The kind of America they want to make great again
In Missouri, a woman cannot obtain a divorce while pregnant, with no exception for domestic violence:
As it stands, Missouri judges cannot legally finalize a divorce if a woman is pregnant.
Three other states have similar laws: Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas. While a couple can still file for divorce in Missouri, the court must wait until after a woman gives birth in order to finalize child custody and child support.
When it comes to domestic violence, there’s no exceptions.
“It just doesn’t make sense in 2024,” said State Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat representing District 14 in Platte County, and that’s where it becomes a problem for her.
Behind the hidden agenda is Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, who runs the influential conservative think tank the Center for Renewing America. Over the last several years, Vought—who has been rumored to have a good shot at becoming chief of staff should Trump win a second term—has increasingly adopted the ideology that Christian nationalists are under attack.
Documents by CRA staff list several Christian nationalist-oriented goals as a part of the think tank’s top priorities in a second Trump term, reported Politico Tuesday. Other contributions to the list included invoking the Insurrection Act in order to stamp out dissenting protests and creating other ways to expand Trump’s presidential power.
But Vought also serves as an adviser to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which has proposed a flurry of other objectives for a potential second term, including repealing policies that help LGBTQ+ people and single mothers, on the basis that these laws threaten “Americans’ fundamental liberties.”
Vought’s simmering extremism has been influenced by a yearslong partnership with Christian nationalist William Wolfe. Vaught has publicly lauded Wolfe’s work on “scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism,” saying he’s “proud” to be a part of it.
But some of Wolfe’s proposals for the next presidency somehow skew even more radical. In a since-deleted December post on X, Wolfe called for an end to surrogacy, sex education in schools, and no-fault divorce—though that might have a hard time gaining muster in an increasingly divorced Congress, and under Trump who is on his third marriage.
As bad as Trump’s first term was, #2 would be substantially worse.