That’s what makes the nonstop anxiety surrounding this year’s midterm elections so revealing. The White House is telling Americans every day—sometimes every hour—that everything is going wonderfully. The economy is supposedly booming. Foreign adversaries are supposedly trembling. Government efficiency is supposedly being restored. The country, we are told, is “back.”

So why the panic?

Why the endless Republican emails and social media pronouncements warning of catastrophe? Why the constant attacks on universities, judges, journalists and pollsters? Why the insistence that opponents are not merely wrong but dangerous enemies destroying America from within? And why the recurring suggestion that election losses could only happen through cheating, sabotage or betrayal?

Here in Virginia, we’re seeing another version of that anxiety play out in real time. The state Supreme Court’s ruling striking down the recent voter-approved redistricting referendum has fanned the flame of the already ugly Republican-lit fight over gerrymandering and who gets to shape congressional districts before the midterms.

When a political party and administration become more focused on engineering elections than persuading voters, people begin to wonder what they’re so afraid of.

Confident governments ask voters for a report card. Nervous regimes tell supporters to stay angry.

Midterm elections have always served as a referendum on those in power. If an administration truly believes the public is thrilled with its performance, the normal response would be calm confidence: “Look at the results. Reward us.”

Instead, the country remains trapped in permanent campaign mode—a state of perpetual emergency in which supporters are constantly told disaster is just around the corner unless they donate, rally, repost and fight harder.

That’s the part that doesn’t add up.

Political movements built on grievance face a unique problem once they gain power. Anger is easier to sustain than satisfaction. Outrage keeps audiences engaged. Crisis keeps ratings high. Fear keeps donors opening their wallets. Success, oddly enough, can drain energy from a movement that depends on constant conflict.

So even while claiming victory, White House messaging must continue sounding apocalyptic. And we all know who’s a master at that.

For those of us who watched Trump long before politics entered the picture, none of this is new. In New York City during the 1980s, image was everything. Trump projected absolute confidence, relentless winning and unstoppable momentum. But behind the branding was a deep sensitivity to criticism, an obsession with loyalty and constant concern about image.

His attorney and mentor, the notorious Roy Cohn, famously said, “Power is not given, it is taken. And I will take it.” That same mantra now shapes national politics through bluster, bullying, and intimidation. Strength is proclaimed constantly because reassurance is constantly needed.

If things are truly going as well as advertised, midterms should not inspire this level of dread. Administrations confident in public approval generally spend less time attacking the legitimacy of every institution that might question them.

That doesn’t mean midterm worries are irrational. Every president faces them. History is filled with governing parties that lost seats two years into an administration. But there is a difference between ordinary political concern and an administration that seems unable to function without warning supporters that the sky is falling.

Americans should ask why the White House that speaks endlessly about winning appears so rattled by being judged. Because they know Virginians—like many Americans hit hard by White House and Republican policies—may start asking a dangerous question: Is any of this actually making our lives better?

Beyond the slogans, the outrage and the political theater, voters are measuring these policies against their own paychecks, healthcare costs, schools, retirement accounts and daily lives. And that is the judgment the Republicans fear most heading into the midterms.

A government confident in its achievements earns citizens’ approval. This one is more interested in keeping them afraid.

The Virginia Grassroots Coalition’s “Vote Yes Fight Back” campaign has brought together an amazing array of volunteer-initiated voter outreach efforts to include a star-studded line-up of guests kicking off phone banks and a series of sketch videos that explain the redistricting amendment in English and in five other languages — Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Hindi, and Urdu. This multi-lingual outreach initiative is a significant step forward in making civic participation accessible to all Virginians.

The multilingual initiative directly addresses a longstanding barrier in Virginia’s political outreach the limited availability of campaign materials in languages that align with the rich multicultural communities throughout Virginia. The video series covers six of the ten most widely spoken languages in Virginia’s urban and suburban communities, helping to ensure that thousands of residents can engage with the campaign in their native language.

“Grassroots activists in Virginia have long raised concerns about this gap,” said a campaign spokesperson. “These videos represent real progress toward a more inclusive democratic process.”

