The Harbinger

Tag: Politics

  • What the White House Website Can Tell Us About America’s Leadership

    What the White House Website Can Tell Us About America’s Leadership

    WhiteHouse.gov is a website run by the current president’s administration, serving as an effective platform to inform citizens about the president, vice president, the people surrounding them, and their goals. This website is also a tool for these officials to share news about the executive branch and it’s actions.

    I’ve taken the occasional glance at WhiteHouse.gov over the past decade, but what I saw in 2025 post-election absolutely baffled me: a trumpwashed, self-righteous website that might as well have been named TrumpIsJesusChristHimself.Gov.

    Every news story centered around Trump, every photo was Trump, and almost definitely, his own bio was written by- you guessed it- trump. And I quote, “Donald J. Trump defines the American success story. Throughout his life he has continually set the standards of business and entrepreneurial excellence, especially in real estate, sports, and entertainment. President Trump built on his success in private life when he entered into politics and public service.”

    Am I reading this right? I can’t be, he’s ran several businesses into the ground. In a Sports History Weekly article titled “When Trump Owned a Football Team,” a timeline of Trump literally destroying the entire US Football League is revealed. They titled him the “Savior gone destroyer.” In the education industry, he operated “Trump University” from 2005-2010, officially having made the learning platform with the shortest lifespan. Not many bought Trump Steaks, which makes sense because I wouldn’t want his meat, either. They probably taste like unseasoned mystery meat recovered from a barrel on a three-hundred year-old pirate ship. On top of that, Not many bought Trump vodka. His magazine failed after two years. His airline was discontinued after some short months.

    Tangeant aside, you get the point. You can tell it’s just propaganda. Has every administration’s whitehouse.gov been blatant, self-centered advertising like this though?

    Let’s take a look at some pages past using the legendary Wayback Machine and truly determine wether or not this website is reflective of an administrations character. Perhaps the Trump administration is extreme and absolutely loves getting itself off, or maybe every President used the website to paint themselves in a heroic light.

    I searched through Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump’s whitehouse.gov website to see what they reflect of each administration. Two republicans, two democrats. Here’s what I found.

    President Bush’s whitehouse.gov

    This is then-president Bush’s White House page dating September 1st, 2002. Aside from the noticable difference in website design and the more bland appearance, what stands out to me is the sheer amount of information that is given. There is no scrolling through several headings searching for information- it is all easily accessible. This administration wastes no time saying what it cares about or what it’s valiant leader stands for, they just show it. There is nothing here but what happened, when it happened, and the facts.

    On that day, Bush gave a speech addressing the nation. I’ve read through it, and the transcript is easily accessible, his speech was expertly worded, and I imagine that if I were living on that day, I’d have gained some confidence and trust through that speech.

    Past that speech, the left bar outlines every policy in view, major speeches Bush and Cheney gave, and some photos that portrayed what they thought important.

    Overall, Bush’s administration centered the page around them- as a white house page should. But surprisingly, they didn’t have to word it any one way. They displayed what the President was doing through action. Straight-to-the-point, easily accessible details. Bush’s administration didn’t super-saturate his accomplishments or beat around the bush ignoring the details, no pun intended. Good website.

    President Obama’s whitehouse.gov

    Succeeding Bush, Obama breathed some new life into the Oval Office. He took an incredibly proactive approach to the presidency, making major legislature happen like the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, and started working on the Afforable Care Act. Lets see if his website reflects that.

    Like Bush’s page, Obama’s administration cuts to the facts. There lists three sections: The Blog, Featured Legislation, and a gateway to more information.

    Reading through some blog posts, it’s written in a very fact-of-the-matter tone. This first post, “A National Discussion on Health Care Reform,” demonstrates Obama’s approach to leadership. He received hundreds of questions about health care reform and, as a president, answers several of the most pressing he received. Obama engaged with the people he was elected to lead, and even after this healthcare discussion continued opening the door for others to engage themselves.

    Under featured legislation is a list of every bill that the President has signed into law. Anyone can go into this list and read through it, looking further into the legislation that is happening in public office. What took me by surprise was the simplicity of it all. Clicking into the bill titled “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” there reads a ONE SENTENCE summary of what is going on with this bill.

    There is no “Bold president Obama signs this beautiful act of legislature to make America better,” it’s simply just a one-sentence fact. That is what you can expect from a solid leader. Obama’s white house page was a credible and effective tool to involve and inform the American people devoid of self-righteousness.

    President Biden’s whitehouse.gov

    Here’s Biden’s page from March 11, 2021. He had just been inaugurated a month prior, and so he takes the WhiteHouse.gov website into his administrations own direction. One thing to keep in mind is that at this time, politics were already getting more extreme. 2020’s election had split a lot of the country into two sides and the most radical of both had taken shape. Misinformation was a constant and the world had just found some relief from the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Despite the chaos at the time, this page is relatively simple. Biden’s inaugural address was front page and to the right of it, many articles about what was happening at the time.

