For leaders of the Democratic Party, it’s time to take action now to stand up to the Trump administration’s illegal activities in terms of our system of governance.

It’s time for them to stand up against the attempted firing or coerced departures of multitudes of our civil servants, as well as the clearing out of inspector generals, and many other efforts to tear down the government and render it no longer able to serve the country as it has for 250 years.

Why they are not taking aggressive actions right away on these issues is beyond me. They risk being accomplices to this process if they don’t wake up and realize they need to stand for the large political middle of U.S. citizens who do not want to live in a MAGA-land of authoritarian rule, like Hungary for instance.

No matter how much they’re reeling from the recent loss to Donald Trump, we very much need them to quit worrying about what went wrong and stand for policies and actions that appeal to the broadest possible swath of Americans. They need to give level-headed, regular people something to vote for! There are more of us than there are MAGA Republicans.

They need to wake up to the moment and fight back. We need their energy, brains and power – everything they’ve got to go into this fight right now. Waiting to act against Trump, and instead strategizing about how to “save” the Democratic Party, will allow too much damage to be done to our institutions. We may not be able to recover from the damage for a very long time.

The majority of Americans want sane government that serves the interests and needs of regular people. Democratic leaders can begin to re-set the party by stepping fully into the melee and standing up for America’s proud tradition of democracy. It’s time to begin the most serious phase of their political careers, wherein they galvanize the vast center-right/center-left political middle of the country to stand up with them to defend our democracy!

Betsy Powell

Northampton