One of the constants of Trumpism has been its war on women. Trump himself sees women only as sexual objects; the Christian Nationalists who support him see us as “feeders and breeders”– designed by God to submit to men and produce babies.
I was reminded of MAGA’s war on women when I read that Trump’s “big, beautiful budget” will defund Planned Parenthood, among other obscenities that will differentially hurt women.
During the first Trump administration, Trump blocked women’s access to health care through legislation, regulations, judicial appointments, and legal action, slashing funding for family planning, rolling back rules requiring employers to offer no-cost birth control coverage, and revoking multiple protections against sexual harassment, sexual assault and discrimination.
Trump II has been more of the same–and then some.
Trump has decimated boards that administer workplace anti-discrimination laws, rescinded prior Executive Orders against discrimination, reduced enforcement of the Pregnant Workers Act, and undercut civil rights and anti-discrimination laws across the government, with anti-DEI efforts front and center. The administration has cut funding for research on women’s health, erased vital information from federal websites, and eliminated the Gender Policy Council. It proposes huge cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other programs disproportionately depended upon by women and children. (There’s much more at the link.)
All of these measures are part of the Right’s hysterical resistance to culture change.
A significant minority of Americans feel existentially threatened by the progress of women and minorities. That progress challenges their worldviews, their beliefs about the “proper” order of the world. Trump was elected by those hysterical people. Even those who recognized his personal repulsiveness supported him because he promised to reverse what most of us consider social progress– to turn back the cultural changes that so frighten and infuriate them.
I wondered what research tells us about whether government can reverse cultural changes, so I looked into it.
Studies tell us that such efforts face significant structural, social, and generational resistance. It turns out that entrenched social changes are really difficult to reverse. Shifts of attitudes about race, gender roles, sexuality, and religion occured over generations, and as a result, contemporary perspectives on individual autonomy and diversity are unlikely to be reversed.
Unfortunately, the Christian nationalists miss the point of being a free moral agent. It doesn’t just apply to men, it applies to every living human. In other words, being allowed to make decisions on life, liberty, and love identifies the human conscience.
Along with that, compassion, empathy, Hope, and faith, education, and inherent god-given rights, human or civil, makes a well-rounded bastion of wisdom. Wisdom however, is only as useful as a person makes it.
We can see that the general disposition of people, is to ignore what is obvious and try to force a reality that does not exist. Willfully ignorant and righteously deluded, they plod along trampling on moral agency.
The freedom to choose one’s life path shows the nature of the person. This is something all of us have to prove, not just to ourselves, but to the higher powers that be. All of the chaff blowing in the wind, blinds the weak minded into believing in all of these alternate realities that really do not exist except in The mind of deluded archetypes. And that is sad!
There will be without a doubt, a violent whiplash. Governments of the world will not be the same, and, I would venture to say, religion is going to be on the outs. Not that it is wrong, but that it is corrupted by men who used it to subjugate others. Something it was never meant to do.
Gee, the Trump-ites want the U.S. to be like a Taliban-controlled idiocy. What a surprise. And the entire Republican party is in line with that. Sure we can do without 50.7% of the population not contributing anything but more mouths that our Taliban doesn’t want to feed. Brilliant.
We have to rid ourselves of this backwardness and scourge of male insecurity before it’s too late. Shit-scared males in power has ALWAYS conducted societies that allow them to, to destroy said society. We are seeing the most primitive aspects of testosterone poisoning writ large. J.D. Vance … Please.
We learn culture in our formative years. We arrive in the world with brains mostly devoid of knowledge and notice how people around us, the people most like us, behave. How do they respond to others, including us, day in and day out? As our brains continue to turn possibilities into memories and memories into behaviors, we become the people we are meant to be.
The golden rule was modeled around me: treat others as I would like to be treated, so I try to do the same as an adult. There were infinitely other possibilities, but those were the cards dealt to me.
Our government is now determined by those who were taught other possibilities, like taking from others whatever benefits you the most, no matter who they are. The biographies of the Ruling Triumvirate show that kind of behaviour around them in their formative years.
We are suffering now from the effects of their culture on our government, which is contrary to the design of our Constitution for government of, by, and for the people.
We screwed up at the polls and now have to live, at least for now, with the consequences of our voting error. We need to re-establish the Constitution as our guiding light to correct the dysfunction happening all around us.
It really is that simple to explain, and this complicated to organize.
The cultural changes that the Trump led Republicans are attempting to put into place will eventually be eroded away by liberty loving people gaining political power. However, what MAGA does not understand is that the divisions they created in our society grow deeper every day with every new executive order, and those divisions will never heal in the lifetimes of those of us who are witnessing this destruction of our government and what it once stood for.
