July 19, 2025 ~ Vol. 33
President Eisenhower reputedly said that “you should never waste a minute thinking about people that you don’t like.” I do try to embrace that fatherly advice in my daily living, but sometimes it’s really hard, and Donald Trump makes it nearly impossible. Actually, not “nearly”; it is impossible for me. The same holds true for “Hate the sin but not the sinner.” Hate is not the best word to describe my feelings about Trump. I find his values—or absence of values—despicable, so despise would be a better word. Nothing requiring a Secret Service intervention, mind you, but in the extremely unlikely event that the man ever darkened my doorway, I would definitely slam the door in his face. I can’t remember ever feeling that way about anyone, but he has more than earned it. I do not feel guilty about it, but I do get angry with myself for letting him make me feel this way. I suspect that I am not alone in these feelings.
One of the harder parts of dealing with Trump’s presidency is dealing with the people in my life who support him. People who I want to like. People who should not have the door slammed in their face. There are only so many conversations that you can have with a Trump supporter without talking about Trump. After ten years of Trump’s venomous politics, there are only so many “how-are-the-kids?” conversations that sound sincere. Sooner or later, you have to move beyond the small talk and address something that happened recently that impacted something that you feel deeply about—and Trump was the catalyst that caused it all—and how could they possibly agree him doing this? You really do want to know, but maybe not, so you avoid talking about it. Again. You might be able to skate with “How was your vacation?” one day each year while eating your Thanksgiving turkey with your least favorite Hannity-fan uncle, but after years of witnessing Trump destroying so much of what is really important to you, it becomes borderline therapy-would-be-appropriate delusional to have conversations with the Trump supporters in your social circle where you don’t at least bring him up. But here we are. And we have three and a half years to go.
Trump’s last salvo, aimed at public media, landed this week when Congress passed the rescission legislation which “clawed back” over a billion dollars that had already been appropriated by Congress, in part to fund operations at the regional affiliate stations in fiscal years 2026 and 2027. For government agencies, fiscal year 2026 begins on 10/1/2025, but for most nonprofits, it began on July 1, so the impact will be immediate. The request to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by extension, PBS and NPR, along with the hundreds of regional affiliate stations will severely impact the budgets of all public media, but primarily in rural communities that have smaller populations of individual donor support. It seems ironic to me that the hardest hit stations will be in rural Republican leaning districts.
From WNYTV in Watertown, NY:
Public broadcasting money cuts to hit North Country services hard
NPR reported that they estimate 18% of local affiliate stations will end up closing shop. A few Senators from rural states looked for concessions that would mitigate the bill’s impact in their home states. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and Vermont’s Susan Collins both strenuously objected to the cuts, as did Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who wanted to guarantee funding for public media on the Indian reservations in his state. Senator Collins actually stayed on her white horse this time long enough to vote, but it was not enough. My anger about this defunding springs from many of the circumstances that allowed this to happen, starting with the sycophantic (there’s that word again) Congress that abdicated their responsibility to structure the federal government’s budget in the first place. We should not even be having these discussions in Congress, prompted by an edict from the White House to make this happen. Rescission requests have always been the province of the legislative branch. Congress makes the funding appropriation, a responsibility dictated by the Constitution. Rescission requests to modify an appropriation traditionally originate in Congress, not in the executive branch. Some Republican legislators who agreed with the defunding were still upset about the White House instigating the process.
The rest of us are upset about the defunding and the process. I won’t get into all of the reasons that public media is important which I covered in a prior post. The right wing of the Republican Party has looked to cut off funding for public media for years, but the broad public support for the programming stopped that from happening. It galls me that an edict from this Trump White House, no doubt scribbled with a Sharpie, will succeed where conservatives have always failed in the past. Trump’s campaign to defund PBS and NPR is rooted in his disdain for anything that he considers “woke”, and more importantly, the fact that an independent news bureau speaks truth to power and his White House operates in an atmosphere of lies and disinformation. The two are oil and water. Like many of Trump’s policy initiatives since he was elected, this was just another assault on the things that I find most important in my life. It is getting personal for me, and it hurts.
I am confident that our local NPR affiliate radio station, North Country Public Radio (NCPR) will survive. I am absolutely confident that the station’s listeners and supporters will step up to fill the $650,000 hole that this White House blew in NCPR’s fiscal 26/27 budget. New York State has already stepped up with some financial support for media outlets located in “news deserts” offering operating support and tax credits for building out news bureaus at public media outlets in those rural locales, including NCPR. But there is still a long way to go.
As tough as the financial picture looks for public radio, the outlook for public television stations is much worse. WPBS in Watertown, New York is already laying off staff, as over thirty percent of their budget was covered by subsidies originating at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Their finances are also being impacted by a falloff in membership contributions from their Canadian viewers, no doubt a fallout from the cross border tensions brought about by this White House’s trade war with our northern neighbor. Mountain Lakes PBS is in a similar situation. The station covered—past tense—one third of their operating budget with federal subsidies.
