Screaming, Crying, Throwing Up Into the Void
Or, the fresh horrors I've been reading about lately
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Last week, I set out to write a piece about my efforts to handle the news cycle in America under the new Trump Administration without shutting down. I wrote this whole thing about how I’ve developed a tolerance threshold for how much news I can consume. The threshold resets and changes every day, and I know I’ve hit my limit when a low-grade frenetic panic over our potential dystopian society sets in. I explained that at that point, I log off and go full Meredith Marks:
I went on to write about how I’m focused on a few stories specifically because, while I try to read as many headlines as I can to stay aware of new developments, no one person can sanely follow everything. But then news broke early last Monday that the Supreme Court was taking up a First Amendment challenge regarding the constitutionality of protecting kids from conversion therapy so I started following and trying to write about that. And then news broke that Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who had organized the protests for Palestinian liberation at Columbia University last year, had been detained by ICE at the order of the Trump Administration in a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. So I started following and trying to write about that, too.
To make a long story longer, in trying to build last week’s piece, I violated the very two rules for news consumption I had set out for myself: I spent too much time following too many stories, and, as was to be expected, I lost my shit.
But I think there is some merit to returning to this piece this week for one specific reason: the stories I was going to write about are not being covered enough. They all carry implications for what can happen in the coming months and years regarding voting rights, reproductive healthcare, and democracy in general, and I think it’s important that we all at least start talking about them.
This week, I’m going to try my best to summarize the Whats and the Whys of two topics I think warrant an E4P discussion and your attention. Candidly, this piece was going to cover five stories…then three…and right now I only have enough sanity in the machine to cover two.
I don’t ever want to fearmonger here but as you’ll see in various points below, I am really scared myself. Like crash out-level scared. I understand if this piece is too hard to read all at once or even at all, but if the latter is the case, I encourage you to pick a few stories that matter to you and follow them closely.
You cannot handle everything that’s happening on your own just as I can’t handle it all on my own, but we collectively might stand somewhat of a chance of staying informed and protecting one other.
SAVE Act
What: The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or the SAVE Act is one of the dumbest, most confusing, and potentially harmful pieces of legislation I have had the misfortune of reading. Ostensibly, the act is meant to ensure that noncitizens do not vote in elections. They can buy elections, but casting a ballot without a valid form of US-issued identification? Don’t even fucking think about it.
However, there have only been “77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023,” namely because “the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 explicitly prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. It is not legal in any state for a noncitizen to cast a ballot in a federal election.” More to it, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center,
three states and Washington, DC, have municipalities that allow noncitizens to vote in certain local elections. San Francisco allows resident noncitizen parents and guardians to vote in school board elections. Oakland is currently attempting to enact a similar law. Some cities in Maryland and Vermont permit noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. New York City enacted a law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections in 2021, but it was ruled unconstitutional by a state judge in 2022. Washington, DC, recently enacted a law to allow noncitizen residents to vote in all non-federal elections.
So is the SAVE Act then just meant to do away with these minor electoral exceptions to the existing law? Not exactly. The two voting blocs this bill will have the greatest impact on are married women and trans and gender-nonconforming voters who have legally changed their names. WHAT?? Are you telling me this bill is also targeting women and LGBTQIA+ voters, two groups of people that conservatives have historically hated and wanted to marginalize electorally??? Precisely.
If the SAVE Act is passed, an individual must present proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate to be eligible to register to vote. Now, if you read the bill, you might think that if you present “(1) A form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States” or otherwise have a Real ID—meaning you’ve met those requirements—that you will still be eligible. But you would be wrong.
According to the Campaign Legal Center, “Under this bill, most Americans would not be able to register to vote using their driver’s license alone, because even licenses that meet Real ID requirements do not indicate citizenship. Only a document called an ‘Enhanced Drivers License’ indicates citizenship, and these are available in just five states.”1 More to it if the name on your birth certificate doesn’t match the name on your license, you will not inherently be eligible to vote as “proof of name change or marriage license will not meet the identification requirements of the bill” (X).
Under the SAVE Act, a US passport would be considered valid proof of citizenship so if you have a passport with your legal name listed, you are eligible to vote. However, only half of all US citizens have a passport, and, as someone who just renewed their passport, I can attest that it is an expensive and time-consuming process—and I had an easy experience.
Relying on passports to vote will likely be a problem for trans and gender-nonconforming voters which does not seem to be accidental. Since the Trump Administration decided that recognizing only two genders was one of the most pressing issues our country was facing, trans citizens have shared horrifying experiences about what happened when they tried to renew their passports. Some, like actress Hunter Schafer, had their renewed passport sent back to them with their gender marked incorrectly, while others had their documents returned partially destroyed.