    There isn’t too much to note about it, but what is respectable is the continued trend of facts. Straight details, nothing else. Biden’s White House was a very dependable and credible one.

    President Trump’s whitehouse.gov

    This is the front page of Trump’s White House- the second time. Already, there is absolutely no information on the front page. Simply photos upon photos of Trump.

    Theres even a massive shot of trump in a conference with “THE WORK NEVER STOPS” written over it like its his own cry for help.

    Looking into the bios of his administration, lets see what they have to say about themselves.

    Trump’s own bio is very strongly written with not a single word wasted. “[Trump is returning to the white house to] use his mandate to reject the extremist policies of the radical left…” Not yet have I seen text on the White House page weaponized for the losing party of an election. Bush, Obama, and Biden all kept it unbiased.

    Even more ironically, it’s written that he is “…affording ALL Americans the opportunity to pursure THEIR version of the American dream.” The law firm “Alliance Defending Freedom” is one of the most prominent working in enforcing and creating Christian nationalist law, and surprise, they work with and heavily support Trump. Most policies that Trump has laid out such as banning Transgender people from the military, spreading rhetoric about immigrants, banning travel from Muslim countries, and so on and so forth. He has even equated protestors to white supremacists when confronting the crisis in Charlottesville.

    Trump is certainly against what he is preaching in his bio.

    Moving on, lets take a look at the news section.

    These aren’t news headlines, these are editorial headlines. Opinionated statements. Nearly three of these a day are posted and are listed as fact sheets and news articles.

    In the top article about the One Big Beautiful Bill investing in Rural healthcare, it truly is just straight misinfo. Even the headline is- Rural hospitals aren’t protected in this bill. What this bill does is pull guaranteed funding from them, instead providing money for states to allocate the funding wherever they choose. In this article, it’s written “Rural hospitals only receive 7% of Medicaid hospital spending. Yet, industry leaders and lobbyists continue to cry foul.” That is $283 billion that is being potentially pulled from hospitals, likely resulting in hundreds of hospital shut-downs that some American’s depend on. This “news” story in the websites headlines isn’t actually news, its a faulty fire extinguisher meant to make people feel better about the fire.

    Lets see this next article about ending “child sexual mutilation,” or in sane people words, gender-affirming care. Less than 0.1% of minors in America receive this care, but if its a headline, it must be an important crisis to focus our eyes on. In the article, 17 hospitals across the nation are listed that have either banned or suspended prescribing hormone blockers, sex-change surgery, and/or other operations regarding gender-affirming care.

    According to NBC, “0 [gender-affirming] procedures [have happened] among minors aged 12 years or younger.” 108 minors between 2018 and 2022 had received gender-affirming surgery. According to a study in 2020, about 17,000 minors received hormone blockers or hormonal therapy. That means that 0.0002% of all minors in the U.S. had actually been receiving gender-affirming care. President Trump declared victory after having picked on 0.0002% of children in the United States. What a sad excuse for a leader.

    Trump doesn’t offer actual information on his website. He doesn’t offer insight, the news, messages, input, perspective, nothing. Though he does have a photo gallery! Yippee!

    In conclusion, yes, the White House website is very reflective of a presidential administration. Even back when the internet was less advanced, the website was still used as an efficient platform to help constituents find information and learn about the administration governing them. It directly reflects many things- the formality of a President, modesty, complexity, many things.

  • The Epidemic of Incompetence Within the U.S. Government

    The Epidemic of Incompetence Within the U.S. Government

    As DOGE relentlessly cuts federal  welfare, departmental, and staff spending, its supporters have cheered it on as an effective means to reduce spending. In reality, the so-called “department” has so far done next to nothing to save the U.S. money. Federal spending in Trump’s second term is over $200 billion more than it was at this point in Biden’s presidency- on track to top even Raegan’s catastrophic dent in the national debt. DOGE’s means are not justified for the ends. The means, things like cutting education budget, welfare programs, housing investment, labor reform. And the end; money simply redirected to much worse investments, more borrowing, and citizens left devastated. The Trump administration’s goal is not to save money as it’s perpetrators say it is, but to weaken the power of the nation’s people to dissent.

    This second term is laced with malice, and this paper will cover one of its biggest: the republican party’s epidemic of ignorance. Work as a public servant entails the pursuit of knowledge, intellectual thought, and selflessness. More and more often, however, representatives and senators alike are attending sessions to get, to put it simply, schooled. It’s like a four-year-old preschooler running up to their teacher and saying “grass is blue” and by the time their teacher says “no the fuck it is not, we’re holding you back,” time has already been wasted that could have been used to teach everyone else. 

