Trump reign defines ‘greatness’ by gutting programs that protect, celebrate our most vulnerable

You can tell a lot about a country’s priorities based upon what they do to protect the weak, the defenseless, the ones in need. With each stroke of his pen, President Donald J. Trump continues to set the country back decades, with minorities and the country’s most vulnerable feeling the brunt of his actions. Through early executive orders and hateful speech, Trump seemingly seeks to eliminate rights and freedoms of those who only recently gained them. The ideas, nominations, and blanket budget cuts spawned by Trump and his tech crony and burgeoning oligarch Elon Musk leave our country on the brink of totalitarian collapse. “Make America Great Again,” also known as “MAGA,” seeks to end contributions from immigration to diversity, because Trump deems them negative influences to the country. While his actions appeal to his (mainly white) supporters, these early actions foreshadow plans to allow the higher conservative class to prosper, while groups such as women, immigrants, people of color, and those in the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans persons, are pushed toward assimilation in accordance with MAGA values. Ask Palestinian voters how they are feeling after choosing to campaign for Trump only to learn he would love to develop Gaza into a resort in the Middle East to line the coffers of American business. 

Trump managed to attack the rights of women by stocking the Supreme Court in his first term to effectively end Roe v. Wade, establishing powers that continue to limit access to women’s healthcare. These actions create a lack of autonomy, and send the country’s women back in time. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “Trump will attempt to eliminate medication abortion by ordering the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to rescind approval of one of the drugs, mifepristone, used for such care.” Mifepristone, an oral drug used to end intrauterine pregnancy through 10 weeks, is one of the only options for some people since many states have completely banned surgical abortions. Not everyone is able to travel so far for the health care they need, and if they can’t even access other forms of abortions they are left without any other options. This is unethical for both women and children, and completely disregards the well-being of the woman.Under such laws, it doesn’t matter if the woman herself is still a child, or her pregnancy is the result of a sexual assault. Fetuses who are not yet conscious are valued over the lives and well-being of those who are.

Trump’s oppressive actions don’t just stop at women, as he has heavily targeted immigration in the first weeks of his presidency through unreasonable and harmful acts. He threatens mass deportations, leaving  uncertainty for the futures and lives of thousands of innocent people. While some people who illegally immigrate may be criminals, they are far outnumbered by those who are only here for new opportunities for their families and truly want to be a part of the country’s success. According to The Federal Register of the National Archives, Trump has stated, “one of my most important obligations is to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement.” He continued to say, “it is the policy of the United States to take all appropriate action to secure the borders of our Nation through the following means: removing promptly all aliens who enter or remain in violation of Federal law.” However, ‘mass’ deportation contradicts the very idea of investigating who is actually in violation of the law. Trump conceals the unjust nature of his actions with the threat of dangerous immigrants, which is only a fraction of the population he derides. These immigrants are not all the evil beings he tries to depict them as, and they are just as deserving of rights as anyone, especially because they work equally as hard, if not harder to gain them. They are working American jobs for the good of the nation with less pay than those born on US soil; without them, the economy will suffer from a loss of employees and jobs too. The few illegal immigrants who have committed crimes should be deported and punished accordingly. However, that does not justify deporting every illegal immigrant, especially when such a harsh crack-down means mistakenly detaining American-born citizens simply because they’re speaking Spanish, as happened recently in Milwaukee. In much the same way as Musk’s, er Trump’s, blanket cuts to foreign aid does nothing to investigate fraud, neither does the idea of a ‘one size fits all’ immigration policy.

The president’s MAGA extremism extends to schools as well, especially when it comes to transgender students and the teachers and staff who support them. He believes that schools are where “radical indoctrination” takes place and wants to prevent students from socially transitioning within the education system. To do this, he intends to create a new order enabling and encouraging the misgendering of transgender students. According to PBS News, “the order would block schools from requiring teachers and other school staff to use names and pronouns that align with transgender students’ gender identity rather than the sex they were assigned at birth.” School should be a safe space for students to learn and interact with others. With implementation of this order, transgender students will lose this sense of safety. There is no silver lining for this order either, as disrespecting pronouns can only make situations harmful and uncomfortable. Anti-Transgender laws have been shown to cause up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender youth, according to the Trevor Project. Clearly, those making and supporting these decisions don’t care about the comfort of others, only themselves and the proliferation of their views.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts are another area Trump has heavily targeted, even on online platforms. February is Black History Month, honoring the accomplishments and struggles of a historically oppressed and marginalized  people in American society. However, Trump has taken steps to erase their significance by censoring and removing posts which comment on the topic. MSNBC News states that “posts related to such initiatives have been removed from several government websites…Federal agency webpages that previously led to posts on diversity and accessibility resources now display a ‘Page Not Found — 404’ error message. Agencies have been ordered to place DEI staff on paid leave.” It is clear that Trump does not prioritize the history and acknowledgement of minorities within the country. He does not care for the issue, and doesn’t want anyone else to either as efforts to promote equity fall under the administration’s definition of ‘waste.’ He has crossed the line in restricting  information and dismissing staff who promote diversity and work towards equality. Catering to just one group--in this case, wealthy, white, cisgender males--can not allow for major growth in society.

There are too many incidents of alarming and dangerous decisions spewing out of Washington DC to fit into a short column, dangers that have gone unchecked by a Congress filled with cowards unwilling to put the needs of democracy above servile devotion to an autocrat. This country, which is said to be the “land of the free,”stands on the precipice of catastrophe after just weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency. His clear demonstration of what he believes to be “great” tears at the very fabric of America in the name of his hubristic and unfit profits.

by Samreen Chahal

Published on February 24 2024

Oshkosh West Index Volume 121 Issue V