Dear Fellow Vermonter, 

It is no great secret that our country is divided politically. 

I would hope, however, that all Americans and Vermonters come together to support our democratic way of life and oppose the very aggressive movement toward authoritarianism that the Trump administration is pursuing. 

Let’s be clear. 

When you have a president who withholds funding that Congress has appropriated or abolishes agencies that Congress has established – that is authoritarianism.

When you have a president who threatens to impeach a judge for rendering a decision that he doesn’t like, or whose administration ignores a 9-0 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court – that is authoritarianism.  

When you have a president who sues the media for writing stories that he disagrees with, or threatens to take CBS’s license away because of a program that was critical of his policies – that is authoritarianism. 

When you have a president who threatens law firms who represented clients who opposed him or his policies – that is authoritarianism. 

When you have a president who tries to withhold funding from major universities because of the political views of their faculty or the content of their courses – that is authoritarianism. 

When you have a president who allows the richest man on earth, elected by nobody, to fire tens of thousands of federal employees and dismantle the Social Security Administration, the Veterans Administration and other federal agencies – that is authoritarianism.  

The Founding Fathers of our country were no dummies. Having won a Revolutionary War against the absolutism of the king of England, they were determined to create a new country where no one person had absolute power over others. The result: they created a constitution with three branches of government – the executive, the legislative and the judiciary – and a strong separation of powers.  

In an unprecedented manner, President Trump is attempting to undermine that separation of powers. He wants more and more power for himself.  He is undermining our Constitution. He is undermining our democratic way of life.   

As Vermont’s U.S. Senator, I will do everything I can to stop this movement toward more and more power for one man. Too many brave men and women have fought and died to protect our democratic form of government. We cannot, and must not, move toward authoritarianism.

Sincerely,