

What kind of policies and executive orders do we expect from this character?

Johnny O’Brien is a former president of the Milton Hershey School and the institution’s first alumnus to lead it. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised at the school and graduated in 1961 before earning a degree from Princeton University and pursuing graduate studies at Johns Hopkins. O’Brien later founded Renaissance Leadership, a firm that coached executives at major corporations. In 2003, he returned to Hershey as its president. He is also the author of Semisweet: An Orphan’s Journey Through the School the Hersheys Built, and currently lives in Easton.

Last November, voters expressed a strong preference for President Trump’s ability to manage the economy over that of his opponent. However, the first 10 months of the new Administration have prompted strong concerns from both sides of the political aisle. Farmers have been adversely affected more than most by Trump’s decisions. A good example of this is how his policies are affecting the soybean market, which is extremely important to Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Soybeans are the second most important crop grown in Maryland, exceeded only by corn in value of production. The Maryland Eastern Shore is the stronghold of the state’s soybean production, with the most prominent counties being Queen Anne’s, Caroline, Talbot, Kent, and Somerset.

President Trump has taken action in two separate policy areas that have had a negative impact on the soybean market. First, one of his first steps as President was to allow Elon Musk (in his own words in February) to “spend the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” referencing the roughly 90 percent cuts in contracts for non-military foreign aid that the U.S. offers to needy countries.

The U.S. has long supported American farmers by purchasing and sending soybeans abroad to help nations unable to support themselves because of such factors as droughts and poverty. Soybeans sent as aid are used to address worldwide hunger and malnutrition, as well as to provide feed for livestock. The precise numerical impact on soybean exports for this purpose is not yet known, but soybeans are a major component of the U.S. foreign aid system.

The second source of President Trump having upended the soybean market is through his highly controversial tariff policies. His approach to tariffs has been widely criticized by both liberal and conservative economists as inconsistent and erratic, without any measurable strategy or goal. Trump’s aggressive approach towards China–amounting to more than a 57 percent average tariff on Chinese goods–has created very serious repercussions for U.S. soybean producers. 

China is responsible for purchasing 52 percent of U.S. soybean exports, accounting for $12.6 billion to U.S. farmers last year. In turn, soybean exports represent more than half of US production, so changes to the overseas picture have a profound effect on the total soybean market. Retaliating against Trump’s moves against it, China had been cutting its purchases of U.S. soybeans almost in half since Trump initiated his attacks on the country. Since May, China has totally stopped U.S. soybean purchases, in addition to instituting a 37 percent tariff on U.S. soybean imports. 

It gets worse. Even though Trump has agreed to bail out Argentina’s flagging economy with $20 billion as a means of supporting the country’s far-right President heading into an election, Argentina has turned around and dropped its tax on its own soybean sales, prompting China to make a massive one-million-ton purchase from that nation. This move signals China’s attempt to vastly reduce, if not simply drop, the U.S. as a soybean supplier on a permanent basis. In response, Trump’s Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, has said American farmers need to stop selling to “a country that isn’t aligned with our values,” promoting a dubious economic plan to place ideological constraints on America’s farmers.

How badly Eastern Shore soybean producers will be hurt by Trump’s aid and trade policies remains to be seen, but the outlook is not positive. Even though Maryland Eastern Shore soybean farmers benefit from high demand from nearby domestic poultry producers, the harm to farmers will likely be significant. Why? Because U.S. soybean exports to China flow from both the East and West coasts of the U.S., Eastern Shore soybean farmers will now likely see greater competition from producers in nearby states. For example, soybeans are Virginia’s top agricultural export, valued at more than $1.4 billion. 

Furthermore, this competition will put downward pressure on already low prices for this commodity, which has fallen from $13/bushel a few years ago to $10 in the current market. Farmers’ profit picture at this moment is somewhere between minimal to non-existent. Further darkening the picture ahead, Trump’s new tariffs on foreign steel and fertilizer are simultaneously raising production costs for soybean farmers. 

Soybean production is at a high level this year, with storage facilities nearly full and there is increasing concern that exporting firms will stop purchases in light of the declining market.

