The State of Our Union

Where are we at?

I have been keeping tabs on the actions of the current administration. All of the good, the bad, and the ugly. To the astonishment of nobody who knows me, I am not pleased. 

During the election season Donald Trump said explicitly that he has no desire to enact the Project 2025 agenda made by the Heritage Foundation. However, some very helpful people at Project 2025 Tracker lay out exactly how the President lied about his non-affiliation with the conservative wish list. The Project is only 48% completed according to the website, and I will fully admit that there is no way that some of the points laid out on the policy list may be completed, but with 48% being accomplished within the first 7 months of this term is progress I did not expect. There is no intention to slow down either it seems. The latest update came on July 27th with a move to allow federal employees to evangelize their beliefs in the workplace. To me, this is not the worst thing in the world because it technically would allow anyone to do the same regardless of their faith, but I cannot imagine that if someone of a minority faith started to express their beliefs that their colleagues will take it in stride if they are of similar convictions as our Secretary of Defense. 

The Project 2025 task prior to that however does raise concern and is a tell of how this administration sees reality. According to the NY Times, the administration is changing the Title X policies, founded by President Nixon, from aiding women access to contraceptives to aiding women’s fertility. It sounds nice on the surface, but Title X programs have historically helped women who have been victims of sexual crimes or discriminated against because of being victims of sexual crimes. Reprioritizing Title X grants and policies away from victim aid only makes women’s situations worse off in this country, while covering it up in the MAHA and religiously affirming language. 

Some more of these completed policies include:

• Gutting USAID staff and objectives

• Prioritize USAID’s left over funding to faith-based organizations

• Withdraw from the UN’s Human Rights Council

• Firing science staff researching climate change

• Reverse prohibitions on healthcare discrimination based on gender identity.

Now reader, you might celebrate those changes and have now looked around the Project 2025 Tracker website with glee as the administration has completed these objectives, but let me ask you: to what end? 

Without citing Project 2025 I can also remind you that the Epstein Files are still unreleased, and that congressional Republicans have tabled the discussion on the release of those files that the administration has promised since day 1 of their campaigns. The linked Hill article raises a very good point, that when the House reconvenes the topic of a government budget comes up, which historically takes over headlines for weeks in the fall. This gives the presidential administration perfect cover to avoid talking about how the President that the people have elected is the very monster they accuse the deep state of being, as evidenced by the FBI needing to remove Trump’s name from the Epstein files. 

This man is willing to lie to the American people about his involvement, complicity and enabling of the largest child trafficking and sexual victimization of children in the hands of some of the most powerful people in the world, to include the Clintons, Prince Andrew, countless CEOs and major business tycoons and politicians. This man is also willing to enact a regressive agenda that guts cancer research for kids, privatization of public lands, the gutting of civil services necessary to a functioning government, the ideological purge of civil servants and justices, let autism research sink under because of a conspiracy theory, firing civil servants for simply doing their job, and so much more. How in the end, can a citizen that is fueled by genuine concern for their fellow countryman and their nation itself be on the side of this man?

Readers, I am hardly advocating for a specific point of view in this post but simply showing you what the current administration has been doing. I will let your conscience decide from here on what to do.