How did Virginia Grassroots Coalition volunteers make this happen? Organizers reached out to trusted native-language speakers from within our community to help draft and review scripts. They partnered with Anika Rahman, Chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Asian-American Caucus, to align language support and review messaging—making sure the wording and cultural context reinforced the Vote Yes message and helped us reach more voters.

The results and the ability to engage more voters in their own language in new and novel ways has been invigorating for volunteers. One canvasser used a video when door knocking to cross a language barrier with the voter. We need to be ready—with as many tools as possible—when we talk with voters, so every voter feels valued and has the clear information they need to exercise their right to vote.

The colorful, engaging sketch videos are now available on the Virginia Grassroots Coalition’s Vote YES website.

About the Virginia Grassroots Coalition The Virginia Grassroots Coalition is a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to expanding civic engagement and political access across Virginia’s diverse communities.

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Representative John McGuire (R-VA-05) has been busy lately—but not with the pressing issues affecting his Virginia constituents, like the cost of health care premiums or access to Medicaid.

He has a long history of failing to show up to local events and meet with his constituents.

Last year, after he ignored invitations to a Charlottesville citizens’ town hall, participants addressed their questions to a mannequin and held up signs reading, “Where’s John McGuire ? ”

More recently, in March, McGuire was a no-show when Representative Jennifer McClellan (D-VA-04) and health experts held a virtual panel on the impact of Republican efforts to terminate tax credits for Affordable Care premiums and cut Medicaid.

‘One panelist, Laura Buller, told Charlottesville Right Now that she reached out to her Congressional representative, John McGuire, multiple times before and after he voted against the tax credit extension. She said her two phone calls were taken by staffers and she never heard back from McGuire. After McGuire voted against the extension, she called the office again and sent a letter. “I received a very formulaic letter back, It just does not feel like McGuire specifically has any interest in people like me.”

While McGuire has been dodging his constituents, he has somehow found time to interfere in the business of our neighbors in the District of Colombia.

In late March he introduced a bill that would: “Require the development and implementation of a program…to beautify the District of Columbia through the removal of graffiti, enhanced private-sector collaboration, and restoration of Federal public monuments.

The bill—intended to codify one of Trump’s executive orders, has been roundly condemned as interference by elected representatives of DC’s 700,000 residents.

McGuire has also sponsored a bill that would require state law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE as a condition for getting federal community policing grants —another unpopular item from Trump’s wish list.

Citizens in Virginia’s District 5 need a representative who has the courtesy to show up, listen, and answer questions about their most pressing concerns—not one who busies himself marching to Trump’s drummer.

That’s reason enough to vote against John McGuire in November’s midterm elections.

A poll by the respected Marist Institute found that about two-thirds of Americans say ICE’s enforcement actions have gone too far, and more than six in ten believe the agency is reducing public safety. Overall, ICE scores low marks, with six in ten Americans reporting they disapprove of the job it is doing.

Here in Virginia, Gov.Spanberger has wisely curtailed ICE’s ability to command our state law enforcement. Her recent Executive Order 12 directs state agencies to review policies, training, and practices to ensure they align with standards that protect human life and to “not engage in fear-based policing, enforcement theater, or actions that create barriers to people seeking assistance in their time of need.”

Gov. Spanberger emphasized that the order does not prohibit all cooperation with federal immigration authorities. State agencies may still work with federal partners when there is a judicial warrant or as part of a joint task force.

But Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-Va--02) and Ben Cline (R-Va--06) still hanker after the previous rules under former Gov. Youngkin, which required state and local law enforcement to take orders from ICE.

Cline, with Kiggans as a co-sponsor, has gone so far as to propose a bill that would require local and state agencies to partner with ICE to receive Community Oriented Policing Services grants. In other words, they want to use congressionally appropriated funds to coerce state authorities.

Kiggans and Cline seem blind to the fact that most Americans reject ICE’s tactics. They also blatantly ignore Gov. Spanberger’s pledge that state officers are not prohibited from working with federal partners.

Instead, Cline and Kiggans appear more interested in manifesting their fealty to Donald Trump than protecting Virginians from fear-based policing. It’s time to vote them out and elect representatives who agree with Gov. Spanberger that public trust is a prerequisite for effective policing.

By Joyce McClure

A short email about shipping rates made me stop reading halfway through. It came from Triple B Forwarders, a company that ships cargo throughout Micronesia.

