Trump to Digital Equity: You’re Fired (And Also, You’re Useless)

A primer on cutting through bureaucratic BS

Happy Memorial Day, crew! Today we remember the fallen—not only for their ultimate sacrifice, but for how deeply they believed in something worth defending. Even in wars we should have never fought, their courage, conviction, and service deserve our gratitude, our respect, and our promise to at least *try* to study history before repeating it.

The orange-tinted Combover King is at it again. To the fantastical ire of liberals everywhere, Donald Trump wants to eliminate the Digital Equity Act, a federal grant program “meant to help bridge the digital divide.” The program promised to ensure that all Americans—regardless of income, race, age, or the depth of their desire to live in the boondocks—would have access to affordable, reliable internet and the skills to actually use it.

Sounds like a delicious, low-fat kumbaya burger with a side of gluten-free justice and connectivity to me. I mean, you’d have to be a merciless megalomaniac to want to 86 such a generous and benevolent program.

(Y’all knew what I meant by 86 there, right?)

Presumably, this is meant to be one of the president’s henchmen ripping a laptop from a sad farm kid’s fingers.

But let’s take a break from the outrage Olympics and ask a very simple question: What exactly did this $2.75 billion government program actually do for digital equity? If your answer is “Uh… I think it gave a few people better Wi-Fi?”—congratulations, you’re just as informed as the majority of folks who are flipping out over its potential demise.

“I just felt my heart break for what we were finally, finally in this country, going to address, the digital divide," said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a nonprofit that was awarded—but has not received—a $25.7 million grant to work with groups across the country to help provide access to technology. “The digital divide is not just physical access to the internet, it is being able to use that to do what you need to do.”

NOTE: My heart would break, too, if someone promised me an eight-figure payday and then reneged before I could even get a whiff of the cash.

Here’s the problem: Like just about every other federal program that’s found its way onto the DOGE chopping block, the Digital Equity Act failed—spectacularly—to deliver on its promises. Despite its noble goal of mending that darned tech trench, what we got instead were sprawling “strategic plans,” 400-page feasibility studies, and multi-million-dollar state grants to tell us that—brace yourselves—not everyone has reliable internet.

Who knew?

Instead of laying fiber optics or building out infrastructure or literally doing a single thing that might improve the situation, most of the money funded “community outreach,” stakeholder meetings, and feel-good reports with titles like “Digital Inclusion and You.” Translation: the only thing that got faster was the rate at which our taxpayer dollars disappeared.

In some states, the “solution” to digital inequity was handing out tablets... in rural areas where people can’t get a cell signal, let alone broadband. It would be like giving out Ferraris on a deserted island that forgot to install fuel pumps. Enjoy your gift!

The Act generously includes a hiring budget for “digital navigators,” which sounds like a band of Star Trek characters but is really a fancy title for People Who Help You Check Your Email. Unfortunately, without Actual Internet Service—which never arrived in most places—these poor unnecessary schmucks had nothing to navigate.

The Digital Equity Act is what happens when the government takes your money, spends it on a committee to investigate what’s wrong, and then funds another committee to talk about the first committee’s findings. Were hurricane Helene victims swiftly reunited with reliable Wi-Fi after the devastating storm? No, they were not. Did Alabama Grandma learn how to google her arthritis symptoms? Sadly, it’s unlikely. But a dozen consulting firms now have brand-new ergonomic chairs, and someone’s nephew landed a six-figure gig as Director of Inclusive Connectivity Optimization, so it’s not like it was a total bust.

Last summer, the Gateway Pundit reported on a Biden administration $42 billion plan to connect rural Americans to the internet in 2021 that did not get even a single person online using those funds, according to Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr. But rather than focusing on the repeated failure of federal programs to effectively accomplish anything, the woke mediasphere devolves into a donzilla of TDS sufferers who simply can’t stop themselves from blaming the current commander in chief for every political paper cut they encounter.

Like so many political pipe dreams and PR stunts, this one sounds noble in theory. If by “digital equity” we mean actually connecting people in underserved areas and bettering their cyber lives, then I’m all for it. But if by “digital equity” we mean laundering billions of dollars through bloated bureaucracies and calling it justice, I vote for pulling the plug.

Tell me what you think of the nixing of this grandiose virtual plan in the comments.

*****SHAMELESS SOLICITATION*****

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