Trump's Agenda To Whitewash History
Liza Donnelly from Seeing Things
A seasonal New Yorker cartoon of mine that I hope makes you smile! I figure we need the smiles as we fight this mess of a president. However, the good news is is that Trump’s approval rating is getting worse by the minute. A front page NY Times article provides details of his continued drop in polularity.
Last week, the Supreme Court granted a temporary stay that will allow the abortion pill mifepristone to continue to be sent out by providers through the postal service. This is following a ruling on May 1 by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that blocked a Biden-era policy allowing patients to get the drug online and through the mail. According to Politico, it was the “biggest rollback of access to abortion since the fall of Roe vs. Wade, and it hit patients in red and blue states alike.” In the meantime, justices are considering a case brought by Louisiana, which claimed that federal rules allowing prescription and mail delivery of the drug “violated its sovereignty by helping its residents circumvent the state’s abortion ban.” Providers can keep sending mifepristone by mail for now as lower courts work through the Louisiana lawsuit against the FDA. The White House was part of a Christian prayer festival on the Mall the other day. It lasted eight hours and was funded by taxpayer’s money. Outrageous! This is all part of an effort on Trump’s part to use the 250th anniversary of our consitution to get votes. "Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” was the name of the event, which portrayed the US as a Christian nation and sought to erase the line between church and state. Trump, Rubio, Johnson, Hegseth, Vance all gave lengthy remarks by video. “We’ve witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes, and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this great nation,” Johnson said. “These voices insist to the young and impressionable that our story, the American story, is one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure, and that this story can only be understood through the lens of our sins. Father, we reject that.” In other words, what they want is to whitewash everything and push out anyone who is different. anyone who is not Christian. As Heather Cox Richardson said today, they want to re-write American history. I’d like to quote her from her letter today: “Rather than basing the United States on religion, the nation’s founders and framers, as well as Americans of later generations, sought to instill in Americans reverence for the nation’s core political values, especially the right of self-government and the checks and balances that made that self-government possible. In speeches and memorials, novels and poems, they emphasized the sacrifices Americans had made to protect the values embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. That civic religion unified the nation, but it did more than that. It also instructed Americans on the rights and duties of citizens who live in a nation that rests on “We the People.” They must think for themselves, question elected officials, and take an active role in their government. Replacing Americans’ civic identity with Christian nationalism destroys that vitally important understanding of the role of citizens in a democracy. Instead, it demands that Americans do as they are told, turning them into subjects. But blindly obeying authority has never been the story of America.” Finally, this just in: Trump announced today he’s setting up a fund of $1.776 billion to compensate people who claim they were targeted by the Biden Justice Department, creating a potential pipeline to funnel taxpayer money to his allies and supporters. The fund is meant “to provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.” We have so much work to do. That’s it for me today. I hope your Monday is going well so far. Thanks for being here, as always! Our documentary about women cartoonists, Women Laughing, is screening all over the country; it’s wonderful to hear the laughter. I created a shop for merhandise based on the film, I hope you enjoy! Here is our Etsy Shop for Women Laughing. All proceeds go directly to our efforts to have screenings in more venues (libraries, schools, colleges, universities, theaters, museums, etc…) and to bring cartoonists to the screenings. We want more people to know about these amazing women! Last weekend, we were at The Church in Sag Harbor, NY, an arts venue created by artists April Gornik and Eric Fischl.
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© 2026 Liza Donnelly
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