Beginning April 12, the company’s carriers serving the region will increase their fuel surcharge again—to 21.5 percent for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and 23.5 percent for Micronesia.

The notice emphasized that the charge is simply a “direct pass-through” as fuel costs rise. In other words, when global oil prices move, Micronesia feels it almost immediately.

For island economies that depend on ships for nearly everything—food, vehicles, building materials, household goods and medical supplies—the ripple effect can be swift and unforgiving. Every container crossing the Pacific carries not only the products inside it, but also the cost of the fuel that moved it.

Shipping rates rise and fall all the time. But this increase was triggered by President Trump’s war with Iran—a region through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows.

But here’s something many consumers don’t realize: The price we see at the pump is not always based on what gasoline costs today. It often reflects what suppliers expect it will cost tomorrow.

Oil markets operate heavily on expectations and futures markets. If traders believe oil supplies may tighten because of war, sanctions, political instability or threats to major shipping routes, prices can begin rising before any shortage actually occurs.

One reason markets react so quickly to tensions in the Middle East is the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through that corridor each day.

Any threat to shipping there—whether from conflict, sanctions or military escalation—sends immediate signals through global energy markets. Even the possibility of disruption can move prices.

For islands that depend almost entirely on imported fuel, events in distant waterways can quickly show up in local prices.

As of this writing, drivers on Guam are paying roughly $5.67 a gallon for regular gasoline and $7.34 a gallon for diesel. On Saipan, motorists are paying $6.36 a gallon for regular gasoline and $8.28 for diesel. The increases are even sharper on Tinian, where regular gas costs $8.49 per gallon and diesel $9.98 per gallon.

That is significantly higher than in the mainland United States, where the average is $4.59.

But island residents know why. Every gallon must arrive by ship.

Distance has always shaped life in the Pacific. But in today’s global economy, distance is measured not only in miles but in barrels of oil that contain 42 gallons each.

For centuries, the Pacific has been connected to the rest of the world by ships. In earlier eras, it was whaling vessels and trading schooners that linked distant islands to global markets. Later came military fleets, cargo ships and container vessels carrying everything from canned goods to construction equipment.

Today, another kind of cargo quietly underpins island life: fuel.

The tankers that cross the world’s oceans rarely make headlines, but they power much of the modern Pacific economy—from electricity generation to transportation, aviation to the cargo ships that keep island shelves stocked.

Yet that simple reality raises an uncomfortable question for Guam and the wider Micronesian region.

While global headlines increasingly focus on military strategy in the Indo-Pacific—missile defense systems, troop deployments and new bases—the daily functioning of island economies still depends on something far more mundane.

Every container ship arriving in Guam, the CNMI, Palau, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei or Kosrae carries the price of global energy markets with it. When those markets become unstable, islands often feel the shock first. That vulnerability rarely enters the broader conversation about the Pacific’s growing strategic importance.

Guam, for example, is one of the most important U.S. military hubs in the Indo-Pacific, home to major naval and air force installations and viewed by defense planners as a key forward operating base.

Much of Guam’s electricity generation still relies on oil-based fuels, and transportation, aviation, shipping and construction all depend on imported petroleum products.

In short, the same fuel that powers civilian life on the island also underpins the logistical backbone of the military presence.

None of this is unique to Guam. Across Micronesia and the broader Pacific, imported fuel remains the primary energy source for many island economies. The combination of geography and scale makes the region particularly sensitive to price swings.

When oil prices rise globally, islands pay more not only for fuel itself but also for the cost of transporting nearly everything else. In places where much of the food supply arrives by ship, even small increases in fuel costs can ripple quickly through the system. The price of rice, canned goods, frozen meat, produce and household staples all reflect the cost of moving those products thousands of miles across the Pacific.

Modern agriculture depends heavily on energy, particularly for fertilizer production. When energy prices rise, fertilizer becomes more expensive, increasing costs for farmers and food producers around the world. Those higher production costs flow through global supply chains and ultimately appear on grocery shelves in island communities that depend heavily on imported food.

And sometimes the first signal arrives quietly, in the form of a short email from a shipping company announcing a new fuel surcharge. The notice from Triple B Forwarders was only a few paragraphs long. Routine. Easy to overlook. But sometimes small notices tell larger stories.