President Trump has said that he wants to help farmers out with funds collected by the U.S. on foreign imports subject to his tariffs. The Trump Administration has said it soon will make an announcement to this effect. Sources also indicate that this plan is still under discussion at this writing. Trump spokespersons claim that it will take several months before any money might be forthcoming.

The bottom line for Maryland Eastern Shore soybean farmers is that even if bailout money materializes, it is not what is needed. American Soybean Association President Caleb Ragland has called the offer a “Band-Aid.”  Besides, it being an insufficient amount to account for losses already incurred, he indicated that American soybean producers need additional markets and higher prices–exactly what the Trump trade and aid policies are closing off. 

As for our own Representative Andy Harris, there is no evidence he has made any attempt to formulate a solution to assist Eastern Shore soybean farmers (or, if he has, there is no evidence he has been effective in doing so).

Both President Trump and Representative Harris frequently claim to support relieving agricultural (and other) markets from government interference. Ironically, in the case of soybeans, the government programs they have initiated are, in fact, the cause of a powerful negative predicament for Eastern Shore farmers and their markets.

Wilson Dean was the Owner/President of a publishing and consulting firm for 34 years, providing economic, energy, and environmental policy and pricing forecasts for global clients.  He lives in Talbot County, enjoying kayaking, wildlife, and spending time with his grandchildren.   

As Yogi Berra, the American baseball catcher, power hitter, acclaimed coach, and master of malapropisms said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Sadly, Yogi was right.

Almost daily now in América the blowhard president rolls out a barrage of angry threats and insults, often followed by sweeping power grabs. No restraint: he can’t hold back, repeatedly bellowing delusions of grandeur and colossal made-up war and peace accomplishments.  Most can see what those claims really are.  With a casual shrug he makes an indifferent attempt to assure us he is neither a bully nor a dictator, and then proceeds to unleash a fiery gambit of raw revenge upon people, including former advisors and generals he appointed, who dare to resist – who refuse to remain silent, bend a knee, or slink away when he tries to fire them without cause.

For those who stand in his way, this crazed pot belly bully, and his wretched flunkies go into full-throttle revenge, unleashing the vast powers of the federal government against them. He also personally orders government security protection revoked immediately, thereby exposing these patriots to foreign agents who have vowed to kill them. He also orders masked ICE agents to storm into homes and offices to seize laptops, phones, and files.  Our president brags and cheers when his critics must hire lawyers to keep their jobs, retirement pay, good names, and defend themselves against his complicit cabinet which controls vast levers of our government.

These chilling outtakes are part and parcel of an efficient police state, but most of us are ignoring or blocking out what is going on in plain sight. While the American flag still flies high over federal buildings, only days ago the exuberant Secretary of Labor announced she was flying a red, white, and blue Trump portrait flag over the U. S. Labor Department in Washington. No one should be surprised when more symbols of Trump power wave high over more federal buildings around the country, and even fewer should be taken aback when the Trump cabinet and donors tell the Governor of South Dakota that President Trump must be added to that colossal sculpture carved with Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills.  They are serious.

Examine closely haunting and historic black and white photographs of the 237-year-old Brandenberg Gate, Berlin’s most famous landmark, when it was flying shocking symbols of Nazi power during the Holocaust.  Hard to believe that Greek revival was originally called the “Peace Gate.”  The British bombed most of it down during the end of WWII.  In case you hadn’t noticed, we Americans have been living in our police state for months. Many are increasingly cautious about speaking up, some afraid of the presidential retribution they have witnessed. Some now speak guardedly about Trump overreach. Oh, please, you may be thinking, what nonsense. I don’t know of anyone today afraid of Washington or the president.  Really.

The president continues to demonize and deport immigrants, and he has authorized thousands of masked ICE agents and workers to help him, whopping deficits be damned. He hasn’t forgotten foreigners, especially those from “bad countries who are not nice,” but understand this.  Donald J. Trump’s primary target today is blacks in America. United States black citizens.  He has made this unequivocal:

I don’t want you here.  You don’t belong.

