Weekly Member Update - December 8, 2025

The current President of the United States is demonstrating symptoms consistent with dementia, with the 79-year-old drifting off to sleep during midday meetings and spending his nights manically rage posting on social media. He’s apparently undergoing regular MRIs and seemingly endures an infusion of something in his right hand on a periodic basis. Long before these symptoms began, of course, any rational observer of Donald J. Trump could see his routine displays of grandiosity and entitlement, his callous lack of empathy and remorselessness and his manipulative focus on his own personal self-interest, and those same casual observers could easily reach their own conclusions about Trump’s severely disordered personality. Meanwhile, our Tangerine Emperor lives in a cocoon of Congressional yes-men and cultish sycophants, insulated from criticism and any narrative that might send the ketchup flying across the room, while at the same time taking counsel from right-wing zealots like Stephen Miller and the cacophony of “conservative” media sources blaring through the television screen at him morning, noon and night. The end result of this witches’ brew of pathologies and circumstance is an American government that now mirrors the abhorrent behavior of the President himself, with every policy calculated by how it might benefit Trump and his loyalists or how it might hurt Trump’s adversaries, and the massaging emanating from official government channels is completely warped by cruelty, lawlessness and gaslighting. In less than a year, Trump and his minions have turned the federal government into a force of malevolence against the American soul. A government once by-and-for-the-People now expresses animus toward its people in both word and deed, with the common good now subsumed into what is best for Donald J. Trump.

Think we’re being harsh? Let’s check the tape of recent policy enactments, government actions and political messaging to be sure.

All across the Country, poorly trained thugs cosplaying as federal immigration agents are routinely using “less lethal” munitions in unlawful ways against protestors and those trying to interrupt their operations, including this past weekend against Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva. In Boston, a group of immigrants gathered at the cradle of our democracy — Faneuil Hall — on Thursday; years after arriving in this Country and after clearing every single vetting hurdle, these particular individuals were about to fulfill their dreams and become our newest American citizens. Some of them were deprived of their opportunity to pledge allegiance, however, because federal officials pulled them out of line, denying them citizenship at the last tantalizing minute merely because of their country of origin. The day before Thanksgiving, a father and his 6-year-old son were detained at a routine immigration appearance in New York City; the two were immediately separated, with the father now detained in Goshen and the boy’s whereabouts unknown, which is especially chilling given the widespread human rights violations allegedly taking place within ICE’s detention system. And it’s not just noncitizens being subjected to ICE’s racially motivated violence. In Key Largo, for example, an 85-pound behavioral therapist on her way to work was dragged screaming from her car and carried away by anonymous masked men. The American citizen who had committed no crime was eventually released (thanks, Brett Kavanaugh), but the trauma was already done. If you don’t think the cruelty is a feature, and not a bug, you need only check out the deranged sociopathy that is a hallmark of the Department of Homeland Security’s official social media accounts.

Nothing like threats of violent deportation to celebrate the birth of the world most famous refugee, Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, in the Caribbean and off the Pacific coast of South America, our government is engaged in an unlawful campaign of extrajudicial killings, using American military might to obliterate small fishing vessels upon scant evidence that the people aboard were engaged in the noncapital offense of drug running. Of course, some suspect that the true object of this “military operation” is regime change in Venezuela and handing over that Country’s vast oil reserves to American oil companies and, to that point, it is telling that Trump and his lackeys have not even bothered to seek Congressional authorization for this “war.” Moreover, even if this war was somehow legitimate, it is clear that our armed forces may be committing war crimes on the orders of Donald Trump and his ridiculous “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth. This week, sickening video of the survivors of one boat attack being murdered by US drone strikes has increased calls for Hegseth to resign, even from so-called conservative circles. Undeterred by the controversy, at one point this week, Hegseth flippantly suggested that one of the latest fatal boat strikes was undertaken for the entertainment of a right-wing (and self-described Christian) podcaster.

