" Strongly Worded Letters"
What are you prepared to do?
It’s Saturday, February 7th, 2026. It’s cold outside, and my legs and feet are sore from a long day’s work. My marital status is on the rocks, and the sound of my daughter singing in the next room—though full of life—is absolutely terrible. In November, I caught the flu and was hospitalized for three days. Just a month before that, back home in Chicago, I had pneumonia and spent five days in the hospital. The only reason I was even there was to help take care of my mom while she was ill. I haven’t been to church in months, my prayer life has dwindled, and my Bible is collecting dust.
Through all of that turmoil—the sickness, the strain in my marriage, the exhaustion, and the quiet distance I’ve felt from my faith—two things have been constantly playing in my head, or rather, two phrases. The first came in April 2025, when New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer spoke about sending the Trump administration “a very strong letter.” The other phrase, which stands in sharp contrast to the first, comes from one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies—but we’ll get to that a little later.
The reason those words—“a very strong letter”—have been ringing in my head for almost a year now is because, to me, they show just how out of touch many of our elected leaders are, with quite a few of them, frankly, overstaying their welcome. This administration has set fire to the barn, and some of the very people we chose to fight those fires are asleep at the wheel of the fire truck. Others seem wide awake back at the station, watching The Andy Griffith Show, under the illusion that we’re still living in those so-called “good and wholesome days.”
It is a sorrowful thing to witness, day after day. Bringing pepper spray to a gunfight has never won a battle, and it never will. I watch as a handful of Democrats—and even fewer Republicans—make faint attempts to push back, but it reminds me of a line from one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite films.
Each time I hear our leaders in Congress, or anywhere else, deliver their pale, cautious speeches about resistance, my mind drifts to those unforgettable words spoken by Sean Connery to Kevin Costner in The Untouchables. They echo there, lingering, like a truth too heavy to ignore.
And those words were, “What are you prepared to do?” The film tells the story of the infamous Chicago police squad, the Untouchables, led by Detective Eliot Ness, who dared to take down the world’s most notorious gangster, Alphonse “Scarface” Capone. In one powerful scene, Ness (Kevin Costner) sits in a church, trying to recruit Jim Malone (Sean Connery), a retired but highly respected Chicago police officer.
After Malone asks Ness about his plan to bring down Capone, he quickly realizes—much like I have with our elected officials—that Ness is milquetoast and unprepared for the fight he claims to want. So when Ness explains what he’s willing to do within the law, Malone presses him again, repeating the question: “Then what are you prepared to do?”
Malone was trying to make Ness understand that desperate times demand decisive action. As he put it: “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. If he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue—that’s the Chicago way.”
To me, it’s a proverbial example of how our elected leaders—especially in D.C.—must be willing to confront this administration and its cohorts with real resolve. And if they’re not prepared to do what the moment demands, then they should step aside and make room for those who are.