Dear fellow Wisconsin Democrats,

It has been a month.

Wait, no. 

It’s been less than five days. We’re on Day Five of the new Trump presidency.

And so far, Trump’s done everything *except* making life better for working people. And the contrast between his attacks and what we stand for as Democrats has never been more vivid than the split-screen view of Trump’s viciousness unfolding in the same week as Governor Evers’s spectacular State of the State message. 

We knew this moment was coming, and now it’s here. It’s time to fight. We fight by showing who the GOP is for—and who we’re for. 

Trump started Day One by issuing 26 executive orders, the most signed by any U.S. president on Inauguration Day, and many designed to simply undo President Biden’s accomplishments.

He wasted no time in wiping away the progress we’ve made on addressing climate change. 

Key environmental regulations are already being rolled back while Trump clears the decks for more oil and gas drilling.

Then there’s been a flood of actions aimed at the trans community and immigrants, among them ending birthright citizenship, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Under the guise of attacking DEI, he’s repealing anti-discrimination rules first put in place in the Civil Rights era.

As Adam Serwer once wrote: the cruelty is the point. These measures won’t create more jobs, or lower prices, or make the lives of working people better. They’re intended to hurt people. 

It shouldn’t surprise us that the Proud Boys were out in the streets in DC on Monday. With Trump’s pardons of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who committed crimes in our Capitol, they had a lot to celebrate.

It’s all the more devastating that it happened on a day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his life of selfless service, and his consistent commitment to justice and equality—a legacy anathema to everything Donald Trump represents.

Trump’s parade of horrors continued all week, including withdrawing from the World Health Organization, and taking the guardrails off artificial intelligence, making Americans less safe.

And let’s not forget Trump’s hints of retribution at his perceived enemies, including suggesting he’d have President Biden investigated, and possibly withholding aid to California after the devastating wildfires.

Trump’s second term is already an even-worse rerun of his first term. Division, extremism, and distractions—all in the hopes that it’ll obscure his twisted agenda to let the far-right ultra-rich run off with gigantic tax cuts. When it comes to bilking working people to enrich oligarchs, Trump is at it already: he repealed a Biden-Harris executive order that aimed to push down the the cost of prescription drugs. 

Trump making higher prices for medicine a day-one priority illustrates the con at the heart of Trumpism. As we fight for all of our communities, we have to make sure the country sees the core of what the GOP is aiming to do—rig the country for far-right billionaires, at the expense of everyone else.

We saw this in his first term. Trump passed just *one* major bill in his first presidency. A giant tax scam, shoveling trillions of dollars to billionaires and huge corporations. He talks about a lot of things. But his top priority is always ripping off people like you, reading this right now, to enrich himself and his friends.

We Democrats have a different priority: making life better for everyone. 

On Wednesday, Governor Evers made this crystal clear. He spoke about things voters care about: mental health services, lower prescription drug and child care costs, public education investments, free school breakfast and lunch, addressing gun violence, lifting up the health and wellbeing of our children. The Year of the Kid. 

Hear it all here. If you’ve been doom-scrolling Trump news, hearing from Governor Evers will be a breath of fresh air. 

Governor Evers is demonstrating that we can, at the same time, fight for a better life and seek to contain Trump’s damage.

Wisconsin is on the forefront of fighting Trump’s destructive policies. Thanks to Gov. Evers and AG Josh Kaul, we are one of 22 states trying to stop Trump’s unconstitutional plan to end birthright citizenship.

And now, amidst all that, we’re gearing up for the next big fight. The most important election in the country this spring. 

Our Supreme Court race, in just 67 days, will determine the future of freedom in the Badger State. 

Watching Trump wreak havoc on our country can be exhausting. But fighting for what’s right is a source of renewable political energy. Organizing to ensure that Judge Susan Crawford beats extremist politician Brad Schimel isn’t just an urgent necessity. It’s also a way that we’ll remind ourselves that we still have hope, that we still have strength, and that we still have ways to, all together, change the world.

In this new Trump era, as in life, the days will take forever, but the years will fly by. Let’s use them in ways we’ll always be proud of. Let’s dig deep and find that wellspring of hope. And then, as we have so many times before, let’s turn that hope into action and blaze a trail to a future in which all of us can thrive. 

In solidarity,

Ben Wikler