We could also talk about how Trump and his pals are selling out Ukraine (and Europe as a whole) in order to advance their own business interests. Or, how the Trump Administration has eviscerated our public health system in service to fringe conspiracy theories. Or, how the Administration is tracking know-your-rights trainings and whistle-distribution events as it contemplates prosecuting the patriots standing up to ICE in American neighborhoods. The list frankly goes on and on and on. But all the data points ultimately point to the same conclusion; our federal government has been coopted by hostile forces which are antagonistic to the vast majority of the American people and the very notion of a broad multi-cultural American democracy. The entirety of the federal government apparatus is now only concerned with the advancement and perpetuation of Trump and Trumpism and, if you are not an oligarch who is allied with this administration or a loyal MAGA foot soldier, your very existence is likely to be a focus of our own federal government’s open hostility.

Against this backdrop, it is little wonder that the American people are dissatisfied with the level of opposition to Trump from what passes as the Democratic Party these days. In the face of the existential threat posed to Americans and American ideals by MAGA, the last thing the people need from the other side is acquiescence, inaction and proclamations of powerlessness. When it is said that Americans are thirsty for fighters, what is really being expressed is the need for leaders who will fearlessly use every single lever of power and influence in their respective arsenals in order to impede, disrupt and erect roadblocks to the efforts of the malignancy at the top of our federal government.

This is the reason that we will be showing up in force at tonight’s meeting of the Albany County Legislature. We’re not going merely to be a disruptive nuisance to our elected officials; instead, we’re showing up to demand that our elected officials do something —ANYTHING! — about the persistent presence at Albany International Airport of Avelo Airlines, the bargain-basement airline that profits off of tearing American families apart at the behest of ICE. While we’ve been banging the anti-Avelo drum in the streets for months, the Albany County Legislature has been essentially silent about the issue, despite having the full breadth of law-making powers in Albany County as well as the authority to approve appointments to the Albany County Airport Authority. Although the County Legislature has been generally quiet about Avelo, we’ve heard talk that they consider themselves powerless when it comes to the Airport, or that they fear the consequences that will befall the County if they cross the Trump Administration by driving Avelo from our community. Again, in a moment of existential crisis, inaction by those with real power is simply unacceptable, regardless of whether that inaction is borne of inertia or fear. Tonight at 6:30, we’ll be delivering that message in person. If you are unable join us in person, you can watch the proceedings on the County Legislature’s YouTube channel.

We conclude this week’s Update with news of some repellent activity by ICE in our own community. We all know that Trump and his allies have capitalized on the recent shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC by demonizing the Afghan-American community, including the thousands of Afghans that were evacuated from Afghanistan alongside our own troops when the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. Over the past week, 10 Afghan residents of the Capital Region have been apprehended without explanation by federal agents, including two men abducted after leaving morning prayers at Masjid As-Salaam mosque on Central Avenue in Albany. These detentions have been roundly condemned locally, and we reprint Assembly Member Gabriella Romero’s entire statement to that effect below. However, this coming Friday afternoon, we need the entire community to stand in solidarity with another one of our neighbors who is at risk due to the Trump Administration’s abhorrent crusade against Afghans. Waheda Nayebi is a 25-year-old Afghan woman who was widowed when her husband was murdered in a suicide bombing at his mosque in 2017. As a Mazara Afghan, Waheda and her family suffered religious and ethnic persecution in Afghanistan and, in 2021, when the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan, her life there became untenable. She arrived in the United States in 2023 under humanitarian parole and, since that time, she has learned English, received a work permit and integrated into American society as a law-abiding community member. She is currently eligible to apply for a green card but, due to the Trump crackdown, we expect that Waheda’s green-card application will be denied on Friday. At best, she will leave the appointment empty-handed, but we are expecting the worst — that she will be detained and possibly deported. We therefore invite the community to stand in solidarity with Waheda, her family and her sponsor family and join in the vigil outside the USCIS building on New Karner Road at 3:00pm on Friday while Waheda attends her appointment.