I’m Outraged, Two Days in a Row, on Our President’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Forgive me for that, I do not take outrage lightly, and avoid it as often as possible, because it seldom changes minds.
(Illustration by Ben Jennings, Guardian UK)
Among many other crimes the bill will remove 18 million Americans from their healthcare. The Cuts in USAID Will Kill Millions in poor countries, and they are dying as I write this.
The One Big Beautiful Bill satisfies goals Republicans have sought for thirty years, a carbon-copy of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, bought and paid for by America’s wealthiest political class.
Eighteen million Americans, many of them his MAGA supporters, are of no importance to our president. He turns his back on everyone of no further use to him, it’s a life history. And those who die elsewhere are not us, whether it’s in Gaza, Ukraine, or Iran.
“Evidence,” you say. You demand evidence, as well you should.
Elon Musk got Trump elected with $277 million of his personal wealth, then rampaged through the bureaucracy, doing Trump’s bidding without dirtying his tiny Orange hands. But now that he is elected, and the damage his rich tech bros wanted done to all those nasty bureaus that keep an eye on them is done—mission accomplished, and “good bye Elon.” The Donald now threatens to deport the Musketeer as an illegal alien. Elon dropped a quarter billion bucks in the election coffers, and took the hit for wrecking government, while the president continues to cheat at golf, playing 18 times thus far this term, and costing taxpayers $26 million. Talk about expensive ‘greens fees.’
Our sitting president operates like a Mafia Don, selling personal merchandise (from telephones to crypto to perfume), and plays war games as a presidential side job. His consiglieres are Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Kim Jong un, and any strong-arm political leader who can lead him by the nose, while holding their own.
I would consider this merely the comedy side of tragedy theater, something dreamed up by the irreplaceable Mel Brooks, if only Trump wasn’t producing his own version of “Springtime for Hitler,” Brooks’ original title for The Producers.
I live in Europe and can attest that the rest of the world is not amused. Large portions of it are dismayed at the loss of a solid and trusted ally, while many others are terrified as they watch families, friends and students hunted down on American streets by masked ICE thugs, then deported to foreign prisons, without trial, a fundamental constitutional right.
China must wonder what happened to world order, while they were busily manufacturing American goods.
Is this actually the America that was once the most powerful military, economic and political power in the world? It’s lately become a sad and unprincipled joke. Winston Churchill once said, “You can always depend on Americans to do the right thing, after they have investigated every alternative.” We no longer even consider the right thing. It’s not in the Heritage Foundation’s playbook.
Weary of supporting Ukraine, Trump remains buddies with an out-of-control Israel, while that country commits what the UN and International Criminal Court call a genocide. Who do you suppose manufactured and donated that 500 pound bomb that obliterated a beloved Palestinian seaside cafe that offered rare respite for journalists and residents, killing dozens of civilians? The Donald has blood on his hands, both at home and worldwide.
The American “Nation of Law,” in which we once took such pride, has had its ethical and legal gears stripped by a Supreme Court whose minority members are vocally outraged for the first time in history.
How different are Hitler’s 1933 ‘Brownshirts’ than America’s 2025 masked ICE kidnappers?
(The term "Brownshirts" refers to a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party in Germany. They were called Brownshirts because they wore brown shirts as part of their uniform. They played a significant role in the early years of the Nazi Party, particularly in suppressing opposition and disrupting political rallies.) Hitler sent his victims off to the work camps, Trump sends ours to El Salvadorean prisons, where they are tortured for $50,000 yearly US government-provided bounties. All of this was declared illegal by U.S. judges, but it was in 1933 Germany as well.
Following the Nazi Holocaust, Israel has since vowed “Never Again.” But it turns out that motto was meant only for Israelis, not the neighboring Palestinians whose lands they illegally occupy.
I’m going to lose supporters with these observations, and have already lost some.
But no one spoke up in 1933 Germany either, and the Jewish Cemetery here in Prague is largely visited some 80 years later by grieving Germans. I was ten years old when Auschwitz and Buchenwald were liberated. There are fewer and fewer witnesses remaining to tell these stories, and no one reads the history anymore.
America, along with our allies, saved Europe twice in the last century, and was the first victorious nation in the world to rebuild its former enemy with Marshall Plan funds.
That’s my country, the America I cherished for 90 years, and it breaks my heart to watch it today, both at home and abroad. Will it regain its reputation?
The Americans in street demonstrations claim it will, and our streets are petty tough, as millions across America have recently shown. But those men, and the women by their side, have been run down by monied interests, and seldom get to take their kids fishing anymore. This pathetic One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump just signed into law is not the reason for our national decline, but the painful result of who we have become.
[And, just a post-script if you missed my last article: Paul Dans was director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation. This is what Paul actually said in public:
“Project 2025 is not a white paper. We are not tinkering at the edges. We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces. We compiled the plan as a road map for the first 180 days of the next GOP administration (which happened to be Trump). Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power day one and deconstruct the administrative state.”]
‘Tinkering at the edges’ is what our constitutional form of government is all about, and that’s been true, since we fought to free ourselves from monarchy. To “take power day one and deconstruct the administrative state” is to revisit Germany’s 1933 Third Reich, and its Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler.
Our president celebrates having accomplished exactly that with his signature.
Wringing our hands and maintaining a ‘fair and balanced’ media is essentially aiding and abetting the treasonous takeover of the United States Government, an act for which the penalty is death.