Freed From Trump's Yoke

: Jamie Stiehm on Jan 14, 2026

President Donald Trump, with his brash, blaring mouth and devouring huge McDonalds lunches, is the ugly American -- the ugliest ever.

He's hurt the country in countless ways. Recently, the murder of Minnesota mother Renee Good, 37, shot in the face by a federal agent armed for war, awakened the national mood to anger across party lines.

We Washingtonians have borne the brunt of his swath of destruction. One year out, we're like a closed factory town that lost its lifeblood, much of the federal workforce.

The week of Jan. 6, I could not stay another day in Trump's Washington, after the solemn anniversary of his mob attack on Congress in the Capitol. Trapped inside the House chamber then, I wished to forget.

So I took the first train headed north. Washington is south of the Mason-Dixon line. Enslaved people walked the streets and worked on many marble buildings in the early republic -- like the Capitol and the White House.

Maryland was also slave country, as runaways Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman would tell you.

So Philadelphia loomed large as the place to be free. William Penn's City of Brotherly Love -- and Sisterly Affection -- was the center of the antislavery movement.

This may seem farfetched for a white woman in 2026, but I had to cross the Susquehanna River, the Mason-Dixon border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and disembark in Philadelphia.

There I swear I could breathe free air, walking in picturesque Rittenhouse Square, designed by Penn. He founded the Quaker city for all the right reasons, such as liberty of conscience. Brilliant, charming and handsome, Penn is the founding father we often overlook.

Starting out the new year, while Congress wept over memory of its citadel's violent siege, Trump had other plans. In the foreign policy equivalent of his brazen scheme to overturn the 2020 election, Trump invaded Venezuela. Its president, Nicolas Maduro, was seized as he slept in an overnight operation.

The president didn't ask or tell anybody outside a circle of aides. He just did it. He violated international law the same way he demolished the White House East Wing: Don't ask, don't tell.

Then there was the Jan. 9 interview in The New York Times. Trump shamelessly proclaimed he had no limits except "my own morality. My own mind." That's not a king, that's a Roman emperor talking.

Campaigning, he declared how he defined the presidency: "doing whatever I want." So we should not be surprised by anything Trump does.

We can't say Trump didn't warn us. What will be his next military adventure? Cuba, Iran, perhaps Greenland?

A signature trait to note about Trump is that he never jokes. He "joked" about taking over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a threat that soon turned out to be all too true.

Trump emblazoned his own name next to Kennedy's, though he never darkened its doors before to go to the opera, symphony or ballet. This ugliest American has zero curiosity about culture and the arts.

The Kennedy Center is losing audiences. The Washington National Opera is packing up to leave. That's a blow to the city's vibrant heartbeat. So is the fact that scores of retail stores and cafes have closed. National Guard soldiers are stationed in our Metro stations. Trump is taking an axe to the Smithsonian American history collection.

To make matters worse, Trump never misses a chance to bad-mouth our own beautiful capital to the rest of America.

In general, Washingtonians love the grace of our memorials shining by the river. We dread the "Arc de Trump," a triumphal arch he plans to build on the bridge between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

We also like presidential propriety without profanity. We like to be liked by Western allies. We like an independent Fed.

Never before have we seen a Big Mac-eating ogre in the Oval who openly breaks every rule in the book. Inciting Jan. 6 violence emboldened Trump to believe he can get away with anything in his ruthless, relentless, soul-destroying presidency.

All this oppresses one's spirit. That day in Philadelphia, 140 miles north, I felt freed from Trump's yoke.

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The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

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