Trump is focusing on his ballroom and arch, not the people; vote for Larsen

Billionaires sat behind Trump on the podium during his inauguration in 2025. He was there taking the oath of office because he promised to lower prices. I filled my truck yesterday. I paid $5/gallon. My grocery bills have gone up. My health insurance costs have gone up.

The fact is that none of us are better off. Trump has focused more on his ballroom and arch than on the cost of living. He has even made fun of people’s concern of affordability.

Then there is his war. The cost there is in the tens of billions. Over the long range, it could be over a trillion. More importantly are the lives lost and the lives changed. I was a medic in Vietnam. Part of my training was in a general army hospital.

There I saw the surgeries revising what was left of limbs and the pain from infections in troops who had spent months or years in that facility. In Vietnam, I heard the screams of terror and pain. I smelled blood and powder. I was with wounded as their lives seeped from them. I loaded heavy body bags into choppers. The cost of war goes on and on. The cost of Trump’s war is hitting us and our allies and will for far too long. It is illegal and immoral. It should have never been.

Trump has not been alone in his attacks on our economy, our way of life, and our democracy. He has had enablers in Congress that have supported his tax cuts for the rich, his overreach of executive power, his attacks on our elections, and his perpetual lies about his winning the 2020 election. I watched one of those enablers at the debate between Jonny Larsen and Mike Kennedy at Snow College.

Kennedy repeatedly supported Trump’s policies. More than once he showed a photo of Ronald Reagan that had been given to Kennedy’s father who was an immigrant and became a U.S. citizen. The photo had been given to Kennedy’s father by Reagan. Kennedy was attempting to show what a good Republican he is. But Trump and his enablers, like Kennedy, are not Reagan Republicans.

We have a choice during these midterms. We can support a Trump enabler or we can vote for someone who will work to bring an end to this insanity. It’s our choice. As for me, I’m voting for Jonny Larsen.

—Paul Gardner

Ephraim