In this case, a simple fuel surcharge increase serves as a reminder of something island communities have long understood: in the Pacific, events far beyond the reef often arrive with the next container ship.

And when the world’s energy markets become uncertain, the price of distance rises quickly in the Pacific.

Joyce McClure is a former senior marketing executive and former Peace Corps volunteer in Yap. Transitioning to freelance writing, she moved to Guam in 2021 and relocated back to the mainland in 2023. Send feedback to joycemcc62@yahoo.com

The special election for Virginia’s temporary redistricting amendment has been flooded with misleading texts, advertisements, and mailers sent by Republican PACs. One example, misrepresenting former President Barack Obama’s words, arrived in mailboxes as this article was being written – falsely asserting that Obama is against this measure. In fact, Obama – and also Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger – have both publicly endorsed Virginia’s redistricting in the press and in videos. Unfortunately, while Republicans’ mailers and texts in the past few weeks have been especially distasteful and untrue, such tactics are not new for them — Republicans have used similar unscrupulous strategies in the past. This time around, Virginians can effectively push back and counter their attempts to confuse and mislead by supporting the temporary Redistricting Amendment.

The recent examples of misleading, dishonest flyers and texts in Virginia came from recently (and hastily)-created Republican groups with Orwellian names — “Democracy and Justice PAC” (or is it “Justice for Democracy”?) and “Virginians for Fair Maps.” It’s hard not to see these groups’ messaging as a modern application of what was once termed “the soft bigotry of low expectations” aimed at voters. Specifically, this ploy assumes that voters can be fooled by intentionally deceptive mailers and text messages with a disconnected phone number. In this case, the right-wing PACs’ first barrage of mailers seemed aimed to mislead Black voters that they would lose their voices, calling the redistricting Jim Crow 2.0. Perhaps they thought these voters and the press wouldn’t notice. If so, they miscalculated: reporters and Black leaders were on it immediately.

Now, personally, I’m an old white lady who has watched a lifetime of election-season mischief. I’m not old enough to remember the lethal suppression of the 1940s and early 1950s, but I did grow up watching the Civil Rights Movement — and their victories that reshaped the country. I also grew up in a time when books about the shameful parts of our history weren’t being banned simply because they made White people uncomfortable.

By my late twenties, I was following politics closely enough to watch the Republican National Committee (RNC) get hit with a nationwide court decree in 1982 that barred it from voter-intimidation tactics for 36 years. That decree didn’t come out of nowhere. It came after the infamous New Jersey gubernatorial race, where the GOP created a “Ballot Security Task Force,” sent armed off-duty officers to polling places, and robocalled Black and Latino voters with intimidating messages. A federal court stepped in, and the RNC spent nearly four decades under strict supervision.

You would think that kind of legal history would teach a lesson. But no.

In 2020, far-right operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman revived the old Republican playbook, blasting out robocalls aimed at misleading Black voters in several Northeast and Midwest cities. Their efforts earned them penalties totaling millions of dollars in New York, Ohio, and Michigan — and a $5.1 million Federal Communication Commission (FCC) fine.

According to NBC News, the New York case alone involved 5,000 calls with a recording that featured a woman identifying herself as “Tamika Taylor of Project 1599,” who falsely warned that voting by mail would expose voters to police tracking, debt collection, and even mandatory vaccinations. “Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man,” the call said. “Stay home safe and beware of vote by mail.”

Wohl and Burkman didn’t stop there. They also tried to manufacture fake “Me Too” allegations against Democratic leaders and even against Special Counsel Robert Mueller. They racked up financial-fraud convictions along the way. Their pattern was clear: deception as a political tool.

And sadly, they were not alone. Right-wing efforts to mislead or suppress Black voters have appeared again and again, often echoing earlier tactics — the “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” we’ve been warned about.

Consider just a few examples:

• 2004 Ohio “Voter Challenge” Lists (GOP) – Republican operatives compiled lists of Black voters in Cleveland to challenge their eligibility at the polls. A federal court intervened to block the plan.

• 2010 Maryland Robocall Scheme (Republican gubernatorial aides) – Robocalls targeted Black voters in Baltimore and Prince George’s County telling them the election was already decided and they could “relax.” Two GOP operatives were convicted.

