In the 1978 film “Superman,” the hero performs many impossible feats, including traveling backward in time by flying around Earth at super speed. President Trump, who seems to fancy himself an all-powerful “Super President,” appears eager to go back in time as well, in an effort to return America to “the good old days” of his youth.
Trump was born in 1946, eight years after Superman made his comic book debut. Discrimination based on race, sex and other characteristics was widespread and legal. Most schools taught children a whitewashed version of America’s story, glossing over racism and largely ignoring the achievements of people of color. Movies usually portrayed Black people as slaves, servants, cowards, criminals or buffoons.
Consequently, “the good old days” for Trump — born rich, white and male — were “the bad old days” for many people of color, women, gay and transgender individuals and those not born to wealth and privilege. Obstacles to advancement facing these Americans — among them my Black parents — were far greater than they are today.
Trump grew up at a time when white men dominated the ranks of most professions and elected offices far more than they do now. Only about 34 percent of women were in the workforce in 1950, compared with 57 percent today.
Key civil rights laws were not enacted until Trump was in his late teens and 20s. They include the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which together outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin in federally funded programs, employment, public accommodations, voting and housing.
America has made great progress to become a more just and equitable society since Trump was born. But now the president is sparing no effort to roll back that progress and harm millions of Americans.
Trump is obsessed with ending programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. He has falsely denounced diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI programs as illegal discrimination against white people and men, when in truth they simply open the doors to the American dream a little wider to take advantage of the talents of all Americans.
Trump’s Department of Education is investigating more than 50 universities for their DEI programs and has cut billions of dollars in federal funding to higher education, prompting schools to end DEI efforts in hopes of restoring aid.
Trump has halted DEI programs in the federal government and demanded a halt to DEI in the private sector. The Republican majority on the Federal Communications Commission required that Paramount (parent company of CBS) and the movie studio Skydance agree to not operate DEI programs as a condition for approving the companies’ $8 billion merger.
The president seems to believe that white Americans — particularly white men — are hired for jobs based on merit, while many people of color and women are less qualified and get into college and jobs primarily because of DEI. He has forced highly qualified federal officials and members of the military who are not white men out of their jobs. Trump fired the chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, a Black man, after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vowed to end DEI in the military and claimed Brown placed a higher priority on DEI than on the effectiveness of the armed forces.
The first women to head the Coast Guard and the Navy were both forced out of their jobs, as were women who served as the senior military assistant to Hegseth and the head of the Defense Health Agency.
Trump successfully pushed Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, to resign after denouncing her as “a strong supporter of DEI” and fired Carla Hayden, the first woman and first Black person to head the Library of Congress.
The president and the Republican-controlled Congress have turned back the clock on American progress in many other ways. The White House launched a program designed to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants, reminiscent of Operation Wetback, which deported an estimated 1 million people to Mexico in 1954, including some who were in the U.S. legally.
The administration is seeking to increase U.S. oil, natural gas and coal production, along with nuclear power generation, by reducing environmental protection regulations imposed starting in the 1970s. Trump and Congress have also cut federal support for renewable energy programs enacted under the Biden administration. Trump has called global warming a Chinese hoax designed “to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
The White House and Congress eliminated all $1.1 billion in previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was created under a law enacted in 1967 to help fund PBS, NPR and their member stations. The Corporation soon announced that it would be shuttering.
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It is understandable that Trump has fond memories of growing up rich in a world of white male privilege before most Americans alive today were born. But nostalgia should not drive public policy.
Our country has achieved greatness because — until now — our leaders have been focused on the future, rather than fixated on recreating the days of their youth.
Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of Superman traveling back in time was great entertainment. But it was fantasy. We need a president who accepts reality and works to build an inclusive and equitable future for everyone in our diverse population.
A. Scott Bolden is an attorney, NewsNation contributor, former chair of the Washington, D.C. Democratic Party and a former New York state prosecutor.
