Pain, lies and propaganda in the Trump era

Last week was a very, very bad week for many Americans.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) gives a record-breaking floor speech to discuss the detrimental effects of the GOP budget bill. (C-SPAN screen grab)

By Jeff Nesbit

The Trump administration inflicted so many horrific things on average, hard-working American families last week, it’s hard to know where to begin.

First, of course, is the monstrously awful, ugly reconciliation bill that will gut Medicaid and food assistance for the poorest American families—all so that the wealthiest 1% in America will receive massive, permanent tax cuts—that Democrats in the Senate and House fought to derail.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) heroically held the floor for more than eight hours to highlight every awful aspect of the bill and make sure it passed in the daylight (instead of the darkness and dead of night, as GOP leaders hoped). "If Republicans were so proud of this one big, ugly bill, why did debate begin at 3:28am in the morning?" Jeffries asked in his floor speech.

It was the longest House floor speech in history. “What is contemplated in this one big, ugly bill is wrong. It’s dangerous, and it’s cruel, and cruelty should not be either the objective or the outcome of legislation that we consider here,” Jeffries argued.

Nearly every Republican member of Congress still fell in line and passed it.

"This is about fighting for the American people ... forcing it into the daylight and telling some stories about the real impacts," House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told Axios.

It’s hard to explain just how deep and painful the Medicaid and food assistance cuts will be for millions of American families who live paycheck to paycheck and rely on both Medicaid and SNAP to make ends meet—and provide some foundation of security for their families.

The real-world impacts of those huge Medicaid cuts, in fact, are already occurring. A rural clinic in southwest Nebraska announced the same day that House Republicans from their own state and congressional district voted to gut Medicaid that it was closing its doors in anticipation of those big Medicaid cuts.

McCook-based Community Hospital said it is shutting down its clinic in Curtis, a town of about 900 people. The Curtis Medical Center has been in operation for more than 30 years.

“Unfortunately, the current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years,” Community Hospital CEO Troy Bruntz said in a statement.

President Donald Trump signed the bill on July 4 and immediately began his propaganda wars and lies to divert attention and deflect from the pain and suffering it will cause for families that rely on Medicaid and SNAP programs.

What is truly bizarre about all of this is that Trump will claim every day from now until eternity that this hideous creature he’s signing into law helps Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

All of that is pure, raw, unadulterated propaganda designed to hoodwink his voters.

“No tax on Social Security!” Trump claims as an accomplishment in the bill. His White House press secretary repeats it over and over, online and at briefings. The bill does no such thing. There is no provision in the bill to remove taxes on Social Security benefits.

Don’t touch Medicaid—it’ll kill you politically, Trump warned GOP House members at a private Oval Office meeting where he promised swag in return for their votes. Trump seemed to have no idea whatsoever how devastating his own bill was to Medicaid.

Nearly every GOP member of Congress then proceeded to vote to gut Medicaid. The bill cuts nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and will force anywhere from 10-20 million people out of the social safety net programs they rely on for their health care coverage.

But Trump wasn’t done inflicting pain on American families this week. While most everyone was focused on the awful bill literally designed to harm the poorest American families so the richest families could become richer, Trump’s Education Department abruptly cancelled $7 billion in grants that support after-care programs at public schools all across the country.

I cannot tell you how painful and horrible this is for hard-working American families who rely on federally supported after-care programs to care for their kids while they’re at 9-to-5 jobs. These families can’t afford expensive childcare. Trump just blew a massive hole in their family budgets.

But Trump wasn’t finished. He visited the planned detention center/concentration camp in Florida, where he gleefully vowed to house people his administration plans to deport. And Trump also again and quite clearly said out loud that the massive immigration police force his awful reconciliation law turbocharges will start to pursue U.S. citizens (not just illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes).

And, finally, the Trump administration also said earlier in the week that these same immigration officers will be able to impose penalties of millions of dollars on undocumented immigrants, putting them at risk not only of deportation but also of crushing financial debt.

Under this new procedure, individual Department of Homeland Security officers could send letters imposing fees on noncitizens, and if they fail to respond within 15 business days, all right to appeal would be eliminated.

Again, this is just unusually and inhumanely cruel. It will strike fear into people working in the fields on farms in rural America, in restaurants, in warehouses with no air conditioning, and in small and even medium-sized businesses with jobs that lots of Americans aren’t interested in competing for.

All of this happened in Trump’s America in just one week. Gut Medicaid. Crush food assistance programs. Cancel public school after-care programs. Promise to deport U.S. citizens that Trump’s immigration police force doesn’t like. And scare the bejesus out of undocumented workers.

It’s just cruel. There is no other word for it.

Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.

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