• 2016 North Carolina “Voter Fraud” Mailers (State GOP) – Misleading mailers were sent to heavily Black precincts claiming voters were under investigation. The state board found the mailers deceptive.

• 2020 Georgia “Voter Purge” Lists (GOP-aligned groups) – Investigations found Black voters disproportionately targeted for removal using flawed data. Federal suits alleged intentional racial targeting.

• 2024 Virginia voter purge (Gov. Youngkin administration) – Over 1,600 voters — disproportionately minorities — were removed within the 90-day quiet period before a federal election. A federal district judge blocked the purge. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to proceed anyway, despite evidence that many purged voters were naturalized citizens or had been misclassified due to omissions on Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) forms.

Against this backdrop, the recent Virginia mailers opposing redistricting stand out for their brazenness. The PACs that paid for them were fronted by a Black former Republican legislator, while their treasurer is a longtime White Republican accountant who supports other GOP PACs. According to the Virginia Public Access Project website on political donations, the “Justice for Democracy” PAC has received $425K from the American Future Fund, a group that does not reveal its contributors. One of the PACs’ mailers used 1950s-era images of Klansmen and civil-rights protesters — imagery meant to provoke fear, not inform. Another mailer’s text messages falsely implied that VA Governor Spanberger opposed the redistricting amendment – when she and former President Barack Obama publicly endorsed it. (If you called the phone number on the text, you got a message that the line was not in service.)

Black members of the Virginia General Assembly, the NAACP and Virginia Attorney General quickly condemned the mailers’ claims of silencing Black voices. These PACs may have hoped to slip something past the public, but Virginia’s voters, press and leaders were paying attention.

As we witness ever more aggressive measures to undermine our democracy and our elections process, Natalie Louise Lucas (Shorter), granddaughter of Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, summed up the stakes of this redistricting vote and the long history of communities refusing to be sidelined. (The following is from her February 18 Twitter/X post, pre-dating the deceptive mailers.)

“Virginia, Y’all — last night, I was reading Dylan Thomas’ poem to his dying father, and he said, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night.’ I came to a conclusion I can’t keep to myself. He was writing about death. About his father slipping away. But this, this is about our democracy. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night,’ he said. Virginia, we will not.

“‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ And we are. Because here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud: When Texas’ white leadership gerrymanders the hell out of their state, it was framed as ‘bold.’ It’s ‘savvy.’ It’s ‘playing the long game.’ But when Black leaders in a Southern state fight to protect representation and political power, suddenly it’s ‘unfair.’ Suddenly it’s ‘dangerous.’ Suddenly it’s a crisis.

“The hypocrisy is not subtle. Because how dare we fight partisan gerrymandering and beat them at their own game, right? How dare our leaders stand up for us? For centuries, Black and brown communities were expected to fade quietly. To accept diluted districts. To accept being carved out of influence. To accept leadership that never reflected us. Decisions being made about us, but without us. That era is over. This is about our ailing and dying democracy. This is about refusing to disappear politely. This is about holding onto our light with intensity and grit. Virginia is not ceding even a scintilla’s worth of ground. We will organize. We will compete. We will build power in plain sight and not in the shadows. And we will not go gentle.”

So make sure you Vote YES on or before April 21. Our support for this temporary guardrail for our fair elections will go a long way in protecting our democracy, including our right to vote, for years to come.

Let’s break down Kiggans’ rah-rah statement to see if it holds water.

First, does Trump’s action show “strength,” as Kiggans claims, or is it merely impulsiveness? For his part, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said:

“I am totally unsure about what our country’s goal is in this potential war. There was no immediate threat to our country. So I believe the president has made a war of choice where he’s putting our troops in harm’s way.”

And, Warner added, Trump owes the American people and service members “a clear legal justification, a defined end state, and a plan that avoids dragging the United States into yet another costly and unnecessary war.”

Second, will these attacks really ensure the safety and security of Americans, as Kiggans seems to believe? Trump’s pretext for attacking was to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. But in an exclusive interview with Bridge2Blue, Middle East scholar and former U.S. diplomat Joanne Cummings said: “The people responsible for monitoring these things say there is no indication that Iran is anywhere near being able to deploy nuclear missiles. There is no validity to this accusation, which has been disproven many times.”

