LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER.....
ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON
MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON
The Hoax Is Him
Even banners at Trump rallies stretch the truth
 |
We recently heard a heartbreaking story from a friend we’ve known for quite a while. Jane (not her real name) is deeply worried. She’d just received notice that her health care premiums will increase next year from $65 a month to more than $900. Jane is in her mid-30s, self-employed, and has relied on the Obamacare subsidies to make her health insurance affordable. An $835 a month increase might as well be a million.
“Guess I won’t have coverage this year,” she laughed nervously. But Jane wasn’t laughing out of mirth as much as she was out of fear. As a single mother with two young children, she can’t afford to pay these higher premiums and can’t afford to get sick. It would break her.
This is what it’s come to in Donald Trump’s America. Partisan politics has rarely been this destructive or painful. And for so many Americans, it’s a feeling of helplessness unlike anything they’ve felt before. The government is bankrupting and endangering its citizens.
In a last-ditch effort to do something, anything, to help people like Jane, Senate Republicans put forward a plan to help offset premium increases with a one-time $1,000 payout. But that’s not much help. For Jane, whose premiums would skyrocket by more than $10,000 a year, that government handout would cover just one month of premiums.
Senate Democrats proposed a three-year extension of the health care subsidies. Today, both plans failed, meaning Jane and 20 million Americans like her may no longer be able to afford health insurance.
Skyrocketing insurance premiums are just one part of an economy that is hurting millions, millions deceived by a president who repeatedly promised to make their lives better, and less expensive.
Trump’s 2024 campaign was one big con job. The biggest con job in our nation’s history? It may be. When it comes to his campaign promises, specifically about the economy, most fall into the “broken” column. And those he has fulfilled actually hurt more people than they help.
Tax cuts for the wealthy and sweeping tariffs are collectively costing middle and low-income Americans billions. He also hasn’t reined in inflation or brought down the cost of groceries. He promised electric rates would be cut in half, which hasn’t happened. While gas prices are a few cents lower, they aren’t below $2 as pledged.
With the midterm elections less than a year away, Republicans are begging the president to face reality, but his ego won’t let him. Although it does seem the Trump White House has finally figured out that there is an affordability crisis, efforts to get the president to simply acknowledge it, much less deal with it, have failed.
During a campaign-style rally in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, earmarked as Trump’s plan to fix the affordability crisis, he just wasn’t up to the task. To no one’s surprise, the president careened off script, once again calling the crisis a hoax.
His anticipated message about affordability turned into a 90-minute meandering diatribe that touched on everything from the Venezuelan boat strikes to golf. But not much about the economy.
After trotting out his go-to talking points: defending tariffs and blaming President Biden, he told the crowd that they just need to be frugal this Christmas, “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice.” That is a hard sell coming from a man who uses the presidency to line his family’s pockets with billions of dollars.
He then tried to convince his audience that they’re “doing better” than they ever have. Biden tried to employ this strategy. It didn’t work for Biden, and evidence is growing that it won’t work for Trump.
The president went on to call Somalia and Haiti “s**t holes” and pondered why America can’t attract more Scandinavians. When he wonders aloud why the United States can’t get more immigrants from predominantly white countries, it doesn’t take a Ph.D. in political science to understand that these are racist rants.
Why would people from Scandinavia want to come here, now? They would have to significantly downgrade their standard of living, pay for subpar health care, and subject their children to an inferior education system.
In an effort to lighten the tone and ingratiate himself, an hour into the “speech,” Trump admitted, “I haven’t read practically anything off the stupid teleprompter.”
The president recently gave himself a grade of A+++++ (that’s five pluses) on the economy to Politico. But he isn’t fooling close to a majority of the American people. In an AP-NORC poll released on Thursday, only 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. That translates to an F. It is the lowest rating of either of his terms. Among the all-important independents, the approval rate is just 15%.
Rather than deal with the economy head on, Trump is taking a different tack: bury the evidence. He is choosing not to release vital economic data: GDP, jobs numbers, inflation, and the Consumer Price Index. It is the first time in history both the jobs report and GDP report have been withheld simultaneously.
We do have an important data point, although one not generated by the federal government: the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. It fell in November to one of the lowest levels on record. The MCSI has been tabulated for 80 years.
Why is Trump withholding the numbers? The only reasonable conclusion is that the news is bad. If the economy is actually “booming,” as Trump claims, he should be crowing about the numbers, not hiding them. But he has zero incentive for people to see the data, because they run counter to his misleading narrative.
Trump’s modus operandi is to lie until people believe it’s true. But with a failing economy, he can’t simply convince people everything is ok when so many can’t afford to put food on the table, presents under the tree, or basic health insurance. The evidence has become overwhelming that this president doesn’t give a damn about people like Jane.
Steady is free, but to support my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism, we’d appreciate it if you would consider joining as a paid subscriber.
No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading.
Stay Steady,
Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.