Things are not just going to be OK if and when the liberals win control of the government. The way we see our fellow citizens now will stay with us for generations, just as the the Civil War painted our perceptions of each other for over a century. It’s enough to make you cry.
There needs to be a national strategy with Dems that is more than Bernie going around telling us what we already know. Where are other Dems at rallies with Bernie besides AOC.
Currently bingeing on Madame Secretary on Netflix (it is going away on May 14th) at my daughter’s suggestion, and am delighted by the masterful writing and acting, but mostly the message that women can – and usually are, I suspect – leaders who can exhibit compassion, sensibility, empathy, intelligence, etc., all of those characteristics so important to fulfilling duties at the highest level of governance (Madame Secretary refers to Secretary of State in this case), characteristics so egregiously missing from the current leadership in our country. The fact is that Hillary lost the election in 2016 but won the popular vote by quite a bit, and Kamala lost the popular vote in 2024 by only 1.5%, giving hope to the future election of a woman, finally, in our own country. There are plenty of examples, past and current, of female heads of state around the world setting the stage for just that.
the Iraq war is a reminder how we were agast of the arab world and how they treated women and minorities. now comes the maga bunch, to continue its same slavery.the world conveniently forgets how tough it was to have people free from totalitarianism by our own government and religious camps. media has been a failure on the 6 oclock end of the spectrum,and weve allowed murdoch like propaganda to rule the ignorant. Germany has started a investigation into AFD parties rightwing push and AFDs (magas) policy of returning Germany to another start of a nazi past. Their constitution forbids rightwing talk that is aimed at spinning the narritive of the past regime. somewhere we failed in this protection of our constitution and its guarentees. word salads and lawyers in congress have bore a finite membership to what i see as a private club for the rich and loud mouth goebbels. wheres the majority working class? none as i see it. propaganda rules over a honest forum. tariff fallout,, seems my employer read the writing on the walls. shes selling out and retiring. the profit margin and trumps crap has taken the last of the profits from owning a trucking small buisness. we were to start a new road construction season,in just days.we supplied via truck the hot oil to make asphault. all bids were secured by DOT bids and regs,and set with the companies who need this on time to operate the schedualed needs. she pulled out at the start of our season. she was cut throated and lost revenue to maintain her companys needs. one big paving operator who came to NoDak from Mn (CSI)under bidded every company in NoDak to tune of millions. decimated our own local paving companies. now the cost of parts and operation due trumps crap of new rules and supply i$$ues there was nothing left. we walk away from a great job and employer,we were the best of the best in this buisness.. but, we get to see the cut throaters being shut down due lack of supply from us,,, average ,$10K per hour lost when shut down and waiting for this oil. the other companies could never compete with us on,ontime deliveries. sweet justice..
With this hopeful thought comes a need for a Democratic Project 2027 and Project 2029, so that we have legislation and executive orders ready to go, enough to make MAGA heads twirl, but well thought out and executed by competent people.
Project 2027 needs legislation that highlights the economic message, since legislation will get vetoed.
Project 2029 should (1) fix the courts, (2) fix voting rights (including some statehoods), and (3) fix everything else, including explicit laws because we can no longer trust that only honorable people will get elected as President. We need explicit, narrow definitions of “national emergencies” and explicit laws protecting public information – I am thinking big fines; jail time; and declaring certain actions as specifically grounds for impeachment.
Meanwhile, never stop fighting; never stop organizing. Messaging begins NOW..
New rule for women: Have babies
Rationale: More children will be needed to care for mom and dad, because they won’t have Medicare or Medicaid. Nursing Homes will no longer exist. Social Security? Not a chance! Also without vaccines, we will need more children to have an adequate population of working men. Shouldn’t that be men and women? See New rule!
Thank you for your research and thoughts Sheila.
Thanks also to Pete’s offerings,
All very thought provoking.
Conservatives tend to be anxious people, to begin with, and the cultural changes of the last 50, or so, years have fueled that anxiety. But, it’s okay, you know, Big Daddy with the fake orange face/hair will fix it all, don’cha know?
We’re not going back and trump and Maga can’t make us. We’ve benefitted from free choice in democracy in US to make decent lives for ourselves and cannot accept an outside authority telling us how to live our private lives. We have the right to consider our health and means and what we are able to contribute to society.
It’s time for an equal rights amendment to codify our rights and free women to take agency over their lives. We want to keep the arch of social evolution going in a just direction. I want to continue to see my daughter and granddaughter thrive and have interesting and peaceful lives.
This isn’t about the your post today. I just discovered this other site — ATP (America The Possible) — and, as I know how much you deplore the woeful lack in the US of understanding about the basics of our government, I thought you might want to “push” the site if you think it does a good job. The sound bytes are so short even today’s young should be able to sit still long enough!
Best, L. Newton
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1355269568995456