In a private briefing on March 11, described by Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the Trump administration revealed that “the war goals do not involve destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” adding that this was surprising “since Trump says over and over this is a key goal.”

In fact, the attacks jeopardized the personal safety of thousands of Americans in the Middle East and the Gulf. Tourists were forced to scramble to find their own transportation home because no evacuation plans had been made. As for American residents—such as business people and other professionals—Cummings, an adjunct professor at Baylor University, said, “If our priority is to protect Americans, we’ve just put 1 million Americans who live in the region at risk—business people, academics—with no advance planning.” She added that one reason there has been no advance planning is the staff cuts carried out through Trump’s and Musk’s DOGE disaster.

Here in Rep. Jen Kiggans’ own Virginia Beach-based district, with its large military community, the lack of a long-term strategy is especially alarming. Recently, Senator Warner told reporters that this conflict was a “war of choice” by President Trump, dding:

“We know those sailors will do their duty. My job is to make sure they get answers about why their loved ones are in harm’s way…I’m going to be down in Hampton Roads…I don’t have a full answer for them.”

What about America’s economic security over the longer term? On that front, we’ve already seen the average price of gasoline at the pump shoot up by at least 27 cents a gallon. But that’s just the beginning; with oil tankers unable to safely pass through the Straits of Hormuz, the price of fuel for jets and cargo ships is soaring, affecting every product they carry.

Senator Murphy, after the March 11 briefing, said Trump has “no plan” to safely open the Strait of Hormuz—the sea passage Iran has effectively closed—which is currently halting the flow of oil out of the Gulf states and driving up prices of goods and services globally.

The bottom line is that Trump’s foray into war is backed by no strategy or plan. It jeopardizes the economic security of America as a nation and the personal safety of American service members. Yet—as she’s often done before—Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA02) was quick to cheer for Donald Trump, without considering her foremost responsibility: keeping Virginians safe and secure. For that reason, and many others, Kiggans doesn’t deserve reelection in November.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst. That’s the only sensible way to look at the SAVE America Act, the supercharged voter suppression bill the House just passed. It may stall in the Senate if cooler heads prevail. But the pressure from the White House and its online echo chamber is intense, and their claims that this is just a “sensible voter ID law” are nowhere close to the truth. This is a law designed to suppress the vote and collect unnecessary sensitive personal data on Americans. While polls show Republicans and Democrats alike distrust how the government handles personal data, we should be more concerned about why the federal government wants to collect this data and what it intends to do with it.

Most people already understand the bureaucratic nightmare this bill creates for women, low-income voters, naturalized citizens, and anyone whose documents aren’t perfectly aligned. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have an unexpired passport, a Real ID, and — after six months of delays and a Pennsylvania legislator’s intervention — a certified birth certificate. I’ve never changed my name, so I avoided that obstacle. But I’ve helped friends track down marriage and divorce records, and I know how hard this will be for millions of people.

While I can ensure I have my documents, I can’t prepare for the forced exposure of my personal data to government agencies and contractors – and what they might do with it. This law requires states to transmit entire voter‑registration rolls to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on a monthly basis so DHS can run every registrant through the SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) immigration‑status database. According to the law, DHS then reports back to states the registrations that SAVE failed to verify, after which the states have 45 days to remove these names from their rolls.

While using the SAVE database for verification is unnecessary and costly, the database itself is faulty. Created in 1986 under the Immigration Reform and Control Act for citizenship checks on public benefits applicants, it often flagged naturalized citizens as ineligible. Those same problems – and others – persist today.

A Data Grab Disguised as Election Security

The bill requires the provision of sensitive identification data such as the last four digits of Social Security numbers and Real ID numbers to the federal government – active credentials that can be used to access and alter voter-registration files or unlock other private accounts. The bill would create an official government database that consolidates these passkeys and requires monthly updates to federal agencies, multiplying the risk of misuse, mishandling, and intentional manipulation.

Several state attorneys general have successfully blocked DOJ demands for voter data, citing state privacy laws and arguing the requests exceed the National Voter Registration Act’s (NVRA) authority. The SAVE America Act would override these rulings and allow DOJ and DHS to demand this personal data without a judicial subpoena.

