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In the U.S., we are reeling from this first week of the Trump presidency. It has been filled with actions that affect all of U.S. life, specifically targeting the most vulnerable here, and in some cases across the world.
Some examples are: dramatic anti-immigration moves including proclaiming a state of emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border; declaring that the federal government will recognize only two genders, male and female, thereby defying science and dramatically affecting the lives of transgender, non-binary and other LGBTIQ subjects (1); abolishing longstanding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) provisions in the federal government, closing its DEI offices, thereby destroying decades of advancements for excluded populations (Blacks, indigenous, Latinx (2), Asians, LGBTIQ people, women, people with disabilities); ordering federal employees to report « disguised» continuations of DEI principles (such as when hiring committees voluntarily consider diversifying the workplace to be important) and threatening action against them if they don’t; issuing a blanket pardon to 1500 extreme right-wing activists arrested in the January 6 pro-Trump riot in Washington; pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization; opening previously protected U.S. federal lands for drilling for oil and natural gas with the goal of doubling U.S. energy production; and more.
The list is long, and this is only the beginning. For many people, the actions were surprising and stunningly rapid. Yet, each corresponds to strategies inscribed in an 887-page report: Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership. It was initiated in 2016 and released in 2023. The coordinator was The Heritage Foundation, a far right-wing «think tank».
It has been filled with actions that affect all of U.S. life, specifically targeting the most vulnerable here.
While we generally imagine a think tank to be comprised of academically trained specialists, The Heritage Foundation largely consists of right-wing activist leaders and journalists. Over 400 right-wing authors produced the text. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Project 2025 has nothing to do with him and that he has not even read it. Yet, approximately ¾ of the actions Trump has laid out for his first year in office are drawn directly from it.
A striking example is Trump’s series of policies against immigrants of color. The first phase entails raids to seek out and deport undocumented immigrants who are convicted or simply accused of criminal acts. By way of background, in the U.S. we have «sanctuary cities» where all undocumented immigrants are protected by laws stipulating people cannot be asked for proof of documentation.
In practice, this is already affecting undocumented immigrants who have not been charged or convicted, as they are being rounded up and harassed during the raids. It has also affected other populations, such as indigenous Navajo people who have been caught up in the raids during the second week of Trumps presidency. The situation is increasingly complex.
While undocumented immigrants charged or convicted of a crime are ostensibly the target right now, the government has already warned that any and all undocumented immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally have by definition broken U.S. law and can be evicted. Many pro-immigration academic specialists, legal defense organizations and activists have publicly expressed that they worry that the raids and deportations will be extended to all immigrants regardless of documentation.
The situation is increasingly complex.
Immigrants play a strong economic role, especially in agriculture and service, and contribute to U.S. taxes. Along with the state of emergency, Trump paused the refugee process and shut down an app that immigrants use to make entry appointments for multiple purposes, thereby halting this channel for legal immigration. He authorized anti-immigration raids on sites that were earlier off limits such as schools and churches. He signed an order to end birth right to citizenship; however, it was quickly blocked by a federal judge because it is unconstitutional. It will now be an object of litigation.
Trump designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, thereby giving wider powers to military police during raids and other anti-immigrant actions. The U.S. media are currently filled with images of chained immigrants entering U.S. military aircrafts to be deported.
This attack on immigration can be seen as integral to the colonial, white supremacist, capitalist, sexist and queerphobic vision that Trump and the extreme right have for the U.S (3). It is colonial because the entire U.S. territory was usurped by colonizers and their descendants from its original indigenous inhabitants who were subjected to genocide, land theft, displacement, and more.
Many indigenous people refer to the territory of the U.S. and Canada by its indigenous name: Turtle Island. Ironically, historically the southern U.S. belonged to Mexico, and the majority of Mexicans are mestizos (i.e., mixed with indigenous peoples of this land). Thus, we have a situation where descendants of invaders, of colonizers, are deporting descendants of the original and rightful peoples of the land.
The internalization of this racialized gendered claim is certainly a factor in explaining why a majority of white women voted (again) for Trump.
The Trump anti-immigrant actions draw upon racist and sexist fantasies of Mexican men as homogenously criminal, sexist, overly sexual, and specifically as threatening to white women’s chastity. Indeed, during Trump’s first week in office Republicans proposed a new Act that requires the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to detain undocumented immigrants who have been convicted or accused of theft and other crimes.
The Act is named The Laken Riley Act, after a white woman nursing student murdered by an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had been previously charged with shoplifting. The Act thereby symbolically associates all immigrant violations of U.S. law with murderous violations of white women.
Historically in the U.S. (and elsewhere), the white male claim to being the protectors of white women from men of color has been a mainstay of colonial and racist discourse. It continues to be mobilized to bolster a politics of divide and rule, and white supremacy, by pitting white women against (all) people of color and vice versa.
For example, it shows up quite flagrantly in white women’s false accusations of Black men of sexual assault or rape and has even got the public’s attention throughout the years, as in the well-known cases of The Scottsboro Boys (1931), Emmit Till (1955), Bonnie Sweeten (2012), and a string of more recent cases (4).
The internalization of this racialized gendered claim is certainly a factor in explaining why a majority of white women voted (again) for Trump, a (white) man convicted of sexually assaulting (white) women and whose first week included revoking affirmative action for (all) women.
Paola Bacchetta is Professor and Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She will be writing regularly for Fett about “Trump’s USA” in 2025.

Credit: Greg Bulla
Sources:
(1) The hard sciences show that the reduction of gender to a binary is simplistic, while the social sciences point to the social construction of gender. For example, in sociology there is an entire subfield called the sociology of gender, which includes works that pursue studies of gender and sex beyond the binary. See also:
Claire Ainsworth & Nature Magazine (October 22nd, 2018) «Sex Redefined: The Idea of Two Sexes is overly Simplistic». Scientific American.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and Construction of Sexuality. Basic Books.
Anne Fausto-Sterling (2014) «Nature», i Critical Terms for the Study of Gender, edited by Catharine R. Stimpson & Gilbert Herdt. University of Chicago Press, p. 294-319.
Agustin Fuentes (May 1st, 2023) «Here’s Why Human Sex Is Not Binary: Ova don’t make a woman, and sperm don’t make a man». Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/
(2) According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Latinx is a gender-neutral term referring to someone living in the United States who was born in or has ancestors from Latin America. It is an alternative to the masculine (Latino) and feminine (Latina) forms. The word came into usage in the early 21st century as more people rejected binary categorization of gender and sought greater inclusivity. Latinx is used mainly by feminists, LGBTIQ+ people, and allies (editor’s note). See also: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Latinx
(3) In the U.S. literature on the right, extreme is a way to characterize a political ideology and does not necessarily connote violence. See for example, the classic book I co-edited with Margaret Power is titled Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists around the World (Routledge, 2002).
(4) There is a long literature on this topic. Two pertinent examples, one earlier and another more contemporary, are as follows:
Charles Herbert Stember (1976) Sexual Racism: The Emotional Barrier to an Integrated Society. Elsevier.
Quaylan Allen & Henry Santos Metcalf (2020) «Up to No Good: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Fear of Black Men in US», in Historicizing Fear: Ignorance, Vilification, and Othering, redigert av Travis D. Boyce og Winsome M. Chunnu, p. 19-32. University Press of Colorado. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvwh8d12.4