Trans individuals may reasonably not seek out passports or start the passport renewal process because of the violence they are likely to endure. But then, on the other hand, they face the potential of not being eligible to vote should their birth certificate not match their license. And in case you were worried it wasn’t threatening enough, the bill also “establishes criminal penalties for certain offenses, including registering an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.”
Why: I feel like it’s obvious why I care about this story but I can explicitly spell it out for you.
This bill passed in the House last year but was not initially picked up for a vote in the Senate. It was re-introduced and is currently “placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders.” Given the Republican majority in the Senate and the way things have been going lately (derogatory), there is a real possibility that this bill can pass and go into law this year.
According to the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland, “over 9% of voting-age citizens (21.3 million people) cannot readily access documentary proof of citizenship.” More to the point, even if you jump through all of the hoops and procure all of the paperwork and do everything right by this act’s standards, it will still make eligibility a nightmare to prove: the bill also effectively eliminates mail-in and online voter registration by mandating that documentary proof of citizenship must be done in person.
This is a blatant voter suppression act that would be appalling in the best of times but is deeply terrifying at this time. If Congress can enact something like this—which, to be clear, had over 100 cosponsors in the House—under the guise of fighting a threat that by and large does not exist, it opens the door to any number of further voting restrictions “in the name of protecting democracy *wink wink.*”
I’m hoping it doesn’t come to pass (literally) but as we’re learning, the Trump Administration is where hopes go to die.
Emergency Abortion Access in Idaho
What: Now I know what you may be thinking with a section header like this but I promise you it is so much worse than what you can imagine.
Back in 2022, Idaho passed one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, prohibiting “abortion at all stages of pregnancy.” While originally it allowed for exceptions if the life of the pregnant person was in danger and in cases of rape and incest that had been reported to law enforcement (horrifying enough), “the state [has since] narrowed the exceptions to the trigger ban, limiting the rape and incest exceptions to the first trimester and attempting to redefine abortion for specific medical conditions” (X).
the Biden administration sued Idaho because its ban violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)—the federal law requiring hospital emergency rooms to provide life-saving and stabilizing care, including abortions.
Republican leaders in the state insisted their ban was just fine, even as Idaho hospitals were forced to airlift patients out of state to save their lives. Attorney General Raúl Labrador went as far as accusing doctors and hospital administrators of lying about having to evacuate patients, claiming that they were trying to make a “political statement” (X).
For now, we can still access the Justice Department archives, so according to the press release detailing the Biden Administration’s choice to bring this suit, the decision came down to the fact that “EMTALA requires hospitals that receive federal Medicare funds to provide necessary stabilizing treatment to patients who arrive at their emergency departments while experiencing a medical emergency. When a physician reasonably determines that the necessary stabilizing treatment is an abortion, state law cannot prohibit the provision of that care.”
It’s important to note that at one point during the legal battle, the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit decided
Idaho could enforce its abortion ban even when terminating a pregnancy was necessary to prevent grave harm to the woman. The on-the-ground impact was immediate. To ensure appropriate medical care, the State’s largest provider of emergency services had to airlift pregnant women out of Idaho roughly every other week, compared to once in all of the prior year (X).
The case ultimately made it to the Supreme Court where, according to journalist Jessica Valenti who publishes the Substack Abortion Every Day, “American women were treated to the distinct horror of watching lawyers debate just how many organs would be acceptable for them to lose before the state should be required to give them care.”
SCOTUS ultimately dismissed the case last June via “a technical way of saying they shouldn’t have taken it in the first place. The good news? That meant a lower court ruling allowing emergency abortions in Idaho remained in place. The bad news was that without a final ruling on the merits, the Court left pregnant patients’ humanity up for debate” (X). In case you couldn’t already tell where this was going, the DOJ—now under Trump—dismissed the Idaho case earlier this month which means Idaho’s state law stands.
Mind you, Idaho’s state law currently reads in part as follows:
The following shall not be considered criminal abortions for purposes of subsection (1) of this section:
(a) The abortion was performed or attempted by a physician as defined in this chapter and:
(i) The physician determined, in his good faith medical judgment and based on the facts known to the physician at the time, that the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. No abortion shall be deemed necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman because the physician believes that the woman may or will take action to harm herself; and
(ii) The physician performed or attempted to perform the abortion in the manner that, in his good faith medical judgment and based on the facts known to the physician at the time, provided the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive, unless, in his good faith medical judgment, termination of the pregnancy in that manner would have posed a greater risk of the death of the pregnant woman. No such greater risk shall be deemed to exist because the physician believes that the woman may or will take action to harm herself…
We don’t have enough time today or in this life to unpack all the masturbatory layers of misogyny and transphobia in that wording,2 but what is evident from what is now the law in Idaho is that no living person is as important as the concept of an unborn child.
