First we need to take account of what Donald Trump has done since assuming office only weeks ago. In spite of voter assumptions he would make no such rash undemocratic moves, they keep coming. In spite of the good economic health of the country he inherited, the millions who were lied to on social media still stand a bit warily with him, and Congress Republicans have, figuratively, signed a loyalty oath.

On March 23, Israeli soldiers killed 14 emergency workers and a UN employee in Gaza. Along with burying the victims, they buried vehicles to hide evidence of their crime. Only after video emerged did they admit what they then called a “mistake.” In addition to the latest count of 61,700 Palestinians civilians having been killed in Gaza, another 909 in the West Bank, Israeli military has taken the lives in Gaza of 408 aid workers and 166 journalists. The author of this genocide is Benjamin Netanyahu, who now has the full support of Trump. “Builder” Trump would like to make the blood-soaked sands of Gaza a tourist retreat.

In the June 2022 case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court reversed the half-century old right of women to care for their own health by having recourse to abortion. Rather than supporting the view of a largely religious national minority, this was an objective, carried forward by extra-regular court appointments, to carry out MAGA dogma that in a man’s world the place of women is in the home, having and caring for children.

This was a deliberate assault on women from a man who repeatedly proves he views women as objects of pleasure, and for whom he has no respect. He has bragged about grabbing them in private parts of their bodies. Tried in court in New York, he was convicted of what the judge in the case described as rape.

This happened between the first of Trump’s occupations of the White House and the next, and many are perplexed by how that happened. After all, the first time he was there he had generated tax cuts for the wealthy, set a record for increase in the national debt, soured relations with Iran, got chummy with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and so badly managed the Covid pandemic that more than a million in the U.S. died.

Losing the 2020 election but refusing to accept the count, Trump delivered an assault on the affirmation of the vote by the House of Representatives that nearly succeeded. Thousands violently violated the Capitol, threatened the lives members, of Vice President Mike Pence, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. People died.

Trump’s back for the same reason he got there in the first place. The party of Lincoln lost its way when it became the party of business a century ago, focused on power and not serving people. Overcoming the more progressive, people-oriented period, 1932 to 1980, Republican strategy to resume dominance was to control local offices, then state houses. Democrats weren’t paying attention. Added was information control — local radio and TV and a concentration of lies on the internet.

Never lose sight of this diminishment of women. Our settlers brought it from Europe and the founders wrote male supremacy into the Constitution. Women couldn’t vote until they physically took that right in 1920.

Sacajawea, a wife of the hired guide for Jefferson’s party that explored the Louisiana Purchase carried and cared for her son on that 8,000-mile trek. It is known her knowledge of edible plants, of Native languages, and her calming presence, alone, allowed the 33 men to survive. She was paid nothing and died at 23.

The intent of one January 2021 invader of the Capitol, since freed by Trump, was to kill Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The man who broke onto their California home intended to break her legs with his hammer. That capable Kamala Harris was not only a person of color, but a woman, is the reason she is not our president.

President Roosevelt made Francis Perkins the first female member of a U.S. Cabinet. She was scorned and ridiculed by men, but not intimidated. In her 12 years as Secretary of Labor she delivered investigations of workplace safety, limitations on work hours, minimum wages, and unemployment insurance. At her initiative, Public Works Projects building of schools, hospitals and dams began to also employ people. She designed and set in place Social Security.

Members of Congress are frightened of offending Trump. Many fear his promised retribution. What life taught Francis Perkins was, don’t be afraid.

Charlemont resident Carl Doerner is an investigative journalist and historian, currently editing his newest work, “Breaking the Silence: Revisioning the American Narrative.”