Imagine you live in rural Virginia. Your closest neighbor is a cow, your nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away, and the only bars you get are on your moonshine, not your cell service. So when the government finally offers a grant to bring broadband and digital literacy to your neck of the woods — so Grandpa Joe can check his telehealth portal and your kid can finish his homework without having to borrow the Taco Bell Wi-Fi — you might think: “Well, hot damn, progress!”
But not so fast. Enter Donald J. Trump, savior of the forgotten man, destroyer of anything that even remotely smells like government doing something useful. In a move that would make Marie Antoinette say “yikes,” Trump torpedoed the Digital Equity Act, yanking internet access grants for communities in Southwest and Southside Virginia faster than he can say “unconstitutional woke handout.”
Yes, folks, the former president called the act — which was passed under the Biden administration and designed to help old people, veterans, rural families, and low-income students — “racist,” “unconstitutional,” and (I’m not making this up) “a woke handout.”
Woke. Wi-Fi. That’s where we are now.
The War on Woke Routers
Let’s break it down. The Digital Equity Act was passed in 2021 as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. That’s right — bipartisan, meaning Republicans actually supported it before Trump got bored and started dunking on it for internet clout. The program aimed to close the digital divide by helping nonprofits bring broadband access and digital skills to underserved areas.
In Southwest Virginia, People Inc. used a modest $55,000 grant to create a comprehensive plan. Think coding workshops for kids, internet literacy for seniors, cybersecurity training, and devices for families living below the poverty line. They even had expansion plans — another $400,000 would have scaled these programs to real, meaningful impact. That money is now poof — gone, baby, gone — because Trump decided the internet is too woke.
The Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority was ready to go. The Fairlawn-based Workforce Development Board was lining up training. Hundreds of people were about to gain access to jobs, telehealth, education, and basic dignity. But Trump looked at a program benefiting mostly white rural Virginians and decided it was too focused on equity to be allowed to live.
And now here we are. Stuck in buffering.
Racist? Try Reality.
The gall, really. Trump took to social media to denounce the program as “racist,” as if your grandma in Dickenson County logging onto her Medicare account is some sort of leftist coup.
Newsflash, Don: the people benefiting most from this program? They weren’t Antifa teens live-streaming protest poetry from a Brooklyn vegan co-op. They were white rural Virginians. That’s not “woke,” that’s just the census.
Evan Feinman, a former Biden broadband official who — plot twist — also worked briefly under Trump, explained it clearly. The act was built around needs, not race. If you were old, rural, poor, a veteran, disabled, or lacked digital literacy, you qualified. If you were also Black or Latino or spoke limited English, sure, that could increase eligibility. But the bulk of recipients were white folks in Trump country. You know — the people he said he was fighting for.
This program wasn’t some DEI think tank circle-jerk. It was functional policy rooted in demographics and math. But because the word “equity” was involved — and because Trump’s policy team now consists of a 3 a.m. Reddit thread and vibes — it had to go.
Woke Handouts vs. Real Needs
Let’s be honest: we’ve reached the part of the show where “woke” means “anything I don’t like.” Affordable internet? Woke. Student loans? Woke. Public libraries? Super woke. Your grandpa trying to email a cardiologist? Woke, communist, treasonous — lock him up!
Trump’s anti-woke crusade has all the nuance of a middle school food fight. The Digital Equity Act wasn’t about quotas or political correctness. It was about making sure people in counties like Buchanan and Grayson aren’t being left in digital darkness. It was about connecting people to opportunity. But somehow, helping people in need has become a culture war sin.
Meanwhile, conservative officials from Virginia — like Rep. Morgan Griffith — brushed off the grant cancellations as no big loss, claiming the money could be “better spent elsewhere.” Somewhere like…what? Tax breaks for defense contractors? A $100 million border wall for a state with no southern border? More golden toilets for Mar-a-Lago?
Fiscal Responsibility: Selective Edition
Let’s talk about that fiscal responsibility argument, shall we?
The Trump administration torched a $2.75 billion program because of “wasteful spending,” yet this is the same guy who added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt in four years. He handed out corporate tax cuts like candy at a MAGA rally, spent $1.6 billion on a wall Mexico never paid for, and golfed away more taxpayer money than any president in history.
But now — now — he’s suddenly worried about the debt when it comes to funding digital literacy classes in Wythe County?
Give me a break. You can’t yell “waste” with one hand while signing hush money checks with the other.
Whose Broadband Is It Anyway?
The irony here is brutal. Trump’s decision doesn’t just hurt Democrats. It screws over his own voters. These programs were for the very people who made “forgotten man” a campaign slogan. Rural veterans. Isolated seniors. Poor white families who can’t afford broadband, much less a data plan.
And while Virginia’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, tried to downplay the damage by pointing to the state’s own broadband initiatives — over $900 million spent so far — he also confirmed that some of that money depends on coordination with the now-defunct Digital Equity program. So yeah, about that safety net? It’s got some holes.
Youngkin’s press team may be writing rosy press releases, but state Sen. Jennifer Boysko nailed it: this decision doesn’t hurt her well-connected Northern Virginia district. It hurts the places where help is needed the most. It hurts the people least able to fight back.
The Lawsuit Waiting to Happen
Of course, there’s talk of lawsuits. Because — and I can’t stress this enough — the president can’t just cancel money Congress already appropriated because he thinks broadband is too inclusive. That’s not how separation of powers works. That’s not how any of this works.
But legal challenges take time. And in the meantime, People Inc. and their nonprofit partners are scrambling. They had real plans. Devices ready to distribute. Courses designed. Trainers lined up. Seniors and veterans already signed up.
Imagine telling a veteran in Lee County, “Sorry, you can’t learn how to use the VA’s online system this year — the internet is too woke now.”
Try explaining that to a child who’s struggling in school because they don’t have access to Google Classroom.
Try telling a rural cancer patient that they’ll have to drive two hours for a 15-minute consult because Trump thought Wi-Fi made America weak.
When Policy Becomes Performance Art
Trump’s Digital Equity assassination isn’t about policy. It’s about performance. It’s the politics of spite — governing by tantrum. It’s red meat for a base that sees buzzwords as threats and helping others as weakness.
And it’s dangerous.
Because broadband isn’t a luxury anymore. It’s a utility. It’s the 21st century’s electricity. And by gutting this program, Trump just turned out the lights on thousands of Virginians.
“Adapt,” They Say
Lisa Barton of the Appalachian Community Action agency says she’s learned to adapt. She has to. She’s seen programs rise and fall, funding appear and vanish. And she’s right: resilience is part of public service in America.
But that doesn’t mean we should accept being sabotaged from the top.
It doesn’t mean we clap politely while progress is reversed for likes and retweets. It doesn’t mean we shrug when leadership punishes rural Americans because of a word in a bill title they didn’t bother to read.
This wasn’t about ideology. This was about common sense. Broadband access helps people live fuller, freer lives. And Trump just told a big swath of Virginia, “You don’t deserve that. Not if the liberals might get credit for it.”
Final Thoughts from the Buffering Zone
Trump claims to be a champion for forgotten America. But actions speak louder than hats. When push came to shove, he chose talking points over people. He chose petulance over policy. He chose to screw over rural Virginians — his own supporters — because someone convinced him the word “equity” was scary.
Congratulations, Donald. You’ve successfully made broadband access a partisan issue. You’ve taken something as basic as helping seniors use a Zoom doctor’s visit and turned it into a political identity test.
And you’ve proven once again: in your America, the only equity that matters is political.
Enjoy your five bars at Mar-a-Lago. The rest of us are still loading.
