WASHINGTON, D.C. – As you might have noticed, since being sworn in for his second term, President Donald Trump has shown a real determination to follow through on his campaign promises – some of which might be better characterized as his campaign threats.
“I am your warrior, I am your justice,” Trump said on the campaign trail, sounding a bit like Patty Smyth was ghostwriting his speeches. “For those who have been wronged and betrayed… I am your retribution.”
Since January 20, Trump has teed up executive orders aimed at law firms that have dared to oppose him in the past, cut funding to universities and colleges that won’t bend to his will, called for investigations of former employees of his first administration and bundled up not just illegal immigrants but lawful ‘permanent’ residents of the U.S. to be deported, sometimes with the destination of a hellish prison in El Salvador, in one case claiming the U.S. is powerless to affect the return of a man the administration acknowledges (sort of) was deported due to a “mistake.”
By any measure, it’s been a remarkable few months since Trump returned to the White House. To his supporters and backers, with the possible exception of his haphazard, marketing-shaking tariffs, it’s Trump living up to his word. To many of those who voted for an option other than Trump, it’s a nightmare unfolding before their eyes.
Curiously absent from Trump’s promise-keeping tour is a vow older than most he’s already attempted to fulfill, one which hits closer to home for me and everyone else who earns a living in the adult entertainment industry: His 2016 pledge to, among other things, “aggressively enforce” federal obscenity laws.
“Mr. Trump’s leadership and commitment to uphold the rule of law is demonstrated by his signing of the Children’s Internet Safety Presidential Pledge,” said Gary Hart’s ex-mistress the President of the anti-porn organization Enough is Enough, Donna Rice-Hughes. “Making the internet safer for children and families is a critical step in making America safe again.”
Of course, in his first term, Trump’s DOJ initiated precisely zero federal obscenity cases involving adult content. His administration did bring prosecutions involving child sexual abuse materials and child exploitation of course, which isn’t a remotely controversial practice and is something every presidential administration does, despite what wackadoo QAnon types might believe to the contrary.
Given that backdrop, my initial inclination was to assume our Dear (and Obese and Orange) Leader would continue to ignore the adult industry through his second term, as well. But as time goes on and Trump takes more and more actions that look to be straight out of the Project 2025 playbook, I’m starting to get a bit more concerned.
Admittedly, thus far, I haven’t done much to prepare for a potential crackdown on the industry beyond updating the outrageous lies in my resume (I’ll bet you didn’t know I used to be the CEO of Walmart and General Electric at the same time, for example), but I do find myself reading some of the relevant paragraphs from the Project 2025 policy documents, in part to drive up my anxiety symptoms and justify a request a prescription from my primary care physician for stronger, more enjoyable drugs.
“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare,” wrote Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts in the foreword to the policy document. “It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
Well… nice to meet you too, Kevin. You must be loads of fun at parties.
Do I really expect Trump to order the shuttering of telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate the spread of pornography? Nah, he won’t go that far. But do I still dismiss out of hand the idea Trump might arrange for few porn company owners to go on high-profile perp walks for the cameras, if only to claim a public relations win with the Christian right? Sadly, I do not.
Boot image by David Peinado from Pexels