I have been a loyal listener and supporter of NCPR for decades, and the first thing that I did when this measure passed was to increase my annual membership level at the station. I implore you to consider doing the same if you can afford it. (Full disclosure: I volunteer on the station’s development committee, so if you know me you can expect a personal solicitation.)
Meanwhile back in Washington, the Trump wrecking ball continues on its mission to destroy many of the programs and organizations that I have spent a lifetime supporting. Tens of thousands of not-for-profit arts organizations depended on public funding to produce cultural programming for their audiences. For reasons that I will never understand, Trump decided that the singular most important national funder of arts programming, The National Endowment for the Arts, should no longer exist. Republicans in Congress went along with the campaign to destroy that funding for the arts, and now thousands of programs will be scaled back or cancelled, and the organizations that staged them are laying off staff and scrambling for survival. NEA worked to assure that everyone, in blue states and in red states had access to cultural programming, that everyone’s children had access to the arts and cultural programming that small rural school systems could never afford to provide. I have spent a career and thousands of hours volunteering in support of arts organizations and serving on grants committees to facilitate funding the most worthy and impactful programming. Locally, The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the largest regional funder, will survive, but since a large part of their funds were received from the NEA, their grant capacity will be severely impacted if the NYS legislature does not increase their own budgeted NYSCA contribution. The same holds true for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the country’s largest humanities funder, and its local regional partner, Humanities New York. HNY used a regional network of volunteers familiar with their local arts and humanities community to facilitate the awarding of grants to cultural organizations that competed each year for funding. In the grant pool that I worked with as a volunteer, preference was given to programs in rural communities outside of New York City. Preference was given to programming that offered free public access, especially for young, student audiences. All of that support and all of the infrastructure that was put in place over many years to support local New York arts and culture just went up in smoke. Funds that were being used to make sure that your children had cultural opportunities regardless of their financial circumstances are now being earmarked for hiring more ICE agents. The President finds that more important. All was destroyed with the stroke of the President’s sharpie on an Executive Order and a complicit Congress who did absolutely nothing to stop him. We will not forget.
Local foundations, which might have been looked at as an alternative source to step in with funding support, already have their hands full dealing with frantic pleas for help from food banks trying to feed people who just lost their SNAP benefits, and health care providers trying to figure out how to pay for services that will no longer be paid for by Medicaid, all thanks to this administration. Arts and cultural organizations will be forced to the end of the line, because when it comes to grant making—“hungry always wins.” Given the choice of feeding a hungry child or providing them with the only classical musical or theater performance that they might have an opportunity to see this year, hungry always wins. Pleas from desperate arts and cultural organizations will be denied, for the same reason that the music teacher always seems to be the first one to be eliminated when school budgets are stressed. Arts and culture and music and theater are just “liberal luxuries” or “too woke” in these people’s minds. And Congress will watch all of this happen while half of the country, oblivious to what is happening, or worse – knowing and not caring – will continue to support this despicable human being as he swings his wrecking ball.
I have given up trying to understand why someone continues to support Donald Trump. At this point I really don’t even want to know. I have given up trying to understand why some people like the way he “just speaks his mind”. I would much prefer he thinks about the consequences of his words before he opens his mouth. I have given up trying to “find common ground” with a Trump supporter and build on that commonality. There isn’t enough common ground left to support a conversation, much less a relationship. I have neither the inclination, nor the time. We have much more urgent and important things to deal with right now and time is of the essence. I and those like me will be trying to figure out how to rebuild everything that has been destroyed, and I do not believe that Trump supporters will ever be part of that effort. So be it; we will do it ourselves.
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Joe, I couldn’t agree more with every word you wrote. You’ve captured exactly what so many of us are feeling—this deep, gnawing frustration that goes beyond politics and touches something far more personal: our values, our communities, our sense of decency.
Like you, I grew up with public media. It wasn’t just a background noise—it was a window into the world. It educated, elevated, and connected us. Now to watch this administration, with a Sharpie and a vengeance, try to destroy it all under the guise of “fiscal responsibility” while ballooning the national debt and funding cruelty instead of culture—well, it’s not just infuriating, it’s heartbreaking.
I share your grief, your anger, and your weariness in trying to maintain relationships with people who still support Trump, despite all this wreckage. It’s exhausting to bite your tongue when everything around you is falling apart because of one man and the spineless politicians enabling him.
And yes, it is personal. When someone targets the things you’ve spent your life supporting—your public radio, your arts organizations, your principles—it’s impossible not to take it that way. So thank you for saying what needed to be said. I stand with you. We will not forget—and we will not give up. To be frank, what the hell happened to the party I once supported.
Paul
As always, right on, Joe. I’ll increase my NCPR donation….Mt. Lakes PBS too.