Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man

Please excuse my word choice, but it seems appropriate for the times.

While growing up, I would hear the saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” with others being “educated idiots,” and “they lack of common sense.” These were usually uttered right after someone did or said something that you just had to shake your head at because it made no sense.

I feel this is the time we are living in at the moment. With the election of the 34 count convicted felon, Trump, the above sayings of my youth keep coming to mind because, as politically incorrect as they may be, they succinctly capture the state of the United States right now. 

The members of the legacy press fall into the above categories. The felon is running around saying as president he is going to buy Greenland, annex Canada, and take back the Panama Canal. If he can’t take them peacefully, then military action is not out of the question. We are back to the crazy that is a Trump presidency. One would think these educated, many quite highly educated, members of the press would have learned a lesson or two. See the headline of my post if you think they have. 

Reporters and journalists have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the asinine words coming out of his mouth. They are doing background pieces on these places, providing historical context, and the ramifications of acquiring them. In doing so, they are ignoring the true threats to the country and to its citizens, like the cabinet nominees or the following items proposed by the 119th Congress:

As someone on BlueSky said, I’m paraphrasing, always know that the name of anything brought forth by the Trumplicans of a bill means the opposite of the title. This simply means, if the bill is to save the whales, the last thing the bill is going to do is save the whales. The list of things that will be affected come out of the pages of Project 2025, meaning cuts that harm everyone except the oligarchs. We are just collateral damage in their war with one another to own as much as they can, hoard as much wealth as they can, rather than actually using their wealth for good of the country and the world.

Hear is a short list of things the House Trumplicans have on their agenda:

• Repeal parts of the healthcare system Biden got passed, such as the cap on insulin or the cap of $2,000 out of pocket prescription drug costs for seniors. There are also parts that will affect those on the ACA (Obamacare) healthcare program. Another is taking away federal aid to states that expanded Medicare, meaning it would fall on cash-strapped states to help with health coverage (which boils down to, if states don’t want to pay this extra cost, there goes your healthcare). Limit Medicaid Provider Taxes is also on the list, which again as the name implies, the thought of limited taxes may be a good thing. In this case, it would limit the Medicaid tax a state may have, which therefore means a state would either have to increase state contributions, or as most will do, cut benefits to the most vulnerable—that vulnerable person just might end up being a member of your family.

• Reinstate the Trump-era Public Charge Rule which limits access to certain of members of society to the social safety net. This might include healthcare, housing assistance, or food. This means a possible increase in people living on the street, using emergency rooms for preventable health issues when taken care of by a primary care physician, or panhandlers trying to feed their families. In terms of cost to all of us, we’ll see an increase in our insurance costs, seeing more people living in tents or under bridges, and begging people for money walking down the street.

• Reductions and/or reforms in funding for TANF and SNAP, two programs that assist families in need, this includes almost 1.5 million children for TANF and about 20 million children needing SNAP (that’s one in four American children needing these services).

• Eliminate some provisions in the 2021 Infrastructure Bill, such as upgrades to airports, increasing passenger rail services, electric vehicle charging stations across the nation, upgrading the power grid, cleaning up environmental hazard sites, and safeguarding our infrastructure system.

• Eliminate the Student Loan Forgiveness Program, meaning if you work in a public service job, you might not be eligible to have all or part of your student loans forgiven after working in, say a school in which most students live in poverty, any longer.

• Restrict emergency spending to an average of around $500 billion a year. Although this seems like a lot, and it is a great deal of money, this includes disaster relief such as the hurricanes that hit the south this year, the wildfires that hit the west coast and southwest, and even military emergencies. For perspective, Hurricane Milton caused $34 billion in damages, Hurricane Helene caused (at a minimum) $225 billion in damages, and so far, $135 billion in damages by the Los Angeles wildfires. Estimated total damage cost, $394 billion in just the past five months.

All of these proposals are happening right now. These proposals are all part of the goal of Project 2025. These proposals were there for all to see prior to the election.

And yet, 77 million people voted for Trump in November, and millions of voters across the country voted for many other Trumplicans at all levels of government, with 90 million voters deciding to just sit this one out.

As I said, there’s a sucker born every minute. Hopefully one of them wasn’t you!