After watching Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, it’s understandable if some of the things he said left a bad taste in your mouth. It was pretty odd, after all; from pushing misinformation (no, 38,000 Americans did not die building the Panama Canal. According to The Guardian, around 5,600 died, most of them being workers from the Caribbean) to his usual incessant yapping, everything felt a little…off.
One of the biggest stir-ups that Trump caused was when he announced that he was going to sign an executive order that there are only two genders (and then named two sexes instead). This is incorrect, according to biologists and psychologists all over the globe, but the fact that Trump did that isn’t the biggest issue at hand; this is just another push towards an all-out culture war to distract us common folk from seeing what really matters.
In 2024, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were around 653,104 counted homeless Americans. The same department adds that it would only take about $20 billion to actually solve homelessness, but where does that money go instead? Well, for one, $17.9 billion was shipped to Israel in 2024 (The Associated Press), $60 billion to Ukraine (USA Facts), and in 2023, our government spent $4.9 trillion on healthcare (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) – ironic, considering how terrible our healthcare is. Whatever happened to “America first”? Is that just a ploy for voter ethos?
There’s also the problem with the quality of American education, which ranks at number ten in America’s biggest perceived problems (Pew Research Center). Calls for the Department of Education’s demise started when Jimmy Carter was president in 1979. The DOE is in charge of federal funding for schools, as well as FAFSA (what we use for college funds), as well as funds for disabled students. Cutting the DOE would mean disaster for the hundreds of low-income schools that rely on federal funding; two thirds of American children cannot read fluently (Scientific American), and the government is worried that children are learning things that aren’t taught in schools anyway. We have more important things to worry about than ‘critical race theory’ and your feelings about it!
Another issue lies with our Congress; the median age of members of the House of Representatives is 57.5 years, according to Pew Research Center, and 64.7 for the Senate. The oldest member of the senate, Charles Grassley (R – Iowa) is 91 years old – born during the Great Depression, and the oldest member of the House is 86 (Rep. Bill Pascrell, D – NJ). Not to mention that former Representative Kay Granger (R – Texas) went missing for almost six months, only to be found wandering around a senior living facility with dementia complications (Straight Arrow News) and was only taken out of Congress after she was found. The two dominant parties of the legislative branch can never agree and constantly make themselves look like absolute troglodytes in front of the country, which is why over 60% of Americans claim that failed bipartisan cooperation is one of the biggest problems in our country (Pew Research Center).
But, sure. Change the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America’; ban TikTok and then switch the deal like Syndrome did in The Incredibles to make it look like you actually did something. That’s definitely going to solve our problems.
America is and has been stuck in a clash of cultures for decades now, perhaps even centuries. This is only the beginning of a four-year long streak of making controversial moves just to divide Americans from fighting back against the actual problems of this country. Hopefully, with all of the sudden changes taking place, people will start to band together and find real solutions to these issues. We are not each other’s enemy – the real enemy are the people who want to push us apart to start a meaningless civil war.