Looking Ahead to ISNA’s 62nd Annual Convention
By Rasheed Rabbi
False ceasefires and peace treaties masked ulterior agendas. Gender discourse was distorted to sabotage the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. Education and research are defunded to stifle a nation’s future. Aggressive crackdowns on immigration stoked the age-old fear of racism. And the list goes on.
These are not isolated acts but coordinated tactics of a sweeping agenda unfolding through a barrage of executive orders under the second Trump administration. As of May 14, 2025, 152 executive orders, 39 memoranda, and 54 proclamations have irrevocably reshaped policy, sharpened hidden agendas, and sent shockwaves nationwide. While political analysts frame these actions within the familiar slogans like “Make America Great Again,” “America First,” and “Peace Through Strength,” the deeper truth has been laid bare: these slogans are mere façades.
These orders are not reforms, but instruments of erosion. Not solutions but strikes against the very spirit of America. Their intent is not to fix but to fracture, not to strengthen but to suppress. To call them merely deceptive would be an understatement. These are lies inked with deceptive intent long before the signatures on these contentious documents dried.
A Parody of U.S. Foreign Policy
The 2024 election’s defining issue was the Gaza ceasefire. Despite standing atop a mountain of corpses, bathing in Palestinian blood, and inhaling their dying breaths, the Biden Administration remained unmoved. Its refusal to act exposed a partisan allegiance to Israel which was steeped in political expediency.
That inertia became the perfect electoral bait that President Donald Trump seized. He offered what Joe Biden couldn’t: the promise of peace. Trump promised to deliver a ceasefire, which won him the Michigan Muslim vote, a key factor in his 2024 electoral victory. Yet, before even taking office, he reneged. What followed wasn’t peace, but rather a more calculated bloodletting in Gaza and across Palestine.
His so-called three-phase ceasefire for Gaza hasn’t paused the bloodshed; instead, it has paved the way for a genocidal ethnic cleansing executed with unwavering U.S. backing. Even in his May trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE, Trump labeled Gaza a “Freedom Zone,” reinforcing “his proposal to displace Palestinians from the territory just as Israel plans.”
The betrayal extends beyond Gaza. It reflects a broader foreign policy that deepens global divisions. Consider Ukraine. On February 28, Republican leaders hailed President Volodymyr Zelensky as a heroic defender of democracy in the morning, but after an afternoon closed-door meeting with Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, they rebranded him as an ungrateful warmonger.
This isn’t foreign policy; it’s foreign improv. Allies are cherished until they’re inconvenient. Enemies are condemned until they’re useful. Commitments are made with solemnity only to be broken at the speed of a tweet. Can nations truly still rely on U.S. leadership when it moves not by principle, but by personal convenience?
DEI Redefined as Don’t Even Include
The war at home came swift. Within hours of taking office on Jan. 20th, Trump eradicated every DEI program across federal agencies and institutions. This singular act dismantled policies that provided marginalized groups equal access to opportunities at the federal level.
Without DEI, corporate hiring regresses, schools lose equitable funding, and workplaces abandon fair treatment for all. “His baseless attacks on DEI are attacks on the promise of America — the promise that everyone should be able to build the life of their dreams without barriers standing in their way,” Andrea Abrams, Executive director of the Defending American Values Coalition, told USA Today.
From Merit to MAGA: Money Takes Over Academia
The education sector is also under attack. Federal funding cuts target universities where protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza have taken place. The Trump Administration cut $2.2 billion in funding from Harvard, $400 million from Columbia, $210 million from Princeton, and millions more from dozens of other institutions of higher learning in the United States.
This isn’t about antisemitism, as the administration claims; it’s about silencing academic dissent. Suspending federal funding revokes the intellectual freedom of American universities. Ideological conformity is dictating funding. Universities now face an impossible choice: comply with political mandates or risk financial collapse.
The very principles that once made American universities the envy of the world – free speech and academic independence – are now under siege. This slow erosion of academic freedom is part of a broader effort to consolidate control over public discourse, an “unspoken promise of Trump’s return.”
Deporting Dreams, Importing Decline
The administration’s immigration stance also exceeds prior political posturing, advancing the false narrative that America is under siege by illegal immigrants. Within his first 100 days in office, Trump invoked archaic immigration laws, questioned judges’ power to rule against his decisions, and attempted to end several legal immigration pathways.
