Ever since our forebearers declared American independence 250 years ago, our nation has been rooted in the Rule of Law, not the rule of kings. As such, in our representative form of democracy, “We the People” hold the ultimate political power and our rights come before the state.
Yet, as Benjamin Franklin cautioned just after the US Constitution was signed, our republic (yes, we are both a democracy and a republic) will only endure “if we can keep it.” Simply put, freedom is never free. For our democratic way of life to be sustained, each of us must be well informed, not lose faith that we can change things through our vote and above all else, not take for granted the rights and freedoms our democracy makes possible.
It is true that the word democracy was neither mentioned in the Declaration of Independence nor the US Constitution. Yet the opening words of the Preamble to the Constitution, “We the People of the United States,” reflect the fundamental principle of democracy – that the will of the people provides the legitimacy for our system of government and our laws. Thus, protecting democracy is not a form of partisan politics; it is how we stop oppression; fight extremism; maintain a free press; and ensure that citizens have the right to vote, free speech, assembly, religion, and petition the government.
Even more significantly, our democracy is the framework for literally every right we hold dear. And the reality is many freedoms and programs that Americans depend upon are now being curtailed. In fact, in the first 9 months of Donald Trump’s second term as President, his administration implemented more than half the recommendations included in Project 2025, the 900-page blueprint developed by conservative groups to downsize the federal government, change the tax system, end foreign aid to poor countries, force the deportation of millions of immigrants, and rescind policies on climate change, reproductive care, gender equality, and critical programs affecting the health status of many Americans, including young children.
While it is depressing to catalogue how much has changed for Americans in such a short period of time, the future depends on understanding the present. Here is a snapshot of 10 ways that Americans are worse off and why.
- Women’s Reproductive Rights
Project 2025 calls for criminalizing abortion and banning conception procedures like IVF. As of now, 41 states ban abortion to some extent, and 13 states have total bans. The result is young girls who are raped and become pregnant face the prospect of a forced birth with severe repercussions; women can die from an ectopic pregnancy (when a fertilized egg develops in the fallopian tube); and there are more infant death rates when women experience life-threatening complications and cannot end their pregnancies until they develop severe infection, or the fetal heartbeat stops. Another consequence is maternity care deserts where no hospital or clinic offers obstetric care because OB-GYNs are leaving states with abortion bans due to legal threats and not being able to provide care they know their patients need.
- Access to Contraception
In April 2026 the Trump Administration posted new guidance for health clinics that provide reproductive services to millions of low-income women that promotes “natural family planning methods,” such as period tracking apps, over hormonal birth control and informing clinics they must “end diversity, equity and inclusion” activities. - Less Available and Unaffordable Healthcare
On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the largest health care cuts in history, eliminating $1 trillion in funding for Medicaid and the ACA state insurance exchanges. The impact is staggering. Starting with Americans needing medical treatment, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 15 million will lose their health coverage, meaning many will forgo care. Moreover, because lack of Medicaid funding puts a financial strain on the hospitals, nursing homes, and community health centers that treat uninsured people, costs will go up and many institutions will close. Already, a March 2026 analysis finds that 446 hospitals serving 6.6 million patients are at high risk of closing or reducing services while the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform warns that 700 rural hospitals could close, representing a third of all rural hospitals. - More Americans at Risk of Disease Outbreaks
People need vaccines to protect them from infectious diseases like polio, measles, and now Covid-19. Yet, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. continues his anti-scientific crusade, making false claims about risks, putting skeptics on the CDC advisory panel, and challenging vaccine recommendations. As one example, the new CDC panel ended routine immunization for Hepatitis B at birth, even though vaccination reduced infections by 95% since 1991. The repercussions are many: some vaccines, like for Covid-19, are harder to get; more Americans go unvaccinated; and infectious diseases that were thought to be eliminated, like measles, are returning. As of May 2026, there have been 1,842 confirmed measles cases in the US and 113 people have been hospitalized. Almost all, or 92%, of those infected were unvaccinated. - Upending Public Education
Today the US ranks 12th globally in education, below countries like Denmark, the UK, and Canada. Yet, the Trump Administration is working to put the Department of Education (DOE) and the Head Start program on life support, while also blocking funding for public schools that serve low-income students. Legally, only Congress can end the DOE, but Trump’s team did the next best thing by cutting $900 million in contracts for research projects and services used by schools, gutting offices responsible for sending funds sent to states, and firing 50% of DOE’s employees in March and another 20% in October 2025. Similarly, Trump’s team cut 60% of the staff and closed five of the 10 Head Start regional offices that provide early education to 22 states while proposing a 27% cut in funding for low-income schools, including for afterschool and summer programs, mental health programs and teacher support. DOE also cancelled $350 million in grants in 2025 to colleges that serve Black, Native, Hispanic, and Asian American students, claiming that they were discriminatory. - No Longer Investing in Science
As soon as President Trump took office, his team took an axe to already-funded grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and at the National Science Foundation (NSF), two of the largest supporters of scientific research in the US. A total of 5,844 NIH grants and 1,996 NSF grants were cancelled or suspended almost overnight. At the same time, federal science agencies lost about 20% of their staff in 2025 – nearly 95,000 employees – and the administration banned agencies from funding grants with a connection to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The consequence of defunding science affects every American. According to research published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, over 74,000 people taking part in NIH-funded clinical trials had to stop treatment with new therapies for cancer, heart disease and other serious conditions. Even if the funding situation improves, researchers expect repercussions for decades to come.
