It was Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s drawn face, her saying “I’m afraid,” that hit me most viscerally, more even than the accumulating political shocks and utter disregard for law seen in the last few months.

Does the hollow media creature currently occupying the White House actually have a goon squad he can dispatch to physically harm anyone who disagrees with him? Legislators, poll workers, reporters, lawyers enduring serious threats to their lives and families — this is the stuff of thuggery, not politics! It’s Hitler’s style of governance, or Stalin’s. It doesn’t belong here. How does he dare? How long will we allow it?

Trump forgets that he’s a salaried public servant responsible to us all, not a divinely ordained monarch. It’s time that we impeach (and jail) him, see that those decent people trying to maintain our democratic institutions survive and have a chance to save them.

Brooke Pacy
Waldoboro