Further, the administration is reportedly also considering an executive order compelling banks to collect citizenship information from both new and existing customers, posing challenges for U.S. citizens who may not have proof of citizenship readily available.

DHS and Department of Defense (DoD) contractor Palantir has been given access to private data on Americans to combine with government data and feed into algorithms that assist federal law-enforcement targeting operations. If this sounds far-fetched, consider that the Secretary of Defense and the President publicly attacked AI firm Anthropic for refusing to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens.

And there is a history of misuse and mishandling of sensitive personal information by this administration. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers mishandled millions of people’s social security data and DHS illegal access to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data.

Privacy Violation and Grave Risk for Misuse

The SAVE America Act is not a voter verification bill but a means to suppress millions of eligible voters and authorize federal agencies — with proven records of misusing and mishandling data — to collect, store, and use sensitive personal information.

This bill trades our privacy for a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist and for a purpose that appears far more nefarious. If our Social Security numbers, tax data, Real IDs, banking information, and voting records are consolidated into government databases and shared with contractors for undisclosed purposes, we can reasonably assume the information is not intended for election security. We cannot assume input auditing and ethical oversight.

We should question the motives of those who support this legislation and hold them accountable.

Our Virginia Senators have blocked the SAVE America Act and will likely do the same for the harsher Senate Make Elections Great Again bill. But we should hold Virginia’s five Republican Representatives accountable for supporting the SAVE America Act. We must support state legislation that protects data privacy (Government Data Collection and Dissemination) and our ability to easily challenge wrongful voter purges (Voter Purges). Check your voter registration status regularly and request a provisional ballot if wrongly removed. Encourage Virginia’s Attorney General work to continue defending state constitutional authority over elections and protecting citizen privacy from federal overreach.

Representative Jen Kiggans (R, VA-2) has made her priorities painfully clear: when forced to choose between Donald Trump and the health care needs of Virginians, she chooses Trump every time. Her voting record shows a pattern of decisions that put families, seniors, veterans, and working people in her district at risk—despite her own public acknowledgments of the harm these policies would cause.

More than 300,000 Virginians statewide rely on Affordable Care Act subsidies to pay for their health insurance — yet Rep. Kiggans voted twice to end those subsidies, even after publicly admitting in December 2025 that failing to extend them would be devastating. “I have 40,000 people in my district who rely on this health care, and doing nothing to prevent a spike in their premiums is wrong,” she said.

Those 40,000 ACA subsidy recipients in Virginia’s 2nd District are now facing higher premiums because Kiggans allowed the subsidies to expire. Her vote has already caused premiums to skyrocket for families in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and the Eastern Shore—people already struggling with rising costs. Many have been pushed off their plans entirely, leaving them uninsured or forced into medical debt.

Her votes on Medicaid are just as damaging. Earlier this year, Kiggans supported a Republican budget package that included $625 billion in Medicaid cuts over a decade. She knew exactly what these cuts meant; she had previously acknowledged that reductions to Medicaid “threaten the viability of hospitals, nursing homes, and safety‑net providers.” Yet she still voted for the legislation backed by Trump and Republican leadership that would slash Medicaid services nationwide. Taken together, her votes jeopardize coverage for more than 100,000 constituents, including children, seniors in long‑term care, people with disabilities, and working families who cannot afford private insurance. For those families, this isn’t a partisan debate in Washington. It’s a question of whether their local hospital stays open and whether they can afford to see a doctor.

The consequences are already visible across the district. On the Eastern Shore, Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital—the only hospital for miles—has warned that Medicaid cuts threaten the financial stability of rural hospitals that depend on Medicaid reimbursements to stay open. In Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, where ACA enrollment is among the highest in the state, the loss of subsidies means massive premium spikes and thousands losing coverage. Throughout Hampton Roads, hospitals such as Sentara Virginia Beach General, Sentara Norfolk General, and Chesapeake Regional rely heavily on Medicaid funding to maintain emergency rooms, specialty services, and adequate staffing. Cuts of this magnitude mean longer wait times, reduced services, and increased strain on already overburdened providers.

