View to a Drowning

Illustration by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

In November of 2024, a disturbing incident was reported at the River Ouse near Yorkshire, England. According to the Sun, a man had fallen in the freezing water and a crowd gathered to watch as he struggled in the water, seemingly drowning. No one moved to assist him. Members of the crowd reportedly took selfies as the drowning man struggled. Fortunately, police arrived and threw the man a flotation device (situated only feet away from the incident) and saved the man. Unfortunately, this type of callous disregard is more common than we might think.

Again. In 2018, a group of five teens in Cocoa, Florida, jeered at a disabled man as he struggled to stay afloat in a pond behind his family’s home. According to a CNN report, the five teens laughed and taunted the man as they videotaped the man who ended up drowning. Because there is no Florida statue requiring “a person to provide emergency assistance under the facts of this case” (CNN), the boys were not charged. Never mind the law. What about empathy or common human decency? 

Another view to a drowning is occurring right now in Washington, D.C. The Trump administration and its hatchet man Elon Musk have pushed our democracy into the deep end of the pool and stand laughing and jeering as she struggles to stay afloat. Trump has issued over three dozen executive orders that have illegally fired thousands of federal workers, hamstringing necessary public services from federal agencies like FEMA, the FAA, USAID, the Department of the Treasury and others. They have frozen or ceased funding allotted by Congress—violating the legislative branch’s power of the purse—Constitutional law. 

Trump and his people have ridden roughshod over the checks and balances embedded in the Constitution. In their untempered arrogance and monumental greed, they are breaking multiple points of Constitutional law—and have dared anyone to stop them. At this point, the only institution that has been able to slow the onslaught of Trump’s executive orders and Musk’s raids on government nerve centers has been the courts. Rulings on lawsuits filed by employee unions, advocacy groups, several states and cities, and many others have stalled the tsunami of cruel and short-sighted policies. According to the New York Times,  “at least thirty-five of those rulings have at least paused some of the president’s initiatives.”

That part of our constitutional framework of checks and balances is working. The judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government were designed to check and balance excessive concentrations of power in each other. President Trump is testing these balances with his overt abuse of power. The courts (so far) are working as a check to these abuses, but Congress, our legislative branch, is doing nothing, turning their back on a drowning man, this tragedy engineered by this power-hungry would-be despot. President Trump is trying to kill a two hundred-and fifty-year-old entity and is very close to succeeding and Congress is doing nothing to save it.

This Congress, specifically the Republican majority in both the Senate and the House, has turned a blind eye to Trump’s abuse of the law and his flagrant disregard for the Constitution. In his raft of executive orders, President Trump has frozen funds to USAID, DEI, medical research through the NIH, HUD, National Parks, and many, many others. His lackey Elon Musk has (illegally) fired thousands of federal employees.

What the Trump administration has ignored—or perhaps failed to understand—is that the executive branch of the federal government cannot allot or freeze funds. That governmental duty, “the power of the purse” is under the purview of the legislative branch. The president also cannot summarily fire federal employees or inspector generals. That is the law, the law that the courts are—for the most part—upholding.

But  Congress, like the crowd standing around while a person drowns, our senators and representatives—specifically the Republicans—are doing nothing. The Democrats have been strident and vocal in their opposition to the president, Musk’s hacking of federal funding and employment rolls, but because they are in the minority—by the slimmest of margins—there is nothing they can do.

They had to stand by \and watch as the eminently—appallingly—unqualified Peter Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kev Patel, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. were confirmed as Trump’s cabinet choices. Every Democrat voted against them, but, with only a few exceptions, every Republican voted for them. These Republicans have vocally supported the president, even as he and Vice-President Vance attempted to humiliate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. To his credit, Mr. Zelenskyy did not back down from Trump’s embarrassing tantrum and ridiculous assertion that Ukraine has started the war. Political pundits called it an embarrassment. European nations almost universally expressed their support for Ukraine.

Senator Lindsey Graham, who had only days before touted Zelenskyy as a hero, said, “what I saw in the Oval office was disrespectful and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again” (PBS). Other Republicans like Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, and Mike Lee, among many others, fecklessly followed suit and condemned President Zeleskyy.

What does Trump have on these guys? Why would a man (and I use the term loosely) like Rubio suddenly start supporting Putin, a man he has always despised? Why are Republicans supporting draconian cuts to the budget which their own constituents hate. Republican representatives and senators at recent town halls have been screamed at by constituents angry at cuts to the VA, to USAID, and federal job cuts. Even faced with this onslaught from their own constituents, Republicans still refuse to go against Trump.

Most of these representatives fear for their jobs and careers. Those, like Liz Cheney, who have crossed Trump in the past have had to face Trumpian candidates in their own primaries. Most have lost their primaries and their jobs. 

According to a report in The Guardian, others may fear for much more. In this article, Representative Eric Swalwell stated that “his Republican colleagues were “terrified” of crossing Trump not only because of the negative impact on their political careers, but also from anxiety that it might provoke physical threats that could cause personal upheaval and require them to hire round-the-clock security as protection.” Swalwell himself, who incurred Trump’s wrath as a member of the January 6^th committee, has spent more than one million dollars in security over the past two years after being spotlighted and maligned by Trump and others on social media. 

The Republicans seem willing to stand and watch the demise of our democracy for the sake of saving their jobs—jobs which could very well not exist anymore if Trump gets his way. And because their leader embraces bullying tactics, threats, and thuggery, they also fear for their families. While this fear is understandable and very well-founded, the national crisis, this Constitutional crisis we are facing is bigger than that. 

These Republicans swore an oath to uphold and defend our Constitution; instead, they watch as President Trump cozies up to a Russian enemy, tears apart our governmental apparatus, and puts all Americans at risk. It is a stark choice the Republicans to make. Self or country. Like all the men and women who fought and died for freedom, they must make that sacrifice. It’s what they signed up for.

Otherwise, if they just stand around  and watch the death of a nation, once the greatest nation in the world, they are nothing more the feckless cowards, naked opportunists, and outright hypocrites we thought they were.

Notes

1. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24645956/disturbing-moment-crowd-watched-man-drowning/
2. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/us/florida-teens-no-charges-drowning-man/index.html
3. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/us/trump-administration-lawsuits.html#
4. https://nlihc.org/resource/trump-administration-rescinds-memo-calling-freeze-federal-funding-0
5. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-u-s-lawmakers-are-saying-about-trump-and-zelenskyys-clash-at-the-white-house
6. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-u-s-lawmakers-are-saying-about-trump-and-zelenskyys-clash-at-the-white-house