Trump’s war – A look at DOGE cuts, court rulings, and decades of culture-war battles shaping today’s fight over DEI, education, and federal arts funding.
Donald Trump’s pushback on what critics call “wokeness” may sound like a brand-new crusade, but it has deep roots in U.S. political fights over education, culture and federal arts policy.
The second time Trump took office. his agenda was described as sweeping—tariffs and retribution against political opponents were central priorities—but another set of plans quickly came into focus: the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency.. Employees tied to DOGE were tasked with shutting down programs and even entire agencies as part of a pledge aimed at saving the country trillions.. The promise was revised downward over time. and it was later determined that the final goal of $150 billion was not met.
DOGE’s footprint did not vanish when high-profile tech-linked personnel departed after what was described as a brief falling out with the president.. Even as those individuals moved on. the cuts they helped drive remained—an enduring reminder of how government policy can outlast the people who originally promoted it.
The policy also ran into courts.. Some lower federal courts ruled against DOGE in lawsuits brought by different parties.. But the Supreme Court intervened with its so-called “rocket docket. ” reversing decades of ordinary procedure and allowing the administration’s approach to proceed while the cases continued to work their way through the system.. The practical effect. the report notes. was that by the time the matters reached the Supreme Court. there might be little left to restore.
One of the most consequential fights involved the National Endowment for the Humanities.. The conservative majority now may also be forced to decide whether to overturn a May 7 ruling by U.S.. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon, who found that DOGE did not have the authority to cancel NEH grants.. McMahon’s decision said DOGE violated the First Amendment and the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. describing the case as a “textbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination” in how grants were canceled.
According to deposition testimony from two of the tech workers involved. their instructions were to cut anything that could be understood as related to diversity. equity and inclusion. or anything they believed might increase the debt.. The report says they instructed ChatGPT to determine which items met those standards. but crucially they did not clearly define how the term should be interpreted.
Evidence cited in the lawsuit pointed to a process in which DOGE—specifically ChatGPT acting under those instructions—made the decisions about what to cut. while staff delivered a list to the acting head of the NEH.. The report characterizes that acting official as following orders.. McMahon, in that framework, concluded DOGE exceeded its authority and ordered the government to reinstate the canceled grants.
The dispute over federal humanities grants is being portrayed not as an isolated technical case, but as the latest chapter of an older cultural struggle. The report argues that while the slogans and acronyms have changed, the conflict itself stretches back decades.
In that telling, what many now call “woke” was previously framed as “PC,” or political correctness.. DEI, the report says, echoes earlier controversies over affirmative action and multiculturalism.. It also points to influential right-wing media voices from earlier eras—specifically Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan—as contributors to how those labels were popularized and weaponized against Democrats in discussions about threats to the “fabric” of American life.
The NEH and its sister agency. the National Endowment for the Arts. have long sat at the center of these battles.. The NEA’s grantmaking became a flashpoint starting in the 1980s, with conservatives—including Sen.. Jesse Helms. R-N.C.—targeting funding of works such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photography and Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ. ” which features a plastic crucifix submerged in urine.
That era also included controversies over individual artists.. The report notes that the “NEA Four”—Karen Finley. Holly Hughes. John Fleck and Tim Miller—had grants rescinded in the late 1980s and early 1990s over work exploring LGBTQ+ themes.. It says that controversy helped produce a shift toward awarding grants to organizations rather than individuals.
The report further ties NEH’s institutional history to the culture-war politics of reading and curriculum.. Lynne Cheney. wife of then-future Vice President Dick Cheney. led the NEH from 1986 to 1993 and devoted her tenure to resisting changes conservatives believed undermined proper academic standards.. She pressed for students—from kindergarten through university—to be taught a curriculum she described as grounded in the Western canon and centered on traditional white American patriots.
After leaving NEH, Cheney continued what the report describes as her campaign.. In 1994. it says she wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “The End of History. ” criticizing the National History Standards she had commissioned as head of the NEH.. She described them as biased against figures she viewed as “great Americans. ” while elevating figures such as Harriet Tubman and focusing—at least in her view—on episodes like the Ku Klux Klan and McCarthyism.
The report also links that push to radio commentary that helped expand the culture-war framework into mainstream politics.. It describes Limbaugh’s increasingly popular show as arguing that American children were being indoctrinated with political correctness. and portraying college campuses as environments where liberal conformity prevailed at the expense of conservative ideas.
More recently, the report points to political and family irony at the center of the story.. It says Cheney’s husband and eldest daughter Liz—both associated with prominent Never Trump politics—endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.. It notes that while Lynne Cheney’s preferences were not publicly stated. her family typically acted in tandem. and it argues there is a certain resonance in how groundwork laid in the earlier years is now being used in support of dismantling the institution Cheney once led.
Beyond grant disputes, the report describes the broader theme as extending into museums and education.. It says Trump has bullied the Smithsonian into changing its exhibits. and that the administration directed the remaining Department of Education actions to stop “woke” and DEI curricula—an effort the courts have since ruled unconstitutional.
The report also says Trump has been preparing a new public-history project: a “Garden of Heroes” in Washington. D.C.’s West Potomac Park featuring statues of historical figures handpicked by the president.. It notes that Martin Luther King Jr.. is included, while suggesting the accompanying narrative will likely emphasize a particular framing chosen by the administration.
In Florida, Gov.. Ron DeSantis is portrayed as pushing similar ideas into state-level education policy.. The report says his government has overhauled Florida’s curriculum to align with the reactionary worldview described in the piece. including banning books in large numbers.. It also says New College of Florida. described as a liberal arts institution. was taken over by right-wing forces. with conservative faculty and staff hired and a Republican activist president and board leadership moving to “de-woke” the campus.
The report adds that Florida created an alternative to the Advanced Placement History course that reportedly emphasizes the founders’ Protestant faith. argues the U.S.. Constitution is an antislavery document, and recommends a textbook designed to build patriotism, according to coverage cited in the report.
Taken together. the account frames today’s federal courtroom battles—over DOGE’s authority and the cancellation of NEH grants—as the newest implementation of an argument that has followed U.S.. politics for decades.. In that view. the shift from earlier culture-war terminology to today’s language is less a change of direction than a change of costume. even as the targets now include federal arts and humanities funding. national education guidance. and how Americans are taught to interpret their history.
The report closes by arguing that the modern movement’s ideas about history and identity have become intertwined with the president’s grievances against Democrats. and it raises the question of where these “daft and dangerous ideas” originated—linking them back to earlier culture-war efforts that helped reshape the Republican Party into the kind of politics the report says now dominates Trump-era governance.
Misryoum
Trump DOGE NEH grants ruling Supreme Court rocket docket DEI curriculum battles cultural war in America Ron DeSantis education overhaul