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Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
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# Known Unknowns
September 22 2025
Written by David M. Hamlin.
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AN AUTHOR'S VIEW -
*“. . .there are known knowns. . .things we know we know. . .There are also known unknowns. . .we know some things we do not know. . .there are unknown unknowns – the ones we know we don’t know.” – Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld*
Thus far in the second Trump administration, there’s so much we know that it is more than just overwhelming. It’s a tornado of known facts.
We know that the President has and continues to use the power of his office to trample the First Amendment. He has routinely sued news operations (ABC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, to name a few of many). His litigious approach has netted him some sizable settlement payments, but it has also served to deliberately intimidate any and all in media who dare to challenge or question him.
We know that a parallel approach has befallen dozens of independent institutions including law firms, colleges, universities, corporations, and our healthcare bureaucracy. By threatening or penalizing these heretofore stable entities, he has done significant damage to legal rights, educational strength, basic wellness procedures and – just for good measure – the recipe for Coca Cola.
We know that the administration has used a crowbar to thrash due process of law. Trump minions have been slow to obey court orders when they bother to obey them at all. ICE agents have disrupted businesses, schools, churches, and court rooms in a zealous campaign to deport just about everyone: people of color, those who speak a foreign language, judges and lawyers, properly employed workers and, on occasion, certified American citizens have all fallen victim to incarceration and potential deportation. In most of these cases, legitimate evidence of civil or criminal wrongdoing, duly sworn indictments, or valid search warrants have been notable only for their absence.
We also know that a host of seasoned politicians – many with otherwise impressive credentials – have either endorsed or stood silent through one unconstitutional initiative after another. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, the current Vice-President and a host of senior officials from Trump’s first term have all expressed sincere and legitimate concerns about the wit and wisdom of the President’s philosophy.
All of this and more spawns a series of unknown unknowns:
Why have not the majority of college and university leaders stood as one to denounce the damage done to campuses in every corner of the nation?
Why have executives in every nook and cranny of journalism not joined the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal in standing up to the unprecedented destruction of a truly free press?
Why have elected officials in both the House and Senate not joined forces to demand an end to dangerous and remarkably ill-conceived efforts to generate epidemics of measles and polio amid growing evidence of influenza outbreaks?
Why have the vast majority of citizens failed to rise up to loudly and persistently protest policies and programs which, in poll after poll after poll, they find to be thoroughly unacceptable.
In the end, the ultimate unknown unknown is, what will it take to put an end to the President’s ever-expanding destruction of democracy itself? Will we, at last, move from silent complicity to a rock solid and overwhelming agreement that that all this must stop?
We have more than enough evidence to know that the future of our democracy and the rule of law can no longer remain an unknown unknown.
*(David M. Hamlin is a writer whose commentaries appear regularly on CitywatchLA. Reach him at [www.dmhwrites.com](https://www.dmhwrites.com).)*
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