The last couple of months have been a whirlwind.

With the chaos and calamity of the state of the National government revising the long-held Treaty of Waitangi, and homophobic protestors disrupting Pride events. To put it frankly- the world’s going to shit. Here’s a recap of the latest events in the world, and a breakdown of how this affects us and our country.

The first and biggest news of the summer was Donald Trump being elected in for a second term as President of the United States. After his first run, we all thought (and prayed) that there was no way he’d get in again. However a razor thin majority of American’s may be uneducated or gullible.
Since his inauguration, he has been on a roll to overturn laws and bring America back to ‘the good old days’.

To be fair, his inauguration gave the world a pretty good idea of what was to come with one of his billionaire endorsers proudly performing a Nazi salute for the world to see.

Here’s a recap of the orders he has processed so far:

    • Signed an executive order to shut down access nationwide to gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under 19.
    • Created a new advisory body on cutting government
      costs- led by the one and only Elon Musk.
    • Put a halt on federal hiring until the Trump administration has full control of the government.
    • Signed an order to build a missile defense shield named ‘The Iron Dome’.
    • Ordered officials to deny the right to citizenship to children of migrants.
    • Signed off on withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.
    • Signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization.
    • Declared that the US will only recognise two sexes; male and female. This will affect official documents such as passports and visas.
    • Processed an executive order that will restrict access to gender-affirming medical care for minors.
    • Ordered for all offices of diversity, equity and inclusion programmes within the federal government to be shut down.
    • Issued pardons for nearly 1,600 of his supporters who were arrested after the Capitol riot.
    • Pardoned twenty- three prolife protestors.
    • Pardoned the creator of Silk Road (a dark web marketplace). He was previously sentenced to life in prison.
    • Revoked a mandate that federal workers must be vaccinated with the Covid vaccine. He has also promised to reinstate the 8,000 military service members who were discharged over this mandate.
    • Signed a directive looking to make the US ‘the global leader in AI’. He also proposed a $500 billion project aimed at creating massive AI data centers.
    • Ordered to change the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to the ‘Gulf of America’.

Some of these orders are confusing, and it’s hard to fully understand his end goal. Most of the orders he has signed are aimed at cracking down on immigration, reshaping the federal government, or issuing controversial pardons. While these laws don’t directly affect us in New Zealand, they do give hope to far right fascists. This is worrying as there is already an uprising of fascism in New Zealand and Australia, and this kind of change (especially from a highly influential country) gives these far-right groups fuel.

‘We’re not going away’ Kapa-Kingi vows to fight on.

An issue directly affecting us and our country is the National Party revising the Treaty of Waitangi. Our Government has supported the first reading of a bill that proposes… This has brought nationwide fear that this bill will threaten Māori rights and erode the Māori relationship with our ruling authorities. Many believe that this bill is creating division throughout the country and is undermining the Treaty and what it means. The introduction of this policy fueled marches across the country. In November 2024, Māori activist Eru Kapa-Kingi led the largest protest in support of Māori rights (a historic moment for our country). Over nine days, people across our country joined the hikoi (protest march). By the time the protest made its way down to Parliament, an estimated 42,000 people had flooded the streets. This bill threatens the rights and welfare of almost 18% of our population. By letting this bill become law, we are letting down a huge part of our population and hugely undermining those who came before us.

Homophobia is still raging in our country. On Monday 17th of February, a Destiny Church linked protest disrupted a pride event at Auckland’s Te Atatū Community Centre. The event was a children’s science show hosted by drag artist Hugo Grrrl. During the incident around 30 young children and adults were barricaded inside. These protestors then went on to break through Police barricades at the city’s Rainbow Parade. They protested this parade and briefly blocked Ponsonby Road. This group also has links to several other intrusive protests at pride events over the weekend. The Police are currently investigating allegations of assault during these incidents. These intrusive protests are just some of millions like them. Inspector Simon Walker commented on the incident ‘This protest crossed a line. Freedom of speech and the right to protest are fundamental principles of a free and democratic society under the rule of law, but nobody, especially children, should ever be made to feel unsafe.’

I wish for the sake of our country and the world that I had good news to share, but our reality is far from that. The state of our world is regressing to a 1950’s style model, which is incredibly terrifying. The rights of almost everyone are under seige.