    Take Kristi Noem for example, the Secretary of Homeland Security who incorrectly stated in a Congress session last week that Habeas Corpus was “the president’s right to remove anybody from the country,” as if we lived in fascism. Her definition is the exact opposite of what Habeas Corpus actually is-criminal justice. That precious and expensive time that Noem held the floor, with many paid congresspeople present, was spent solely on giving her a ninth grade civics lesson. Why waste time like this when it could be much better spent actually getting things done?

    For many voters, qualification is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The expectation of politicians to be well-educated that was once cherished and, essentially, required to even be on the ballot has dissipated. Like Georgia’s 2022 senate race between Walker and Warnock, an incredibly close election between a football star, who more than likely has CTE, and, something just as impressive, a decorated and well-respected reverend with a degree in theology. It was an unbelievably close race between the two. Somehow Walker, who is almost completely unfamiliar with politics, nearly won. This could mean one of two things; voters care more about their party winning than actual logic, or, somehow, Walker brainwashed half of Georgia using a mind control device he built, which, if true, is so impressive maybe it does qualify for him to be a Senate candidate.

    Besides the absence of qualification and lack of basic knowledge about U.S. government functions, most far-right politicians are just not even thinking for themselves. You couldn’t convince me that there is a THING going on in Marjorie Taylor Green’s mind during her town hall meeting last month.

    Green, along with many other trump-backers, has faced Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” with an absolutely terrifying approach.

    When considering a bill, a legislator should know and ponder three things: what the bills is about, it’s details, and the logistics. Regardless of party, affiliation, background, religion, or any other biasing factors, representatives of the people should always, always, read the bill being proposed. You could read a bill about allocating thirty million dollars to squirrels jet-skiing at the Mall of America and if you approve of it? That’s great! As long as we know you know about it. If you approved of it just by looking at the title “Jetskis for Squirrels Act?” Even better! I would too! If you voted yay without knowing shit about what is was or is? That would high-key be a disappointment.

    To everyones surprise, she absolutely did not do either of those things. On June 3rd, she wrote “full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.” In other words, she didn’t read shit. First, how does one just casually mention this? That’s like barreling past a stop sign, ramming into a family of five with your pickup truck, and then saying “full transparency, I didn’t realize there was a massive red fucking stop sign there. Nor did I recognize I was going sixty miles an hour in a neighborhood. My b.”

    Green has her experience of being a conspiracy theorist under her belt and this is the one thing she chooses not to devote time and energy into reading. With her three passed bills this year having been to rename a post office, rename another post office, and unwind energy conservation method in water heaters, it’s more than likely she just wanted something to feel contributive to.

    Green wasn’t the only one to blindly approve of this bill, however. Many other far-right politicians simply skimmed through it, and, surprisingly, it’s not even entirely their fault. The “Big Beautiful Bill” is still in the Senate, having passed the House. This act is over one-thousand pages long, covering an incredibly wide variety of topics mostly unseen by Republican representatives.

    In his recent town hall, Nebraska Senator Mike Flood was pressed about page 562 of the bill, titled “Restriction on Enforcement.” As if that didn’t sound sketchy enough, in it is a severe weakening of the judicial branch. Essentially, if passed, Federal Courts significantly limits the tools available to them to force compliance of those convicted. Court orders lose their threat to violators, opening the door to further undermining of the law from white house administration. Flood, who wasn’t aware of any of that, ultimately apologized and said “when I found out that provision was in the bill, I immediately reached out to my Senate counterparts and told them of my concern.”

    Our leaders need to be knowledgeable, informed, and careful. Green and Flood learned a lesson that day that serves as an unbelievably damaging embarassment to themselves; do your job.

    Without competent and careful representatives and senators, who’s going to hold the executive branch accountable? Trump is aware of his followers negligience, their blind support. Obviously, he is going to take advantage of that. The name “Restriction on Enforcement” itself is a red flag the size of the national debt. A piece written almost exclusively for Trump to dismiss him of his crimes.

    To support does not mean to blindly follow. Healthy checks and balances require the critical attitude of all governmental branches and individuals within them, harshly shaping out one another to make them better. With the ignorant support of representatives and senators who, to put it bluntly, do not have a single original or constructive thought, Trump wins. The executive branch propels itself into full control, and nobody wins.

    In local and state elections, vote for people who display knowledge. Vote for candidates who prove the ability to think for themselves, care for the matter at hand, and more than anything, put their country above their biases.

    “Knowledge is wealth, wisdom is treasure, understanding is riches, and ignorance is poverty” – Matshona Dhliwayo