On our first tour around Yekaterinburg, Russia, with our Fulbright partner, Natasha, we observed some apparently private individuals cutting down trees in the public semi-circle created by the entrance ramp onto a highway. This was in 2002, barely two years into Vladimir Putin’s regime as president. I asked: “Is it legal to cut down trees on public property?” Natasha thought carefully about the question and finally answered, “If you do it very quickly.” This seems to be the approach President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are taking to the rights of Americans. They are quickly trampling on the rights of refugees, immigrants, federal employees and recipients of federal grants in their haste to re-write the U.S. constitution. Clearly, they believe “if you do it quickly, you will get away with it.” Republicans in Congress are cheering them on while Democratic leaders shrug their shoulders and complain that they have no power. Only the courts and grass-roots citizens’ groups seem to be trying to slow the demise of the rule of law in America. Let’s hope we don’t follow the path Putin’s Russia took to dictatorship.

Peter Toumanoff

Hancock