I'm from the Divided States of Trump

Where cruelty is rewarded and silence is applauded.

I’ve watched decency be laughed out of the room. And I’m still standing here, hoping we’re not too late to stop it.

And I know I’m not the only one feeling it. The heaviness. The frustration. That familiar burn of disappointment sitting right under the surface while everything around us keeps breaking.

Because today… well, today was another one of those days.

Trump stood at a White House Faith Office luncheon and made a joke about bombing a retirement home. And they laughed. The whole room of people who claim to be led by faith laughed. And he smiled. He smiled like he’d done something clever.

That’s who we are now. A country where cruelty is a punchline and heartlessness is rewarded with applause. I keep thinking about how dangerous it is that we barely blink anymore.

And while the cameras roll and the crowds cheer, the rest of the country is crumbling in slow motion.

Youth programs are days away from shutting down because Trump froze over $6 billion in federal funding. Places like Boys & Girls Clubs that feed kids, give them shelter after school, and offer stability, just gone. And it doesn’t feel like anyone in power is moving fast enough to stop it.

The Democratic Party? Polling at 29% favorability. That’s not a blip. That’s a collapse. And I don’t say that with judgment. I say it with sorrow. Because when one side is trying to take our rights away and the other side is whispering about strategy… we’re left to figure it out on our own.

We need a leader. A real one. Someone who will stand at the microphone and say, "Here is the line. And I’m not backing down."

I’m watching Gavin Newsom step into that space. Not because he’s perfect. But because he’s showing up. Trump has slowed his attack on him because he doesn’t know how to respond to someone who speaks his language and uses it against him.

That tells me something.

And then today, just as I thought we’d seen enough, the Supreme Court dropped another blow.

They cleared the way for Trump to lay off 1,400 employees from the Department of Education. Half the agency. Gone.

This isn’t policy. This is a purge.

This is how you dismantle the systems that protect the most vulnerable kids in America:

Children with disabilities.
Students who survive assault.
First-gen students fighting for a shot.
Poor and rural communities. Tribal schools. Black and brown students.

Justice Sotomayor called it "indefensible."
And she’s right.

This isn’t about small government. It’s about no government. No enforcement. No guardrails. Just power. Just control. Just propaganda slipping in where truth used to live.

And they’re doing it out in the open.

Trump promised to destroy the Department of Education. Today’s ruling lets him.

I know a lot of people are going to look away. It’s easier. The news is overwhelming. The lies come faster than we can keep up with.

But we cannot let this become normal.

Because this is not normal.
This is not stable.
This is not freedom.

They are not protecting children. They are hurting them. Cutting their healthcare. Erasing their schools. Laughing about bombing the elderly. Laying off the people who stand up for the little guy.

And I know you feel it too. The anger. The disbelief. That urge to scream, "Why isn’t anyone stopping this?"

We have to be the ones. Even if it’s hard. Even if it’s exhausting. Even if it feels like no one’s listening.

We show up anyway. We speak out anyway.

Because silence is exactly what they’re counting on.

And I refuse to give it to them.

And since we’re being honest, I’m still stuck on what it says about this country, that a man can say something that unhinged and have a room full of people laugh instead of walk out. That he can hurt people over and over again and never lose the loyalty of his base. That he can actively make life worse for children, seniors, the poor, the disabled, and still be welcomed by entire institutions as if his actions aren’t the very definition of evil.

I think about the women in MAGA the most. How many of them were raised by fathers who didn’t see them. How many learned to equate male approval with worth. Trump calls them beautiful and they melt. He says they matter and they believe it. Even though he wouldn’t shake their hand at a diner or want to be near them for even a second. Even though he calls them uneducated and they still are desperate for his approval. He knows what hole he’s filling. And they can’t let go.

And that’s the thing about all of this. It’s not random. It’s not chaos. It’s strategic.

Destroy the Department of Education? Then kids don’t learn how to question authority and recognize fascism..
Cut funding for after-school programs? Then struggling parents fall further behind.
Pull back on Medicaid and hospitals close? Then people lose trust in government entirely.

It’s all connected. It’s all working toward the same goal: total disillusionment. So that people give up, check out, and let those in power stay there without challenge.

And I know it gets discouraging. I know what it feels like to call your representatives over and over and see nothing change. It starts to feel like shouting into a void. But maybe, just maybe, those calls helped things from getting worse. Maybe the damage would be even deeper if we hadn’t kept showing up. Maybe we did help, just not in the ways we can always measure.

What we are doing might not change minds.
We are staying in the fight to keep us grounded. To remind us what’s real. To stay on the right path. The right side of history.

I’m not giving up.

And I don’t think you are either.

I think you’re tired, and I think you’re mad as hell.

And I think you care.

We might be living in the Divided States of Trump, where cruelty is a rallying cry, and silence is rewarded with power, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stay divided. It doesn’t mean we accept it. It doesn’t mean we give in.

We may be from the Divided States of Trump, but we fight with all we've got for the United States of Decency. And we know that a country this divided leaves no winners. Everyone loses, our kids, our future, our sense of what’s right. If we don’t find a way back to each other, if we don’t rebuild on truth, justice, and empathy, there will be nothing left worth winning.

So please. Speak up. Write something. Call someone. Support the groups fighting this in court. Protect the people who are being pushed to the margins. Help someone feel less alone in this.

Because there are more of us than there are of them.

We just need to keep getting louder.

I'll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. Special thanks to Gary S. on Facebook for sharing that he calls the US “The Divided States of Trump. I couldn’t stop thinking about how true this was, so I wrote about it.

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