Give Us Strength, We’ll Need it
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
We are descending into another four years of what, will be bad news– and of course, the effects of the upcoming administration will linger far beyond the president-elect’s second term.
While the first go-round was bad, we can only imagine how much worse another four years will be. The once and future president learned that putting establishment Republicans into his administration didn’t work—they weren’t sufficiently loyal. Now, ability, honesty or experience do not matter, only the subservience to agree, never contradict and always carry out his wishes– in short total willingness to bend and kiss his ring, or his posterior.
He has set new standards for lying, the Washington Post tagged over 30,500 false or misleading statements during his first term, so no one can deny, –he is really good at something. He has not slowed the pace. His signature campaign promise was to lower grocery prices, now he says that’s hard to do. Better health care, well, still just concepts of a plan. “I’m not going to start wars” but as he told Time magazine, “with Iran, anything can happen”. And of course his pledge not to touch Social Security or Medicare is directly contradicted by proposals of his Republican Party.
While campaigning he claimed to know nothing about Project 2025, but when pressed he described it as ridiculous and abysmal, but now he calls it “very conservative and very good”, personally, I’d call it a blueprint for Fascism.
We’re used to the lying, a truthful statement would be an anomaly, but a slim majority of voters apparently either aren’t fazed by constant lying or actually think it’s just him, he doesn’t really mean most of it, “he says what he thinks”, –whether it’s true or not makes no difference.
No doubt some of his supporters will be blind sided when his tariffs actually raise prices, when he doesn’t bring grocery down prices, (the one issue he claims won the election) or when the economic impact of deporting 11 million immigrants gets real.
When the immigrant workforce that grows our food, cares for the livestock, keeps the processing plants operating, builds and repairs our homes, cares for our seniors and so many other jobs that to most Americans are invisible– when those workers are gone, who takes care of us? Immigrant workers do not rob US citizens of jobs and if they are all deported our economy would crash.
It is estimated that the cost of this mass deportation could be $88 to $315 billion a year for a cost over ten years approaching $1 trillion. And while those who create their own reality about the financial “burden” of immigrants, the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies noted in 2023, that undocumented immigration improves the finances of Social Security and Medicare for a simple reason: although undocumented immigrants are generally not eligible to collect Social Security and Medicare benefits, many still pay taxes into the system. These taxes function as free contributions to the trust funds, as long as the undocumented immigrants remain ineligible for benefits.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented residents paid $25.7 billion into Social Security funds and $6 billion into Medicare in 2022; both programs that they are not entitled to use.
The illusion of truth is created by a lie told often enough. Immigrants steal jobs, Democrats stole the 2020 election, January 6 was a peaceful protest, we’re gonna win so much you’ll get sick of winning, Haitian immigrants are eating pets— all big lies but told so often the MAGA faithful accept them as gospel.
So, again we will have the serial liar occupying the White House, an administration willing to do his biding. A self proclaimed “stable genius” controlling the nuclear codes, the military and indeed the entire Republican party. While some may offer token opposition to his agenda there is little reason to believe they will stop him. Mitch McConnell hypocritically states that “We are in a very, very dangerous world right now”, yet he and his Republican colleagues passed on two opportunities to convict the former president and make sure he would never again be eligible for the presidency, –they ensured this could happen.
To the MAGA faithful and their enablers, one should be careful what you wish for, now you can suffer the consequences– too bad you’re dragging the world along with you.
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