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Medicine to the Dead

by Douglas A. Cooper

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To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead.
(Thomas Paine, The Crisis # 5)

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And there you have it. Reason has been murdered by Trump and his sycophants. Abandoned to the comfort of falsehood and fraud. The sane world reveres reason and cannot grasp that it can simply disappear from the discourse. And that is why we, who so love this country, simply cannot fathom how or why a congress person who self identifies as MAGA and who, though highly educated marches in lock step with Trump’s most undemocratic behavior can appear so thoroughly clueless to the catastrophic harm you are doing to our democracy. So many of you gleefully enlisted in the very unholy war on civil rights, voting rights, human rights and health care rights. You can only justify those acts by resort to incredible, preposterously, demonstrably false statements which you shamelessly pedal to those they most harm.

I am addressing this to you, the enablers, the co-conspirators, the killers of immigrant men, women and children, the Jesus Christ imposter and his Secretary of Defense who have the unmitigated gall to lecture Pope Leo about ethics, politics and church doctrine; the war mongers, fueled with arrogance, but lacking of a cohesive plan or end game have exposed our military to grave and unnecessary risk; those of you who have sought to banish responsible career military officers to the Trumpian wasteland and threatened them with claims of treason for saying that an illegal order must not be obeyed. The cry from war criminals has always been, and per Trump and Hegseth continues to be: “I was only following orders.”
For instance, orders to kill sailors in boats in international waters with no shred of reliable evidence that they were engaged in criminal activity or constituted a US national security threat, or that they even threatened the fish.

In Trump’s Truth Social posts in November 2025, he called the video by Mark Kelly and other Democratic lawmakers “seditious behavior” and said it was “punishable by DEATH.” He also reposted another user’s comments; “Hang them George Washington would.”

NBC reported that Trump reposted the line
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-democrats-death-penalty-sedition-military-orders-rcna245003
A Trump spokesperson implied that the point Kelly and the others were making was that our military men and women did not have to follow orders. What Kelly actually said was that soldiers must not follow illegal orders. If Trump’s orders are legal they must be followed. If illegal, they must not be followed. See, UNITED STATES v WILLIAM L. CALLEY, JR. (No. 26.875) United States Court of Military Appeals 22 U.S.C.M.A. 534,December 21, 1973.

I turn again to Paine who almost single handedly inspired the American people to break the British shackles of colonialism. To do so, he had to persuade the colonists that their loyalty to a king was misplaced.

He wrote: “Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it, but I should suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.” He spoke of King George III. I speak of Trump.
(Thomas Paine, The Crisis # 1)

Here’s what’s going to happen. The “thousand year Reich” lasted about 4,380 DAYS. It collapsed in a whirlwind of horror, death and destruction. Cyanide became the party favor of choice for those who had been convinced that the Fuehrer’s megalomaniacal insanity and endless lies somehow were all justified. There will hopefully never be a tyrant as skillful as Hitler at destroying the world. Try though he might, Trump is not up to that task. And one day, as his imbecility itself lifts the veil from his Administration, a light will go on in the minds of those of you who should know better and there will be an accounting. People responsible for enabling the ogre will stand defenseless against the authority of reason, the American people and the Constitution. All the disgraceful pardons, the disgraceful Supreme Court grant of immunity, and all the bluster will evaporate.

The man you follow is that sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. You must persuade your colleagues that they owe no loyalty whatsoever to Trump. You and your colleagues need to abandon him, otherwise, when your constituents do, as one day they surely will, you will be out of a job. Till now, you have made whores of your souls. Do not be dead to what is happening. Take your medicine.

Every Line Has Been Crossed

© Douglas A. Cooper 2026
His Letter to the Editor has appeared in The Berkshire Edge on April 23, 2026
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