The harm from Rep. Kiggans’ votes is especially severe for veterans, who make up one of the largest populations in her district. Veterans rely on a combination of VA health care, Medicaid, and ACA marketplace plans—and Kiggans voted to undermine all three. Many younger veterans, National Guard members, and military families who are not yet eligible for full VA care depend on ACA marketplace plans to bridge gaps in coverage. Her vote to end ACA subsidies directly raises their premiums.

At the same time, thousands of veterans in her district rely on the Veterans Health Administration for their medical care. Yet Kiggans voted to slash the Veterans Administration (VA) budget and eliminate critical services. Her vote came as the VA announced plans to eliminate thousands of jobs nationwide—positions that provide mental health care, primary care, and specialty services to veterans who have already sacrificed so much. Veterans in Hampton Roads, home to one of the largest military and veteran populations in the country, now face longer wait times and reduced access to care because their representative refused to stand up for them.

The pattern is unmistakable. Whether it’s ACA subsidies, Medicaid funding, or veterans’ health care, Rep. Jen Kiggans consistently votes against the interests of the people she represents. She has chosen political loyalty over the health and well‑being of Virginians—knowing full well the consequences. Families will pay more for insurance. Seniors and people with disabilities will lose access to care. Hospitals and clinics will struggle to stay open. Veterans will face reduced services and longer waits.

Virginians deserve a representative who fights for their health—not one who sacrifices their constituents interests to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces.

The last time Democrats held the majority in Congress, they passed a corporate alternative minimum tax as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (H.R. 5376). It required the wealthiest corporations making over $1 billion a year to pay 15% in taxes.

Then Project 2025 was released. Its architects call it “A Promise to America.” The numbers tell a different story.

Trump and his allies in Congress got to work following the playbook’s hurry-up offense. In the first months of 2025, thousands of government employees were abruptly laid off, a hint of what was to come. They rolled back the Biden era corporate minimum tax, slashed funding for social programs, and expanded defense and immigration enforcement spending — all while promising prosperity for the middle class. On July 4, 2025, Trump signed into law a sweeping, misnamed piece of legislation dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill” — legislation projected to benefit the richest one-fifth of Americans.

It may be the only law he has no interest in breaking.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) slashed billions of dollars from social programs that support everyday Americans: Medicaid, education, healthcare, nutrition assistance, childcare, scientific research, and more. Those billions were redirected to grossly inflate defense spending ($150 billion), border enforcement and deportations ($150 billion), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE’s budget alone is projected to grow from roughly $10 billion to more than $100 billion by 2029, making it the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency.

There were, of course, billions more in savings to permanently extend tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy originally signed into law by Trump in 2017 and set to expire in 2025, one of his signature campaign promises. All of this financial trickery and corruption will balloon the deficit over the next 10 years to roughly $4.1 trillion. Trump even tried to illegally claw back funds already appropriated by Congress. States sued and won.

One of the largest tax cuts in the entire One Beautiful Bill Act is in the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA). The measure would divert billions each year from public education to fund school vouchers for private K-12 schools — advancing a core goal of Project 2025: abolishing the Department of Education.

The ECCA is supported by House and Senate Republicans as a way to expand school choice. Democrats and organizations like the National Education Association (NEA) oppose it — and school voucher programs more broadly — arguing that they deplete funding for our public schools.

Certified nonprofit Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGO) would administer the voucher program. Individuals could donate up to $1,700 to an SGO and receive a 100% tax credit, provided they have tax liability.

The House version of the ECCA capped the annual tax credit at $5 billion. In the final version, however, the Senate removed the spending cap, giving eligible contributors an unprecedented dollar for dollar tax credit. If 59 million taxpayers — about 43% — took advantage of the credit, the cost to the federal government would be about $101 billion per year.

An examination of IRS records by The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy indicates that more than 138 million people could take full advantage of this credit. The program would begin in 2027.

States may opt into the ECCA, extending similar tax benefits to their own taxpayers. Experts at the Education Law Center have cautioned states to avoid participating in this program. Some Democratic governors have said they will not opt in, while others are waiting for regulations, expected to be issued by the Treasury Department in 2026.

I tried to dig deeper into the status of Project 2025 policies. But when I clicked on the “Understand the Stakes Impact Analysis” link under “What is Project 2025?” I was met with a password prompt. So much for transparency.