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What Would Nellis Say?

Chaos and Cruelty

chaos and cruelty.jpg
chaos and cruelty

By Rick Stiller

 

On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order initiating a government-wide hiring freeze that hinders the Veterans Administration’s ability to fill critical healthcare vacancies directly affecting veterans' care and benefits.

 

Unconfirmed Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was the editor of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a detailed thousand-page playbook for demolishing government services. It proposes cutting disabled veterans’ benefits, automating claims - which would dramatically increase the rate of denial, closing rural VA facilities, cutting homeless veterans and suicide prevention programs, eliminating the Consumer Protection Bureau that protects vets from fraud, and privatizing  VA Health Care and the Defense Department’s TriCare medical system for active duty military and their families.

 

On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked another Trump freeze on Federal Grant Funds to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance...” specifically for “D.E.I., woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.”

 

That directive might sound like typical right-wing blather, but if allowed to proceed, funds will be withdrawn from thousands of programs like Head Start - the early childhood educational program for 800,000 kids, school lunches for millions of children in every state, housing services, healthcare programs, rural hospitals, grants for college students, research and development, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, roads, bridges, airports, flight controllers, funding for local police and firemen, and hundreds of other services that benefit and protect every American.

 

The portal for dispersing federal funds to state Medicaid programs was shut down as part of that embargo on spending, jeopardizing state programs that serve 79 million low-income people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, women, and young people every year. One-fifth of the American population has depended on that federally-backed insurance since 1965.

 

The Republicans have been gunning for Medicaid for decades, and should they succeed in dismantling it, they plan to use the savings to extend and expand their $1.9 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest few.

 

They have no alternative insurance plan for the millions of Medicaid patients who will wait until they are on death’s bed before showing up at the emergency room in desperation, and we the people will pay for their care through increases in our insurance premiums and reduced or restricted services at overcrowded hospitals we depend on.

 

Trump has withdrawn our support and participation in the World Health Organization and ordered our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to cease communication with the organization, which will end access to information and warnings about outbreaks of many diseases like Covid, influenza, mpox, Ebola, and polio that are not confined by borders and kill thousands each year.

 

In a dramatic push to reduce the size of the federal workforce, Trump’s administration offered approximately two million federal workers an option to resign immediately but continue to receive salaries until the end of September. The email to employees said that “enhanced standards of conduct” would be employed to ensure that “workers are reliable, loyal, and trustworthy.” Loyalty to Trump is the active requirement in that missive, instead of the Constitution or the American people.

 

In addition to demolishing domestic programs, another executive order would halt foreign aid worldwide, assistance that treats H.I.V., provides shelter, nutrition, medical care, clean water, and climate resilience for millions, trains anti-narcotic forces, and provides security assistance for critical allies like Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and Jordan. Many of our most fragile allies depend on that assistance to improve the quality of life for their citizens and promote democracy.

 

Tom Homan’s ICE henchmen are wasting no time arresting hundreds of “undocumented criminals” (which is cover for rounding up people of color who don’t have documentation in their possession…including at least one decorated veteran citizen). The initial “quota” is 1500 per day, which is expected to expand to meet the goal of deporting one million “immigrants” in the first year. Most will never have representation or see a judge before they are loaded onto planes and flown to destinations many have never seen before. It does not take a leap of the imagination to understand that far too many innocent victims will be caught up in the chaos and corruption of mass expulsion. 

 

In the first ten days, the new administration has left no doubt about the arrogance of its intentions, methods, or culture of cruelty. The fanatics implementing Project 2025 are beholden to the wealthy patrons who paid for their elections, not the American people.

 

The tariffs he has bandied about will make the inflation that resulted from his incompetence during his first term seem tame by comparison. Combine that with the loss of hundreds of thousands of workers who pick our crops (a large percentage of California farm workers are not showing up for work after ICE raids), build our houses, and staff hotels, restaurants, and tourist destinations. The availability of goods and services will decline as the costs of everything increase dramatically.

 

Millions of naïve citizens gleefully joined Trump’s cult of lies. He granted his audience the right to join in communal hate, and then he provided minority groups to hate together…women, people of color, immigrants, liberals, traditional and truthful media, Muslims, Asians, Native Americans, et al. Hatred and bigotry merged into the magic elixir that bound his fans together.

 

Those working-class voters who believed his lies about defending their rights and liberties, taming inflation, reducing costs at the grocery store, and defending their white supremacy are about to learn that none of it was true, that he never had and never will have any interest in protecting their interests. He will make his rich patrons richer, and he will destroy every institution, program, and benefit that we all rely on every day.

 

The Trump darkness is upon us. The future that everyone denied during his luridly disgusting campaign is about to unfold in a massive implosion of American culture and everything it represented over the past two hundred and fifty years. How far does the demolition have to go before real American patriots join together to demand an end to the MAGA nightmare?

 

Stand up. Speak out! Make a difference!

 

Visit: www.rickstiller.com for more essays and an introduction to my novels!

 

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Rick Stiller 2024

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