If it was really about safety…

I am writing this one day after someone with hate in their heart and a gun in their hands killed two children at prayer on their first day of school. A desecration of the spaces that should provide safety and sanctuary: a place of learning and a house of worship. But what is the Trump administration speaking of this week? It’s not about controlling guns.

It’s about controlling train stations.

The last time I checked DC’s Union Station and Boston’s South Station are not killing upwards of 45,000 people a year. But guns sure are.

It breaks my heart that the families mourning losses and sitting by bedsides of critically injured children are not hearing their country’s leaders say anything remotely meaningful about the gun violence that has devastated their lives. Instead there is just more blither and bluster about crime, National Guard personnel picking up trash in DC neighborhoods, and millions of dollars wasted on a soon to be empty concentration camp in the swamps of Florida.

While the Trump administration has had nothing to offer to the Minneapolis community but so-called prayers, they had lots of actions to propose on trains. On Wednesday evening, just hours after the shooting, Deputy Director of Transportation Steven Bradbury has this to say: “Here in South Boston, we need to address the cleanliness, the crime, the safety, and security of the station for the rail workers, for the passengers, because the people of Boston deserve that”. Infuriating. What we need to address is the safety and security of our schools and communities, because our children deserve that. But that’s assuredly not what we heard from our supposed leaders. Nothing like it.

The constant question to ask with this administration is whether the action they’re taking actually works to keep people safe. The answer will always be no. I can’t imagine a scenario where it wouldn’t be no. Because for them it’s never about safety and always about power and control.

But we have to keep asking the question and keep centering safety. We have to keep calling this out — loudly, clearly, and constantly.

Trump hollers about crime while he yanks funding from the very programs and services that keep people safe. He lies about gun violence in “blue cities” after dismantling the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention on his very first day in office. He rails against unhoused people while proposing an FY2026 budget that calls for $532 million in cuts to the federal government’s Homeless Assistance Grants account. He touts Make America Healthy Again after signing a bill that cuts over $1 trillion in funding for safety net programs, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — literally taking food and healthcare away from those in greatest need. He claims to care about sexual assault when the perpetrator is an immigrant and then guts the Division of Violence Prevention in Health and Human Services on the very first day of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

And his administration spends the hours after elementary students are shot and killed threatening to take over train stations in the name of safety.

We know what keeps people safe. And we know that Trump is doing the exact opposite — all while co-opting the language of safety. We should not stand for it.

I could go on and on with a list of examples longer than a CVS receipt, but I will not. Instead I will get to how I like to end all of my essays — with a call to action. But the action is not for those kind enough to be reading my words right now. It’s for any politician looking for my vote in 2026 and beyond.

I need you — the country needs you — to OWN the language of safety. To own it by clearly communicating what you will do to build it. I need to hear from you what policies you will pass, what practices you will employ, and what people you will elevate into positions of power. Power that will be used to help people and provide them with the resources they need to be safe and well. I want you to call out the profound harm of this administration without equivocation. Sound the damn alarm and then tell us how you will extinguish the dumpster fire of this regime with a flood of actions that will make lives better and communities stronger. Tell us about the world you want to build for us and our children. Speak to what it looks like to send a child to school without fear, to the playground without worry. Explain your vision of safety and security.

And when tragedy strikes, offer a real solution that actually tackles the root causes.

We had a mass shooting yesterday. And we have a president who cares more about protecting flags than our children. Who wants to take on Amtrak instead of take on the gun industry. Who talks about safety while acting with violence. We need to speak to that. And we need to remember what safety actually looks like.