In this matter Donald J. Trump has been consistent.  Racism is his brand.  He and his father practiced notorious discrimination for years in Queens when they were Section 8 housing landlords.  His racist history surfaced again in his Central Park Five 1989 full-page controversial ad he took out in the New York Times falsely accusing five Harlem teenagers of raping a white woman jogging in the park.  The men spent decades in prison wrongly convicted and Trump never apologized; never said he was wrong. He is incapable of uttering those words.  He wears his Central Park Five role and his full-page ad as a badge of honor; he thinks it continues to enhance his brand.

He also believes his long campaign against Black America will be his legacy.  He believes the American people are with him on this.  He believes, this second time in the White House, he will implement his racist goal on behalf of all the people of these United States.  He believes this is his moment to undo and end what this country has been striving and failing to become since the end of the American Civil War.

The Trump playbill is not new.  It’s a tired revival straight out of the playbook of another former not so bright President of the United States who often compared himself to Christ.  Andrew Johnson.  The sitting vice-president who took office the day after Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

Trump and many in his coalition are itching to take America back to those ugly years following the end of our deadly Civil War when newly freed people wanted to make their way and mark in America, but President Andrew Johnson and Southern governors were determined no such thing was going to happen.

That steely determination in large part continued until Thurgood Marshall, NAACP chief counsel lawyer, Solicitor General of the United States, and first African- American Justice on the Supreme Court, argued in Brown v. Board of Education:

“The only thing that can be is an inherent determination that the people who were formerly in slavery, regardless of anything else, shall be kept as near that stage as possible, and now is the time, we submit, that this Court should make it clear that is not what our Constitution stand for.”

All the justices agreed.  The Court struck down the Flessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine, which was never equal; and, unfortunately, Brown did not end segregation.  That struggle continues today, and the current occupant of the White House rejects equality and opportunity for all as he repeatedly violates the Constitution of the United States.

As a former colleague and civil rights activist and scholar from Richmond reminded me this week, “After the Civil War those freed Blacks enjoyed a period of electoral power and control of government.  States, such as South Carolina, had a population of Blacks that exceeded the white population enough to enable the election of Black men who were sent to serve as Members of the House of Representatives.   Black men could vote with relative freedom under the protection and presence of the Federal government. “

Reconstruction ended in 1877 with withdrawal of Federal troops from the South, and white resistance and discriminatory policies kicked in which essentially restored the indicia of slavery in all aspects of Black life, including a sustained campaign to deny Black men the voting franchise which ushered in Jim Crow which would stay in place until the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

My Richmond friend and scholar also underscored how deep the White resentment against Black progress went, shameful and deadly events, most of which were not taught in the “History of South Carolina” textbook and the course I took in my segregated high school, certainly not a word about the 1898 massacre of Blacks in Wilmington, North Carolina when Whites revolted against Black rule that ended with over 200 deaths and the destruction of a successful and prosperous Black community; nor did my textbook mention festering white resentment of Black economic and social success leading to the Tulsa Race Riot which resulted in 300 deaths and over 10,000 Black people left homeless.  It was the destruction of what had become known as Black Wall Street.  The town was Greenwood, Oklahoma. White people destroyed it.

These deadly clashes were among the ugliest chapters in our history.  President Trump and those who penned Project 2025 for him, White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, and most in the Trump cabinet, including the OMB Director, recklessly, incredibly, seem to be saying by many of their acts and deeds, let’s have it out; let’s get this business settled once and for all.

We have been here before.

There is nothing about this unpredictable and frightening moment that is big or beautiful or great for America.  And there is no joy or grace or generosity coming from this White House as we approach autumn. The Trump fall of 2025 is about more greed, more financial gain, over one billion and counting for the Trump family in less than eight months, according to the Wall Street Journal; enriching more millionaires and billionaires, more revenge, dispatching young American soldiers to our streets for questionable political purposes, and selecting a young Colorado beauty pageant winner to instruct seasoned professional Smithsonian curators and historians on what is art and what is history. So little time, so much more to do this fall to keep Black America down.  The mad man who thinks he can do anything because he is president still roams the White House corridors.  We may try to ignore or tolerate some of the madness this sick man is doing, but we do so at our own considerable peril.  In a short time, he has done considerable harm with the help of his Congress and this Supreme Court.

