Attribution: Photo by infinyd photo on Unsplash
By Geoff Carter
“Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.”
—Helen Keller
She would know. Trapped in a world of silence and darkness as a child after being afflicted with an acute fever, fully aware that a world existed outside her perception must have been both frustrating and terrifying for the young girl, but with the help of her teacher, Annie Sullivan, Helen learned the sign language which enabled her to open the doors to knowledge, the outside world, and her family. She must have had hope before her breakthrough, and one would think she must have had faith.
Faith takes many forms. Faith in God, faith in logic, faith in science, faith in family, faith in oneself, one’s ability, and faith in institutions like the law, medicine, and faith in the human spirit are the engines which drive \ambition and aspiration.
There is great faith in the United States of America, both the country and the people itself, as well as in the American ideal of democracy, not just here but across the world. For decades, centuries, our country was a beacon of hope for those striving for freedom, prosperity, and safety. We were (to quote Bruce Springsteen) the land of hope and dreams. We were the promised land. Millions of refugees from Europe, Asia, Mexico, Central and South America, and elsewhere flooded our shores and helped settle our vast western wilderness. But this perception of the U.S. as the land of opportunity is changing because over the past year and one-half, tyrannical forces have been methodically attempting to dismantle our democracy.
For years, behind the scenes, far-right conservatives, Christian nationalists, and white supremacists have been working to remake America into their own image. I realize this may sound as if I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, but one only needs to examine the text of Project 2025, the manifesto and blueprint for a new America, to understand that this is their intent—and has been for decades. Spearheaded by the second Trump administration and the Heritage Foundation, this document details how they are intending—and are implementing—these goals. According to the ACLU , “Project 2025’s largest publication, “Mandate For Leadership,” is a 900-page manual for reorganizing the entire federal government agency by agency to serve a conservative agenda.”
Reversing Roe -v- Wade, implementing mass deportations, limiting voter access, muzzling the free press, taking away trans rights, abolishing DEI policies, censoring books and attacking public education are goals clearly outlined in this massive document. Another prong of this attack on our democracy was packing the Supreme Court with justices sympathetic to the cause of the Heritage Foundation’s conservative ideals embodied in Project 2025.
And we’ve seen many attempts to enable these warped ideals. During the first year of his second term, Trump and the Republican Congress passed his Big Beautiful Bill which, according to the Legal Defense Fund, will implement “the largest cuts to food assistance, health care, education programs, and student loan services in U.S. history — while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.”
This bill also allocated a huge $75 billion increase to ICE, which according to NPR, will increase detention center capacity by nearly 100,000, and designate $30 billion for hiring and training ICE agents. The OBBB has also provided massive tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, doing more to create income and class disparity in the U.S.
Add to this, Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk to head up DOGE, a squad of malignant minions—a human version of flying monkeys—who invaded government offices and accessed reams of sensitive personal information which is God knows where.
Add to this his attempts to muzzle and denigrate the free press like prohibiting news outlets he doesn’t like from White House press conferences and insulting and belittling reporters with whom he disagrees.
Add to that Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the White House and his plans to build a gigantic ballroom there instead, his arrogant plans to construct a triumphal arch in his honor, his tacky gilding of everything in the White House, his obsession with placing his name of the Kennedy Center—and everything else, his wanton destruction of the White House Lawn for his cage match celebration, and the reflecting pool disaster, and it adds up to one of the most tumultuous years in our history.
In short, in many ways this is no longer the America we’ve known, but, on the other hand, the America we know has survived and is fighting back.
When ICE began random attacks on Americans on the streets of Chicago, Minneapolis, and other cities, the people gathered in huge protests—and they backed off.
When ICE began planning monstrous detention centers in small communities, the American people stood up and said no.
When ICE agents kidnapped and beat citizens, took children from their school classrooms, and killed American citizens exercising their Constitutional rights to peacefully protest, millions of Americans gathered in protest.
The nationwide No Kings protests were attended by upward of five million citizens motivated by their need to defend and preserve the personal freedoms guaranteed to them by the Constitution, including the right to free speech, the right to a free press, their right to vote, and the right to assemble peacefully.
This is the strength of faith of which Helen Keller wrote. The faith that Americans have in the American ideal, the faith that we have in each other, and the faith in our own strength and solidarity.
And we still have faith in the truth brought to us by free press, without which we be woefully unaware of what Trump and the Project 2025 conspirators are up to. Their fearless coverage of the Minneapolis and Chicago ICE protests, the Pretti and Good murders, their relentless digging into the monstrously dark webs of corruption in the Trump White House, the president’s collusion with authoritarians like Putin or Xi, their revelations about how the president has been recklessly spending public money on his ballroom, his arch, and now the publicly funded television ads touting his perverted and warped vision for America has kept us informed.
Without outstanding press coverage, we would not know about the lies coming out about Iran and the maltreatment of our American soldiers and sailors.
Yes, Americans have faith in the American ideal, faith in each other, and faith in the truth. After being relentlessly lied to for over a decade by this small-minded, mean-spirited, and avaricious semblance of a human being, even his most ardent followers are beginning to recognize the truth about him thanks to those ideals.
As we careen toward the 2028 midterm elections, a cycle that polls show will be catastrophic for Republican chances to hold majorities in Congress, the Trump administration seems hellbent on rigging the elections, or at the very least, throwing a monkey wrench into the works.
Thanks to media coverage, we know about the SAVE Act and have said no, we have heard about the possibility of ICE agents or the National Guard being deployed to guarantee election “integrity”.
We are informed. And because we have faith in the truth, in ourselves, and in the rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution, we will exhibit, as Ms. Keller said, “the strength by which this shattered world will emerge into the light.”
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