1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

The Trump administration released the 2025 National Security Strategy of the US. Quietly. And it’s apparent why. It reads like a villain's manifesto. A fantasy vision of US world dominance through any means necessary. Propaganda 101 for white supremacy based in theocracy and a vision of America that has never existed. The document openly reorients the US away from traditional European allies toward Russia. It promotes governing through capitalism above all else. It commits the US to a world divided into spheres of interest by dominant countries. It calls for the US to dominate the Western Hemisphere through business interests. It goes on to make clear that this policy is a plan to help US businesses take over Latin America and, perhaps, Canada. Not through negotiations for a common good but through extortion. And we cede all responsibility to our allies around the world, unless there is a deal to make America richer. On our terms. National security specialist Anne Applebaum wrote: “The new National Security Strategy is a propaganda document, designed to be widely read. It is also a performative suicide. Hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and so publicly.” This tracks with what we’ve been seeing. Trump and his cronies have abandoned the principles of democracy. They openly champion the hierarchical society the US fought against in WWII. They have embraced the political theory created by Mussolini that rejected the equality that defines democracy. Accepting the belief that a few leaders must take a nation toward progress by directing the actions of the rest. Ruthlessly suppressing all opposition while directing the economy so that businessmen and politicians worked together. That select group of leaders would elevate a single man, who would become an all-powerful dictator. They demonized opponents into an “other” that their followers could hate. Fascism was the ideology of the future, and they set out to destroy the messy, inefficient democracy that stood in their way. Now we see the Trump administration fire women, Black Americans, people of color, and LGBTQ+ Americans from positions in the government and the military and erase them from official histories. They have seized, incarcerated and deported immigrants, or rendered them to third countries to be tortured. They have sent federal agents and federal troops into Democratic-led cities to terrorize the people. They have traded the rule of law for the rule of Trump, weaponized the DOJ against political enemies, pardoned loyalists convicted of crimes, and are now executing those they declare are members of drug cartels without evidence, charges, or trials. They have openly rejected a world based on shared values of equality and democracy we fought for. In its place, they are building a world dominated by a small group of elites close to Trump, who are raking in vast amounts of money and power. The struggle between fascism and democracy was the question of equality. Our Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal. Do you, as an elected member of Congress, believe this? This is not hyperbole. Where do you stand on democracy these days? It’s increasingly hard to tell.