Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
Just the Facts: Canadian Tariffs

Just the Facts: Canadian Tariffs

Redistricting

Redistricting

people waiting at airport in departure lounge.

Just the Facts: Are FAA Staff Cuts Causing Current Airport Delays?

Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs on stage

Luke Combs, politics and healing our nation's divide

Voter registration

The SAVE Act: Addressing a Non-Existent Problem at the Cost of Voter Access?

Donald Trump

Congress Bill Spotlight: Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day Holiday Establishment Act

I am bossy

woman being bossy
monkeybusinessimages/Getty Images
Debilyn Molineaux
By Debilyn MolineauxDec 21, 2022
Debilyn Molineaux

Debilyn Molineaux serves as the catalyst for the American Future project to help everyday Americans discover and believe in a future that will be "worth it" to work together for the sake of our nation.

Debilyn brings a passion to her work that is contagious to all around her. Hailing from a conservative, agricultural community, Debilyn started her career as a small business owner, working with community businesses to promote and grow their own operations through advertising and marketing. After engaging other women business leaders, Debilyn was inspired to become more active in the political process. Her own personal experiences -- as a small business owner, a local candidate for office, and an elected president of a national organization -- have given her enormous insight into the challenges facing citizens who want to get involved and organizations that want to scale their impact.

Debilyn is a serial entrepreneur, co-founding many organizations and transpartisan projects over her 20+ year career in establishing the democracy ecosystem. She has co-founded the Bridge Alliance, Living Room Conversations and the National Week of Conversation. She formerly was co-publisher of The Fulcrum and continues as advisor for Citizen Connect, Listen First Project, AllSides and other organizations, individuals within the democracy ecosystem.

See More Writings by author

Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

I heard myself talking to one of my male colleagues in a “bossy-mom” voice, as if he were a child who needed instruction. At least, that’s how I sounded to myself. While I cringe and my hackles go up when I am patronized, I never stopped to consider how I may be sounding to others. Do you?

Internally, I don’t feel like a bossy-mom. My intention was to provide efficient instruction so we could take action. Of course, it was recorded. When I played it back, I felt embarrassed that I would ever address a colleague with that tone. Fortunately for me, he knows my heart and doesn’t take offense. Me? I’ll work on it.

I’m a constant work in progress. Within the USA, we are also a work in progress.

Over the last 50-plus years, we’ve had it easier than at any other time in human history. Our quality of life, in aggregate, has improved tremendously. Marketing has driven our economy to new heights – and new degradations, too. What could we have to work on, still?

A couple of ideas come to mind. Notably, accountability for our actions and responsibility for our communities. Where 50-plus years ago we were more connected to places and knew our role within our communities, today many of us enjoy the flexibility to live or visit anywhere. How do we stay connected in a seemingly boundless world? This is what makes us, the citizens of the United States, a work in progress.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

It is time for our role as citizens to evolve; to adapt to 21st century life and changing circumstances. What is needed today for our country to grow? And what citizens must we become? Here’s my list:

  • Caring involvement, especially where we live.
  • Relationships with people different from ourselves.
  • Conflict resolution or mediation skills.
  • Knowing what we want and why we want it.
  • Trust in each other.
  • An attitude of service to others without sacrificing ourselves.
  • Media literacy.
  • Commitment to be an active citizen, from voting to volunteering.

Back to me using my bossy-mom voice – as I reflect on when I’m most likely to use this tone, it’s when I’m impatient. We have so much to do in defending and strengthening our democratic republic that I don’t want to waste time or effort. Our nation is precious – and it’s still child-like in many ways. I am bossy because I want our nation to be better.

We were bequeathed a nation that’s very birth was the ideal of liberty and justice for all. It’s never been fully enacted. It’s time to make it so.

Latest news

Project 2025: Impact on the State Department
Democracy

Project 2025: Impact on the State Department

Democracy Is Not a Given—It’s a Daily Fight
Democracy

Democracy Is Not a Given—It’s a Daily Fight

Nurturing the Next Generation of Journalists
Media & Technology

Nurturing the Next Generation of Journalists

Read More

U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Andrew Harnik

Trump’s First 100 Days on Trial

100 Days, 122 Rulings

Presidents are typically evaluated by their accomplishments in the first 100 days. Donald Trump's second term stands out for a different reason: the unprecedented number of executive actions challenged and blocked by the courts. In just over three months, Trump issued more than 200 executive orders, targeting areas such as climate policy, civil service regulations, immigration, and education funding.

However, the most telling statistic is not the volume of orders but the judiciary's response: over 120 rulings have paused or invalidated these directives. This positions the courts, rather than Congress, as the primary institutional check on the administration's agenda. With a legislature largely aligned with the executive, the judiciary has become a critical counterbalance. The sustainability of this dynamic raises questions about the resilience of democratic institutions when one branch shoulders the burden of oversight responsibilities.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla

Trump 2.0’s Alleged Trifecta Crisis

On July 25, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a radio address to 125 million Americans in which he coined the term “first 100 days.” Today, the 100th day of a presidency is considered a benchmark to measure the early success or failure of a president.

Mr. Trump’s 100th day of office lands on April 30, when the world has witnessed his 137 executive orders, 39 proclamations, 36 memoranda, a few Cabinet meetings, and numerous press briefings. In summary, Trump’s cabinet appointments and seemingly arbitrary, capricious, ad hoc, and erratic actions have created turmoil in the stock market, utter confusion among our international trade partners, and confounded unrest with consumers, workers, small business owners, and corporate CEOs.

Keep ReadingShow less
America’s Liz Truss Problem

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Liz Truss speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on February 20, 2025 in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

Getty Images, Andrew Harnik

America’s Liz Truss Problem

America is having a Liz Truss moment. The problem is that America doesn’t have a Liz Truss solution.

Let me take you back to the fall of 2022 when the United Kingdom experienced its own version of political whiplash. In the span of seven weeks, no less than three Prime Ministers (and two monarchs, incidentally) tried to steer the British governmental ship. On September 6, Boris Johnson was forced to resign over a seemingly endless series of scandals. Enter Liz Truss. She lasted forty-nine days, until October 25, when she too was pushed out the black door of 10 Downing Street. Her blunder? Incompetence. Rishi Sunak, the Conservative Party’s third choice, then measured the drapes.

What most people remember of the Truss premiership is the Daily Star wager that a head of lettuce would last longer than Truss. The lettuce won. But Truss’ stint as Prime Minister—the shortest ever, I should note—holds some lessons for America today.

Keep ReadingShow less
Employees being let go, laid off, fired.
Getty Images, mathisworks

Part One, The Impact of Trump’s Executive Actions: The Federal Workforce

Project Overview

This essay is part of a series by Lawyers Defending American Democracy, explaining in practical terms what the administration’s executive orders and other executive actions mean for all of us. Each of these actions springs from the pages of Project 2025, the administration's 900-page playbook that serves as the foundation for these measures. The Project 2025 agenda should concern all of us, as it tracks strategies adopted by countries such as Hungary, which have eroded democratic norms and have adopted authoritarian approaches to governing.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025