Drastic restrictions and abrupt policy shifts have generated uncertainty for millions, from asylum seekers to scholars to businesses reliant on immigrant labor. While national security and economic concerns are valid considerations in shaping immigration policy, unilateral and ideological executive actions fail to address the complexities of the issue in a sustainable or legally sound manner.
The Fine Art of Collapsing Markets
And even if you dodge these issues, the reeling economy won’t spare you. Stocks are tumbling, shedding over $5 trillion in market value in just three weeks in March of 2025. Markets are in a tailspin. Business leaders are panicking. Consumers are frightened and confused, and economists are desperately trying to make sense of a capricious tariff policy that punishes Americans more than foreign business interests. Within only 100 days in the Oval Office, Trump has driven an economy that the world envied to the brink of imminent recession.
Nor do the unilateral federal job cuts demonstrate reform; rather, they are purges. Democrats, labor unions, and watchdog groups condemn the moves as unconstitutional, violating the separation of powers that gives Congress, not the president, authority over federal spending.
In March alone, layoffs surged by 205%, with over 275,000 jobs eliminated, one of the highest monthly spikes in U.S. history. A major driver? Mass firings led by then Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an entity with no Congressional mandate or legal basis.
The Musk Doctrine: Power Without Accountability
Perhaps no one embodied the epitome of this administration’s collision of wealth, racist ideology, and unregulated authority more than Elon Musk, who quit the Trump White House on May 28. As the largest individual donor in the 2024 presidential election, funneling over $290 million to Republican causes, Musk, operating as a “special government employee,” was shaping federal policy while profiting directly from it.
His companies, SpaceX, Tesla, and Starlink, have collectively received nearly $38 billion in federal contracts, subsidies, and tax breaks. 53% of registered voters disapprove of him, and he hasn’t received an official appointment from the Senate. His position is not for public service. It’s profiteering disguised as patriotism. When unelected billionaires dictate public policy, democracy is not merely weakened but is reconfigured into corporate oligarchy. And we may be closer to that reality than we think.
ISNA’s Call to Conscience
These glimpses of widespread depravity at the federal level are meant neither to discourage nor to fuel partisan attacks. Every administration has strengths and flaws, but the above concerns are recent and deeply interconnected. They are escalating too fast, even for an urgent call for leaders and citizens to act on behalf of the greater good of a nation pledged to freedom and unity. That’s exactly what ISNA’s annual convention upholds.
What we are witnessing is not just policy shifts or misguided reforms; it is an orchestrated act of betrayal cloaked in patriotism designed to seize the American spirit and its founding promises of pluralism.
Despite a Republican House majority that could advance laws through standard procedures, governance now relies on executive actions at an unprecedented scale. This trend circumvents the checks and balances designed to ensure democracy, disregards institutional norms, and reflects a broad mistrust of the U.S. political system’s foundations.
Likewise, the speed and scale of these changes exemplify a restructuring of American institutions to fit a singular ideological vision. It shows power is no longer shared but wielded. It portrays an emerging political landscape defined by volatility, polarization, and departure from established norms.
The truth is unsettling, but confronting it is essential. Preserving democratic principles, institutional integrity, and public trust – the core of the American political system – demands scrutiny and accountability. The future of America depends not just on who holds power, but on how that power is exercised.
A Call to Renew the American Spirit at the 62nd Annual ISNA Convention
The ISNA annual convention is a call to action to recognize and renew Muslim Americans’ righteous spirit not rhetorically, but strategically. More than a conference that merely offers ideas, it’s a gathering of conscience, a platform of resistance, a place for communities to come together to uphold the true American spirit.
ISNA invites all to speak the truth to demand justice, to embody freedom. The convention will not merely discuss these principles; it will model them. Through critical dialogue, faith-rooted actions, and collective resolve, the ISNA 2025 annual convention aims to empower individuals, families, communities, and leaders to restore our legacy.
To be righteous is not to be passive. It is to stand firmly, act boldly, and love deeply this land, its people, and its promise.
We stand united to renew America’s spirit by defending the truth.
We protect its future by fighting for justice.
We keep it free by following prophetic ideals in this challenging time.
Rasheed Rabbi, community, prison, and hospital chaplain at NOVA, Doctor of Ministry from Boston University, and MA in Religious Studies from Hartford International University. He is the founder of e-Dawah and Secretary of the Association of Muslim Scientists, Engineers & Technology Professionals.
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