Why: By throwing out this case, the Trump Administration is signaling to anti-abortionists that he is clearly on their side. It means doctors in states with restrictive regulations like Idaho can not provide life-saving care without breaking the law, often risking criminal charges.
Or, they can provide life-saving care, as Valenti explained in a 2024 piece on Texas’ challenge to EMTALA:
when emergency room doctors are faced with a patient who has a dangerous or life-threatening pregnancy, they have a responsibility to “stabilize both the pregnant woman and her unborn child.” That means a 6-week embryo would warrant as much emergency treatment as you do.
In simple terms, throwing out the Idaho case means that when it comes to abortion, state law supersedes federal law. Which is, yes, what Trump said he wanted as a means of not saying he wanted a national abortion ban. However, it allows anti-abortion states around the country to encourage the denial of all abortions, regardless of the situation, by removing ethical medical protections and leaving doctors vulnerable to severe penalties. I mean this literally: four hours ago, a midwife in Texas was arrested and now faces up to 20 years in prison for providing abortions.
It is so easy to forget that at the center of these stories, these cases, these shitty pieces of legislation, there are real human lives that are being adversely affected—and for what?
That wasn’t a rhetorical question. This and every other action to restrict reproductive rights is a means of regaining and maintaining power over the makeup of society. The aim of anti-abortionists and now the Trump administration is “to get voters used to the idea of divorcing abortion from healthcare…for abortion rights to be reduced to court battles and political debates. For Americans to be so distracted with legal and legislative minutiae that women’s lives become theoretical” (X).
It is abhorrent, it is horrifying, and it is likely going to get worse…but I’ll be following the aftermath of this story to make sure you stay informed.
The Others and the End
Over the past two weeks, I have written so many versions of this piece. I’ve written about how to track the spread of H5N1 bird flu now that our health organizations are under the control of The One Lucky Kennedy; I’ve written about the Colorado case going before SCOTUS next term and how that ties back to the decision in 2023’s 303 Creative case; I’ve written about the Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies executive order and why it’s stupid.
But I’m trying to practice what I preach and covering everything at once tonight felt too big again, so I toned it down…by my standards. This is toned down for me.
You don’t need me to tell you things are bad anymore than you need to touch a lit stove to know it’s hot. But if there is one thing I need everyone reading this to walk away knowing, it’s that you cannot grow apathetic. As bad as things are right now, you cannot opt-out or unplug or disengage completely.
Shock and awe, which is in essence the tactic being used to inundate us with a thousand news stories every day, is “a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight” (X).
If you’re surprised that this administration is using a military tactic against its own civilian population, don’t be. As we’ve discussed here before, shock and awe have long been adapted for non-combative bureaucratic uses, as Naomi Klein explained with her shock doctrine theory. More to the point, the never-ending barrage of headlines about executive orders, Truth Social blasts, and the walking MadLibs that is DOGE is all part of Trump’s unique take on a known authoritarian tactic.
According to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian of fascism,
anyone who studies authoritarianism, a political system that depends on propaganda, corruption, machismo, and violence, is well acquainted with the parade of sociopaths, sycophants, petty and grand criminals, and zealots who flourish in lawless environments where the performance of power is everything and the leader is elevated to a semi-divinity. In authoritarian states, ridiculousness often competes with brutality for center stage.
We have to constantly remember that succumbing to the spectacle of it all is the point—when you’re overwhelmed, unsure of how or where to begin resisting, or despondent about how bad things already are, you lose the will and power to fight back.
The last thing I want to do is willingly submit control of my life to a former reality TV star whose name is not either Lisa Rinna or Gabby Windey, and if you’re reading this very long shout into the void, I don’t think you want to either. Pace yourself, remember you’re not alone, maybe take a week to crash out if you need to, but then get back in the game.
The five states are Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington.
Not important to this piece but just something to note as Google, like other corporations, fall in line like ducklings behind Trump’s ugly ass: when I searched the word masturbatory to make sure I got the spelling correctly (like a good editor), the below search suggestion came up. This was clearly not one of my previous searches for reasons I don’t need to explain but it was the only suggested search that came up when it was obvious I was looking into something about masturbation. Information is power, but the narratives around it shape how we approach learning.
Just some food for thought…Gulf of America pussy ass bitches—I see you, Google!!!!!
