Donald Trump: Going All Out To Ruin Life For Many Americans!

It’s easy to note that Donald Trump is going all out to slash goods and services for the extremely poor; the blue collar, struggling working class and the dwindling middle class while planning to give humongous tax breaks (up to 5.5 trillion dollars, which adds to the U.S. federal deficit) to the wealthiest Americans and corporations. (Perhaps he expects a quid pro quo wherein he does something for the rich and they, in turn, will decide to donate to one of his causes like give money so that his birthday bash is truly royally celebrated in style with lots of glitz and glamour despite a lack of much substance.)

So what does this slashing mean? That’s easy to deduce, after all, since despite whatever he says as an inveterate liar, the “proof is in the pudding”. For example, we have the House decision regarding Medicaid (health insurance provided by the government for those who make too little money to afford health insurance otherwise) and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that used to be called the Food Stamp Program that helps the financially poor to be able to purchase nutritional foods and drinks so families will presumably have access to enough food to not be malnourished and/or starving).

This is proposed: Over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and SNAP!

As it is, some families in the USA have parents who won’t eat for several days when bills for heating the home, providing electricity, paying rent or mortgage, paying off the car (usually a beat-up old jalopy) used to drive to work and take the kids to medical appointments, paying the water bill, etc. — all important necessities — are due. That’s because there simply isn’t enough money between parents’ incomes and SNAP to get enough to eat!

In addition, I read of older children in some working poor families deliberately skipping meals so that their younger siblings can have enough to eat. How obscene and, yet, it’s understandable due to love of the younger brothers and sisters. So how can these starving youngsters concentrate at all or pay any attention at all in school with continuous hunger pangs and nutritional deficiencies impacting thinking in the mix?

Then, too, let’s consider about what the federal minimum wage is in the USA. It’s a whopping $7.25 — not even a modicum close to a living wage by any stretch of the imagination. Further, the fact that many states raise it to a bigger amount to gain still doesn’t come close to a survivable salary given the cost of living and inflation, too.

Then another issue will happen with these cuts if they pass in the Senate, too. It goes like this:

How will many nursing homes be funded to operate without the Medicaid payments? Do we really want to throw 90 year old Grandma, who had three strokes and is immobilized and bedridden on account, out on the street to live as a homeless person? (According to 

Homelessness in the United States

  , “In the United States, the number of homeless people on a given night in January 2024 was more than 770,000 according to the Department of Housing …”

Then, too, what about 85 year old Gramps, who’s senile and doesn’t even remember his own name? 

Where is he to go and whose to pay for it? -A homeless shelter with mats on the floor with times each day when the female and male bedrooms are shuttered to clean and fumigate against bedbugs, lice and other varmin? And who will wash Gramps up each day, diaper him every two hours (including during the night while he sleeps) or manually feed him since his own hands are crippled? Who will help him sit on a bench and make sure that he doesn’t leave the building to wander into the street and get run over by a vehicle? Who will buy his diapers?

Further, Trump proposals include other cuts to basic services and goods required for some to stay alive and for what — a huge increase in tax cuts, as mentioned, largess in the ICE  budget involving a 600% increase in funding? (Trump Administration Aims to Spend $45 Billion to Expand Immigrant Detention)

Does Trump really hate most immigrants that much? Apparently he does since he illegally ships them out of country with no due process laws followed — including his also taking students with legitimate visas— ones whose ideas he doesn’t like, along with other immigrants with proper paperwork to be in the USA. So the idea is just to ship out anyone who he doesn’t like and he says unacceptable citizens are next on his list to be forced to leave our country.

And what about his housing and environmental cuts? What about his plan to lease off or outright sell off national park lands for mining, oil extraction, mega-mansion and housing logging magnates for pennies on the dollar while many species go extinct due to his choices? What of his plan to reprimand and arrest judges who defy him (which he has already done and will continue to do if not legally curtailed) and his overturning laws and programs put in place by Congress, that he also routinely does?

Past the bill What’s in Trump’s House-passed “one big, beautiful bill” that narrowly passed in  the House of Representatives in the night to hide the action and that has so many damaging cuts — one, next, asks “Does King Trump really think that he can rule over the judiciary branch and Congress, too? What about the checks and balances between the three branches of government — the executive, judiciary and Congressional that, in a fascist leaning mode, Trump is absolutely riding over like a giant bulldozer in roughshod style?”

All that I can think in reaction is that we need to resist as best as we individually and collectively can, and we’d better be resourceful to make up the slack for our possibly starving neighbors, who may be in peril if the content of the “ big and beautiful” bill passes in the Senate and becomes, on account, the law of the land!

As The Workers Circle group — a one hundred and twenty-five year old U.S. Jewish social justice organization promoting fairness, equality, human rights, environmentalism, Jewish culture and education — points out in its latest newsletter: “…no one is coming to save our democracy – but together, we can.

“From Trump’s open defiance of the Constitution to extremist allies threatening to silence opposition, the crisis facing our multiracial democracy is growing deeper by the day. But in every community, there are people ready to fight back.” 

So let’s, like the Worker Circle group, roll up our sleeves and every day get back to work to uplift our communities, help the natural world to thrive and generally do all that we can to help true democracy to strengthen while mindful, too, of I. F. Stone’s thoughts: “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you’re going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins.” 

Sally Dugman lives and writes from MA, USA.