Part Two Americans also worked to put the racial segregation that had inspired Hitler behind them, using the federal government to level the playing field between white Americans, Black Americans, and people of color. As Chris Geidner wrote yesterday in Law Dork, that impulse had gained traction in 1941, when labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph told President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that Black Americans weren’t being hired at the factories working in defense industries. He urged Roosevelt to issue an executive order requiring that factories that received federal contracts must hire Black workers. As Geidner recounts, a week later, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, saying it was “the policy of the United States “to encourage full participation in the national defense program by all citizens of the United States, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders.“ After the war, President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948, and as Black and Brown Americans claimed their right to be treated equally, Congress expanded recognition of those rights with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Shortly after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, translating FDR’s 1941 measure into the needs of the peacetime country. “It is the policy of the Government of the United States to provide equal opportunity in Federal employment for all qualified persons, to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a positive, continuing program in each executive department and agency.” This democratic government was popular, but as the memory of the dangers of fascism faded, opponents began to insist that such a government was leading the United States to communism. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, along with the deregulation of business and cuts to the social safety net, began to concentrate wealth at the top of society. As wealth moved upward, lawmakers chipped away at the postwar government that defended democracy. And now, since the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Monday, the dismantling of that system is happening all at once. The Guardian reported today that incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered a halt to almost all foreign aid, with the exception of military assistance to Israel and Egypt. The Guardian notes that this order is likely unlawful, since Congress sets the budget and in 1974 declared it illegal for the president to impound funds. Still, a source foresaw the end of the global influence the U.S. has had since World War II, telling The Guardian: “Freezing these international investments will lead our international partners to seek other funding partners—likely US competitors and adversaries—to fill this hole and displace the United States’ influence the longer this unlawful impoundment continues.” As Peter Baker of the New York Times notes, new president Donald Trump is trying to break NATO by demanding that members increase military spending to 5% of their nations' economies, although the U.S. currently spends about 3% of its GDP on defense. If we were to meet that requirement, Baker points out, the U.S. would have to increase its defense budget by $567 billion a year. Isabel van Brugen of Newsweek reports that an Italian news agency says that Trump intends to pull about 20,000 U.S. troops from Europe and wants Europe to pay to maintain the rest. Trump has undertaken to dismantle the postwar democratic government at home, too. He has stopped the funding for repairing roads, bridges, airports, and ports that passed Congress in a bipartisan vote in 2022, as well as taken away funding for new solar manufacturing plants and other new systems to address climate change. He has frozen all travel and communications at the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” one researcher told Dan Diamond, Lena H. Sun, Carolyn Y. Johnson, and Mark Johnson of the Washington Post. “This is like a meteor just crashed into all of our cancer centers and research areas.” And, of course, Trump has declared a war on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. In his revoking of LBJ’s Executive Order 11246, itself based on FDR’s Executive Order 8802, he explicitly rejected the principles for which the Americans fought in World War II. January 25, 2025, marks eighty years since the end of the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans never did take Bastogne. Jean Totten as One Day at a Time
Nice TDS article. Frankly I would rather have an HHS secretary who understands genders. And if anything with a penis AND NUTS followed my 10 yr old great, great niece into a women's restroom and I saw him it would not end well.
That will really bring down the price of groceries, gas and eggs. What else does the Fuerher have up his sleeve to make our lives better? I can’t believe you actually voted for this idiot.
Gas future contracts expired on 2/28/25 with a gallon of gas priced at $2. So why haven’t prices come down? Too much money to be made of citizens. Currently gas futures are pricing at around 2.15 per gallon. So Trump, lower those gas prices without the performance art like your State of the Trump speech on Tuesday.
