Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
I was recently introduced to a poem that reminded me of the bravery of those testifying before the Jan 6 select committee. As Rep. Liz Cheney pointed out, especially the women. Here’s the poem:
“Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous, is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.” -David Whyte
My work to improve our nation feels this way to me. As a nation, we are at a crossroads. We can continue to improve our nation. Or we can give in and give up. Will we have the courage to correct our course?
Most people think the government is something other people do. It’s not personal to most Americans – therefore they have no heartfelt participation in it. And yet, as a nation, we are terribly vulnerable to the forces of division and authoritarians.
Normally we talk about courage as acting despite our fear. This observation about courage being the conscious recognition of our vulnerability, and living with the consequences, seems more personal. In this era of likely or probable political violence, stepping forward to take a stand, to protect our institutions, to call out our institutions, etc. is an act of courage. Think of the courage required for those in the former administration to testify publicly, under oath. Without exception, they’ve recognized and accepted their vulnerability and will live with the consequences for the sake of our nation. For the sake of all of us.
If the local and federal government represents the collective of us and our social contract, what do the actions of our municipal bodies, state legislatures and Congress say about who we are? At best, our governance shows how dysfunctional we are – stuck in a bad marriage and unable to divorce. At worst, it shows a cruel heart that disparages those who need help, because they are not self-reliant.
As in previous generations, our societal turmoil is a symptom of an underlying disease that develops from a broken social contract. We’ve witnessed hypocrisy, corruption and the resulting nihilism has made us selfish; each wanting our own way, regardless of the harm caused to others. Fueled by disinformation, grifters and wannabe kings, many among us believe that turning to authoritarians, theocracy or fascism will keep the world as it was. It won’t.
As of today, we still are a functioning democracy. We can still elect pro-democracy candidates to represent us. Or we can elect authoritarians who will strip away the protections of democracy, one by one.
If we elect authoritarians, we will follow a predictive pattern. Protections will first be removed from those who are “othered” by the ruling class. And as each successive protection is removed, power is concentrated within a smaller and smaller group of people – the privileged. Until they are not. Is this the future we want? Either we are all free, or none of us are free.
Change is our only guarantee. And if we can collectively decide what we want our future to be, we can then plan to make it so. I want a free and open society for my future. For that future, I’m choosing to fully participate in its co-creation. Like those before me, I’ll speak truth to power. I’ll work the election. I’ll engage with people different from myself and recognize our common humanity. I’ll vote for pro-democracy candidates. How will you measure your courage?
What do you want? And what will you do to get it?
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.