- Global Health Funding
When the Trump Administration closed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2025, HIV clinics closed in South Africa and numerous programs tackling malnutrition and preventable diseases ended around the world. According to a new study, the toll for these closings is an additional 9.4 million deaths by 2030. Yet, the cost will be higher. The administration will divert $2 billion meant for global health programs to pay contractors owed when the administration closed USAID. Experts estimate 121,000 more preventable deaths from tuberculosis, and at least 47,600 preventable deaths from malaria due to this loss of funds. - Environmental Protections
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the nation has made significant progress in reducing pollution, cleaning up waterways, and improving air quality, driven by the creation of the EPA and laws like the Clean Air Act. Yet, due to the repeal of the “endangerment finding,” the legal foundation for all federal climate regulations, all these gains are being erased. Since January 2025, the Trump Administration has launched 66 actions to roll back or weaken environmental policies, starting by announcing a “national energy emergency” to increase coal and oil production, reopening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, withdrawing from international climate agreements, downsizing the National Weather Service, and cutting 23% of the EPA workforce by July 2025. This has been followed by what EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin calls “the biggest deregulatory action in US history,” which includes ending electric vehicle (EV) policies, repealing limits on carbon dioxide from vehicles, and plans to repeal health standards for four of six toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” found in drinking water. Environmental scientists say the outcome will be far-reaching now and for future generations as everyone pays the price for more climate-related hurricanes, floods, and droughts as well as increased air and water pollution. - Mass Deportation
Project 2025’s goal is to roundup at least 11 million immigrants, put them in detention camps, and then deport them in massive numbers. Yet, it is the cruelty, violence and cost of President Trump’s promise of a historic “mass deportation” of immigrants that is so disturbing. In the administration’s first year, 675,000 people were deported by ICE and 2.2 million self-deported, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Yet, because Trump promised to deport 1 million people a year and hold at least 99,000 people a day in custody, the plan is to spend an estimated $38.3 billion to acquire warehouses across the country and retrofit them into new immigration detention centers to boost detention capacity to 92,000 beds. A year ago, around 37,000 people were being held in immigration detention across the nation, according to ICE data. That number jumped to more than 72,000 by the end of January 2026. As the numbers increase, detainees and advocates say ICE detention centers subject people to inhumane conditions, inedible food, abuse, and inadequate medical care. - Museums and Natural Historical Sites
The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum complex, with 21 museums and the National Zoo. Similarly, there are 84 national historical parks, spread across the country. Collectively, these sites attract hundreds of millions of visitors each year and play an important role in educating Americans about US history. Up until the Trump Administration, there was no attempt to interfere with the information on signs and exhibits but now, an executive order restricts what these museums and historic sites can say about race, racism, slavery, women’s rights and achievements, and the inequities in US history. Thus, the White House is reviewing Smithsonian exhibits while the Department of the Interior has placed signs with QR codes at all 433 National Park Service parks and battlefields so visitors can report anything they perceive as negative. The Park Service also required staff to report items from exhibits or gift shops, including books on slavery and the Civil War, that should be removed. In response to these developments, historians quote the American philosopher George Santayana who warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The Trump Administration’s implementation of Project 2025 extends well beyond reproductive rights, healthcare, education, climate change, and immigration. It brings Christian nationalist ideology into the mainstream and places political control above individual freedoms. In short, it is a stark warning that democracy in the United States is under threat. If we fail to act, many of the rights central to our democratic way of life will be lost.