This president keeps teeing up the same question our young country grappled with over two hundred years ago. Is America going to be an interracial democracy, one that believes in emancipation for all?  We do. Those fundamental questions have been settled, or so we thought.

We must face that President Trump and company don’t like or agree with our Constitution and what we thought were basic truths. Trump is not looking for an intelligent debate. He demands. He is demanding a redo as he challenges our norms and laws, many of which he doesn’t understand. This is what his Project 2025 is about.  He is hell bent on this dangerous confrontation no matter the price, no matter how many may be killed.

We have been here before.

Vernon Jordan, civil rights activist and lawyer, former head of the National Urban League, trusted advisor to presidents and scores of civil rights trailblazers, and friend to hundreds of students and young and not so young lawyers, including me, said, “We have been here before.”

Vernon Jordan was addressing all of us during those disastrous and threatening early months of Trump’s first presidency. He assured us we would survive and prevail.  He shared those comforting words when Harvard Law honored him.  I heard Vernon deliver that same hopeful and challenging message in Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University to students, family, and old and new friends.  You can find his entire inspiring sermon of hope in the Vernon Jordan Law Library at the Howard University School of Law.  Mr. Jordan was also a marvelous preacher and teacher; he let lawyers know much more is expected of us.

Mr. Jordan also said something else in “We Have Been Here Before” that we should always remember.

“We shall once again endure,” he began, “but we don’t sing we endure.  We sing we shall overcome!”  His cadence and pitch perfect, his passion and determination rousing.

 

Aubrey Sarvis is an Army veteran, retired lawyer and corporate officer.

Last January 20, President Trump raised his hand to swear that he’d “preserve, protect, and defend” the United States Constitution.

Upon taking the oath, Trump immediately ordered his minions — guided by the extremist right-wing text, “Project 2025” — to carry out an across-the-board assault on the federal government and various private institutions. Six months later, his assault continues.

Many American citizens have been harmed to date by Trump’s betrayal, and many more will be injured until his depredations are stopped.

Welcome to the Federal Harm Registry. Initiated and managed by the Maryland Democratic Party, this registry offers an immediate remedy to Trump, and a tangible means to fight Trumpism.

The Federal Harm Registry is designed to document the myriad adverse effects of Trump’s maladministration. It’s the tool to register specific harms that citizens have experienced or witnessed. No matter if we are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, we must be active, not passive.

The Federal Harm Registry is a space for Maryland residents to report their personal stories — cuts to health care, higher living costs, job losses, housing problems, civil rights attacks, or any other consequences of this administration’s harmful policies. These reports will document and provide a guide for the eventual reversal of what’s happening in Maryland and in D.C.

Consider:

• As a college student, have you been denied a Pell grant?
• Has your family been denied SNAP benefits?
• As a farmer, is your corn or soybean crop losing its value?
• Have you lost your Medicaid?
• Have you been harmed by work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps?
• Has your child’s vaccine become unavailable because of an HHS mandate?
• As a federal employee, have you been laid off or fired without cause?
• Have you been arrested by ICE?
• Have you been terminated from the U.S. military because of your sexual identity?
• Are Trump’s illegal tariffs forcing you spend more for food and other necessities?
• Do you know anyone adversely affected by the closure of Head Start for poor children, as well as child welfare, juvenile justice, and youth care programs?

The Federal Harm Registry invites Marylanders to document each type of damage to them from harmful federal policies under Trump. The registry also offers Marylanders a megaphone to voice their frustrations and fears, and their vision to improve our country.

So, take your first step to report any harm to you by contacting federalharmmd.com.

At federalharmmd.com, you will be able to:

• Write or record your story.
• Report any harm you’ve experienced, share an opinion, expose federal malpractices, and advocate for policies that help — not injure — Maryland families.
• Help to publicize the Federal Harm Registry by sharing on Facebook, X, or LinkedIn.

If you have been harmed by Trump’s maladministration, the information you provide will be used to build a movement for economic justice and dignity. Your party affiliation is of no concern; all are welcome.

Together we can catalog the evils done by Trump’s dangerous, faux populism that’s hurting so many by reporting our injuries to the Federal Harm Registry. Consider doing so today.

Gren Whitman

Note: This article was initially published in Common Sense for the Eastern Shore.