What Then Must We Do?

 

With all the recent barrage of sweeping shutdowns of long-standing programs like US AID, and Elon Musk’s  team’s takeover of the U. S. Treasury Department’s computer system, I, and many other citizens are outraged and dumbfounded.

What is really behind this coup to dismantle the government? This freezing of government funding, rash program shutterings and government employee firings are all set out in Project 2025, created by Russell Vought, recently confirmed to head the Office of Management and Budget. Project 2025 calls for outlawing medication abortion and putting abortion in the hands of the states. It wants to rollback protections for transgender people, cut diversity and equity offices, gut the immigration system, and start mass deportations, and strip funding from public assistance programs.

We now have an oligarchy by the rich replacing America’s representative democracy. Many people are suffering financially, having problems buying groceries, finding affordable housing and health care. The system is not perfect. We need a system that will take the money out of politics, not a dictatorship by the morbidly rich.

What can we do? Some people say they don’t know what to do. I can understand that response. I have some trouble with the response of other people I know, who tell me to just focus on myself, to be the best person I can be, not to let stress and worry overcome me, and everything will be all right. What about all those children who will starve if they don’t get AID food? What about the HIV sufferers who will not get essential medication? Are we to only think of ourselves? Other people say we should just wait until the government collapses, then those with a moral purpose and social consciousness can work together to put our society back together. Others keep telling me that all these shuttering of government agencies, firing of government workers, and freezing of government funding to programs is illegal, and won’t stand.

Wait! I have issues with all these stances. I think we have to do everything we can to help the most vulnerable—children, people of color, LGBTQIA folks, the poor, and the elderly, especially. Head Start’s funding, which was frozen on January 31^st, along with Medicaid’s, and other social service programs’ funding, is still partly frozen. Schools either cannot access federal funds, or are having great difficulty doing so. Some schools have closed. Despite the fact that a federal judge ordered a temporary restraining order to stop the funding freeze, funds remain frozen for some agencies, including US AID.

Today there are 580,000 homeless, a totally unacceptable number, especially as the US Census reports that there are 6 empty houses for each homeless man, woman, and child. This number can radically increase under the Trump/Musk rash slashing of programs that provide a social safety net for millions of citizens. Do we want large numbers of our population unable to provide food for their families? Do we want more people to die because they cannot afford proper health care? I say ‘no’ to all these scenarios.

 Many organizations are joining to challenge in the courts the legality of  the Trump/DOGE executive orders. Unfortunately, Vice President Vance said recently after a federal  judge put a restraining order on the continued pillage of our Treasury Department, “ If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”. In fact, they are. It is part of the checks and balances system, keeping one part of the government from wielding too much control.

Perhaps this country has strayed from being a democracy, with wealth concentrated in the top one per cent of the population. Yet if Project 2025 goes forward, millions of citizens will lose their social security checks, Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, SNAP food stamps, tax refunds, as well as experiencing the closing of dozens of other federal programs depended upon by millions of people.

We need to get money out of politics. We must organize in our local communities to ensure that people who may lose their social safety net, do not end up as part of the homeless population, which is increasing in this area, due to Helene, which displaced hundreds of North Carolinians, many of whom are still living in FEMA-supported hotels, waiting for federal funding to find permanent housing solutions. FEMA? Another agency Trump has cut off funds to.

We must work together to make our local communities self-sufficient and responsive to the needs of local citizens. Stopping the hijacking of the US government is a tall order, yet necessary to prevent needless suffering of our populace. We need to consider alternate systems to replace monopoly capitalism, which has run amuck, creating the disparity between the billionaire class and the rest of the population. We now have an oligarchy, not a representative democracy. 

Prout (Progressive Utilization Theory),  is economics as if all living beings mattered.  It provides a viable alternative to capitalism and communism. Prout works for the good of all, with emphasis on providing minimum necessities of life to all people, protecting the environment, and including all people in decision making, ensuring diversity, gender equity, and safeguarding LGBTQIA rights.

Prout will be addressed in my next blog.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-2-2025/

https://nwlc.org/russell-vought-the-project-2025-architect-and-omb-nominee-coming-for-our-democracy

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-administration-rescinds-order-attempting-freeze-federal-aid-spen-rcna189852

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/medicaid-head-start-health-centers-trump-funding-freeze/).

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx253xjnxrmo

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/jd-vance-judges-trump

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tax-cuts-extension-republican-salt-deduction-student-loans/