TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – As pundits argue themselves breathless over the legality and wisdom of President Donald Trump’s authorization of U.S. military strikes on Venezuelan drug-running vessels, a clear majority of Americans appear far less conflicted about the situation.
According to the December Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, 67% of voters support destroying drug boats bringing drugs into the United States from South America – including 49% of Democrats. And 63% say the vessels “loaded with drugs” are “appropriately targeted for destruction.”
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But for one Traverse City family, this isn’t an abstract debate about policy, sovereignty, or about the hypocrisy of Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer who voted for maritime interdictions before he decided to be against them under the Trump administration. For Sue Summers, it’s painfully simple. After losing her son to fentanyl, Summers watches the Trump administration’s drug- boat strikes with something Washington rarely hears: approval.
A war on drugs vs. war on Trump.
Her first reaction? “Finally, somebody’s paying attention,” Sue Summers told Michigan News Source in an interview where she talked about the loss of her 34-year-old son, Mike – one of her three boys – to fentanyl in 2023. Mike grew up with his mom, dad Rick, and two brothers, Rob and Dan, and his death left the entire family devastated. Asked about the Trump administration’s strikes on drug- running boats, Sue said she also has “zero sympathy” for the drug runners getting the double-tap, adding that too many Americans are dying every day.
The double-tap Summers referred to is a military-style tactic in which a target is struck once, then struck again to ensure it’s fully destroyed and cannot continue its mission. In the context of the Trump administration’s maritime operations, it means hitting a drug-running vessel a second time to guarantee it sinks and the narcotics never reach U.S. shores. It’s something that many in the Democratic Party, and also some Republicans, and so-called international law “experts” have been calling a war crime.
“Going after the head of the snake? I applaud it,” Summers said of the Trump administration’s strikes on narco-trafficking boats. “Somebody’s finally stepping up to defend us so other families don’t have to go through this Hell.”
A mother’s loss and a country’s reality.
Summers’ son Mike was just 14 when addiction first entered his life. By the time he died in 2023, fentanyl had flooded northern Michigan so thoroughly that Summers says eight local young people in their community died in a single month.
Because so many people die of drug overdoses every single day in America, Summers isn’t concerned about drug runners getting blown up, saying, “I’m not upset about that at all.”
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Summers says many people fail to grasp the true scale of the drug crisis because they haven’t lived through it themselves. Losing Mike exposed her to what she describes as a hidden community of “angel moms” living quietly in plain sight. As she put it, “It opened up this whole other awful world of how many angel moms like me are in this town.”
Education over bureaucracy — and a broken local system.
Unlike politicians shouting on cable news, Summers isn’t pushing for billion-dollar programs or Washington think-tank solutions. “I don’t trust many of them,” she said bluntly, talking about politicians and the government. “My push is to educate people,” she said. “People need to talk about it and take the stigma away from it. Talk to their kids.”
Summers speaks in middle schools, records public-service announcements, and shares her family’s story wherever she can. And although she wholeheartedly supports the police department, she also believes northern lower Michigan law enforcement is outmatched, with Traverse City officers juggling a dozen or more cases at once and courts handing out light sentences.
The son behind the statistics.
Mike Summers wasn’t just a headline or a statistic. He was a real person with real dreams and a real family that is left in mourning. His nickname was “the smiley guy.” Hundreds attended his celebration of life. Friends and acquaintances still reach out to tell his family how he saved them, protected them, or stood up for them.
“He was a friend to everybody he met,” Summers said. “He saved a lot of lives.”
A Final word from a mom who’s seen too much.
While critics accuse Trump of escalating the “war on drugs” into a geopolitical stunt, Summers rejects the noise. She said, “It just blows my mind when everybody’s like, ‘oh, how can you do that to those people? Those fisherman’…Well, you know what, you didn’t say that last goodbye to your kid.”
For Summers, the debate isn’t about politics or debating if drug runners deserve the harshest of penalties. It’s about accountability – and about stopping the next knock on another family’s door. Across Michigan and the country, countless angel moms, dads, siblings, and grandparents share that reality. Their stories rarely make headlines, but they are living proof of what happens when the drug trade is allowed to keep moving uninterrupted.
