America Becomes Outraged Only When It’s Too Late

If this country had believed Trump the first time and understood Project 2025, this wouldn’t be our reality

By Carron J. Phillips

Besides slavery, America’s greatest sin is that it has always given America the benefit of the doubt, despite never having earned it.

The Supreme Court’s decision last week to demolish the Voting Rights Act was just the latest evil and undemocratic act from this court, administration, and regime. The VRA now joins affirmative action and DEI as all but eradicated. And, predictably, more will follow.

(White House photo)

Louisiana and Alabama are delaying primary elections so that districts and voting areas can now be cherry-picked, rigged, and gerrymandered to grant advantages to Republicans and Trump supporters. The elected officials who make trifling annual social media posts on MLK Day are dismantling his legacy. It’s all part of a larger, decades-long scheme to return the country to a place in which Black Americans and other people of color and women (of all genders) are systemically disenfranchised.

A historic drop in the number of Black representatives in Congress is expected. “The Callais requirements have thus laid the groundwork for the largest reduction in minority representation since the era following Reconstruction,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones said it’s an attack on democracy. “Once you change the maps, simply telling people to vote cannot overcome that,” she said on MSNOW. “There aren’t enough people who can organize to overcome this type of hyper-gerrymandering.”

“Even if majorities of Americans decide that they want to elect a Congress that will reinstate the Voting Rights Act, or change the Voting Rights Act, their votes are not going to count enough to do that,” she explained.

However, as infuriating as the SCOTUS decision was to push this country back to a period before the 1960s, a coincidence in the timing of the ruling is even more devastating. The ruling was issued just one day before the second anniversary of Donald Trump’s TIME magazine interview in which he explicitly outlined what would happen if he were elected again.

It reads:

Trump told me … he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

America loves to ignore warning signs but still be outraged at an outcome that was known.

This is just the latest example.

From the belief that the South/Confederacy would morally evolve after the Civil War without being held accountable for seceding to Reagan’s “trickle-down” economics and Nixon’s Southern Strategy, history has repeatedly shown how people delude themselves. Don’t forget about the 53% of white women, the Latinos for Trump, and those of the Muslim faith who thought they would be somehow protected this second time around. We cannot leave out the millions who refuse to go to the polls because they believe their vote/voting doesn’t matter, and third-party voters who waste ballots on unserious candidates who would never be able to accomplish anything anyway, thanks to the structure of the House and Senate. History is rife with examples of people thinking they would be the exception to the rule, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

“This did not happen all at once. For years, this court — beginning with Roberts in the awful Shelby County decision — chipped away at the Voting Rights Act — decision by decision,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer noted.

America is a nation of “glass half-full” people who recognize that their water sources are dwindling yet don’t raise the alarm until they are already dying of thirst. Sadly, this “mentality” isn’t beholden to a particular race, gender, socioeconomic status, or educational level. American politics regularly disappoint because Americans have never fully accepted how America works. Before the Voting Rights Act was the target, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” was weaponized to advance the right’s agenda. Before that, “Roe v. Wade” was attacked. Next, it could be same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and desegregated schools.

For Black Americans, the historical victims of these evils, there’s always been a sense of distrust with how this country operates, given our centuries of experiences. However, our historical cynicism and institutional wariness don’t grant us immunity. In 2005, the late Rev. Jesse Jackson stressed the importance of the VRA and its fragility at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention, 21 years before it was shattered. In 2024, actress Taraji P. Henson pleaded with the audience and the viewers of the BET Awards to “Pay attention” because “Project 2025 plan is not a game.” And just a few weeks ago, Kamala Harris told attendees at the National Action Network convention in New York that Trump’s SAVE America Act is a “poll tax” while predicting the Supreme Court’s recent actions.

“Part of this shell game they’ve been playing includes closing the place where your mother and your grandmother always voted,” Harris explained while using the voter suppression methods in Fulton County , Georgia, as an example. “So that on Election Day she’s going to that local elementary school to find out it’s not a polling place any longer. So let’s do some of the work right now.”

Michael Podhorzer@Mike_Podhorzer

Black voter participation soared after the VRA passed in 1965. But not until 1992, after Congress strengthened the VRA to require majority-minority districts, did we approach proportional Black representation in Congress. Because Black votes finally counted more in the South.

6:47 PM · Apr 30, 2026 · 9.63K Views

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As Trump’s approval ratings continue to sink, and figures like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene begin to apologize for supporting this administration and its lack of humanity and taking part in this crude brand of divisive politics, now is the time to realize that Trump’s hints of a third term should be taken seriously.

Trump 2028 isn’t propaganda; it is a preemptive campaign slogan. Republicans tip their pitches because they know Americans will ignore the signs.

Carron J. Phillips is an award-winning journalist who writes on race, culture, social issues, politics, and sports. He hails from Saginaw, Michigan, and is a graduate of Morehouse College and Syracuse University. Follow his personal Substack to keep up with more of his work.

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