Not Team Russia

by Dana Henricks, Florence

I woke up about a week ago, had a cup of coffee, filled up another, then fired up my laptop to finish up a work project that was due in a couple of days. This project involved some heavy-duty fact-checking online, so I got on the internet—or tried to. The Google homepage appeared, but then I clicked on a YouTube channel that I love because it has a cozy cabin scene with a nice, soothing fireplace and snow falling gently outside and . . . crickets. Not crickets in the cabin scene. “Crickets” as in nothing came up but an error message about the server being offline. I tried other websites. Same.

And a chill went through me. Not because I feared missing my deadline. But because I feared the very worst: That Russia had succeeded in shutting down the communication systems that make the internet work and nukes were on their way, ETA 30 minutes.

That didn’t happen, of course, or all of us here in Montana would be crispy critters, what with our supply of nuclear missiles making us a prime target for Russia’s nuclear arsenal. A phone call to Spectrum reassured me that it was just a glitch on their part.

But my fear is not as ludicrous as it sounds. I hate to say it because I know many of you out there are ride-or-die Trump fans, but there is every indication that Trump is on Team Putin.

Trump has just commanded Pete Hegseth to order the Pentagon to pause our cyberoperations against Russia. We have been having a cyberwar with Russia for decades. They try to attack our computer systems, and we try to attack theirs before they attack ours. 

Russia is the number-one cyber attacker in the world. We are its main target. Trump’s pausing our cyberoperations makes our country vulnerable to Russian cyberattacks on our power grid, our communication satellites, our hospitals, and other infrastructure. 

Stopping our cyberoperations (oh, and he fired a bunch of cybercrime experts at CISA, the federal agency that prevents Russian cyberattacks) is just one of many examples of Trump doing things to please Vladimir Putin, such as ending military aid to Ukraine this week. That one must have made Putin so happy that he broke into one of those Russian dances where they cross their arms, squat, and kick their legs out like crazy. 

Why in the world would Trump do such a thing? Why would he make America weak and vulnerable? Why would he betray our ally Ukraine, which means betraying all of our allies in Europe? And why the punishing tariffs on Canada? Fentanyl? Really? When way more fentanyl crosses over from the US to Canada than the other way around?

The only answer is that Trump is on Putin’s side. And he is on the side of billionaires like Elon Musk, who want a New World Order in which the richest people in the world do fabulously well, launching rockets to Mars and buying trophy ranches in Montana, while so many of us regular Americans struggle to earn enough to buy groceries, pay rent or a mortgage, or afford to retire and still pay our bills without having to work until we die. 

Please, neighbors, we need to take a stand against the Russia-fication and billionaire-ization of America. Call Steve Daines: 1 (202) 224-2651; Tim Sheehy: 1 (202) 224-2644; and Ryan Zinke: 1 (202) 225-5628; and ask them to oppose Trump and Musk realigning America with Putin’s Russia and turning America into the “home of the billionaires and the land of the free to live off the meager scraps they throw our way.”