Oct. 3, 2025 Editor, The News-Gazette: With all the daily steps on the path to authoritarianism (the Army patrolling the streets, the impoundment of funds for needed projects in “left-wing Democrat states,” the hateful attacks on judges who rule against the administration, the effort to tell universities what they can teach, etc.), why was it that this seemingly minor act so disturbed me?
The act? Postings on federal agency websites, like this from HUD: “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands.”
Federal agencies belong to the people- all of us- not to the administration nor just to people who vote a certain way. The president and members of Congress are free to say whateverthey want. But federal agencies- the machinery of government- exist to serve us all, not to demonize us.
This seemingly minor act more than anything recently made me fear that our government is no longer ours, and that “We the People” does not include all of us.
JONATHAN SHAPIRO Glasgow
