Make Americans Grotesque Again
Elections have consequences. We are now living the result of the narrow triumph of Donald Trump and his MAGA philosophy in the 2024 election. And that result is, what Trump describes as a war on “woke”. Now what does “woke” mean? It’s an attack on a laundry list of alphabet soup acronyms: from LGBGTQ rights to DEI hiring to CRT teaching. And it’s granular: a Presidential executive order against the ten collegiate and (maybe as many as) a hundred high school athletes who are transgendered women. Think of that; the President writing an order against 110 Americans out of 335 million ( that’s .00000328%).
And sometimes it’s just silly. Defense Secretary Hegseth, with all of the issues of US Defense in the world, spent time to “re-name” Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, and then blithely commented that it wasn’t after Confederate General Braxton Bragg, but World War II Silver Star Medal winner Roland Bragg. Another “win” in the war on “woke”: Pete Hegseth really “got the libs” that time. And I won’t even get into mis-naming of Denali back to McKinley, or re-naming the Gulf of Mexico.
Make Americans Greedy Again
We can rewrite the signs at the gate, or the labels on the map. All that does is grate against the “libs”. And it does. It’s the old taunt of kids in backyard football: “winners talk, losers walk”. But there are much sadder consequences, deadly consequences, of Trump’s war on “woke”. Because MAGA believes that America isn’t strong enough, isn’t compassionate enough, to help other folks in need. And one of the alphabetical targets of Make America Greedy Again, is the USAID program.
So let’s get something clear: USAID had a budget of $63 Billion. That’s a lot of money, but, out of a total US annual budget of $6.75 Trillion, it’s LESS THAN ONE PERCENT. So for less than one percent of the US government spending each year, America had a tremendous impact on the world. We saved millions of Africans from dying of AIDS, we fed starving people, starving kids, in countries all over the world suffering from droughts and wars. We brought medical care to folks who never had it before, and shelter to those made homeless by nature and man.
Make Americans Gross Again
USAID supported Ukraine with food assistance. And it supported US farmers by buying grains here, and taking it there. Right now, almost $500 million worth of food is rotting on the docks, because USAID is stopped. And right now, folks are dead, because Trump wants to wage a war on “woke”. He directly intervened to prevent them from getting lifesaving help. He killed them.
MAGA has convinced many Americans that the money would be “better spent here”. But, of course, that money isn’t coming back to “regular Americans”. What will happen to the less than one percent saved by letting folks die? It will go into Trump’s proposed tax cut for the top one percent of Americans, just like last time. So when MAGA folks admire Elon Musk for the “sacrifices” he’s made to “Make America Gross Again”, realize this. He paid $277 million for Trump’s election to gain access to power, and he’ll make billions back in the resulting tax cut. He’s all sorts of things, but he’s not stupid.
Make Americans Gutless Again
The saddest part of Trump’s war on woke, is that it is based on the premise of victimhood. Trump wants Americans to feel that they are victims of the “woke” philosophy, victims of attempts to make America a place where “All men are created equal”. Trump’s vastly white following feels that they have lost something, and they want it back. He has convinced them that they “deserve” the advantage. Why else would MAGA wage a war against the true story of America, white-washing it into some fairy tale where African-Americans and Native Americans were treated fairly?
He is calling on Americans to say that we don’t have the “guts” to live up to “created equal”. Instead, we need to take the advantage, white over minority, American over the world, and be the “winner”, and make them the loser. Because MAGA sees only a “zero sum” game; to win someone else must lose. And if you’re winning, then don’t dare show strength and magnanimity to help others. You simply rejoice in your winningness, and take advantage of their loss.
Make Americans Grovel Again
MAGA is based in fear. And now, the “war on woke” is trying to generate fear in “the libs”. They are rejoicing in their winningness, and literally rubbing dirt in the face of the “losers”: me, you; all of us who don’t want to be victims. So we can decide. We can be overwhelmed by MAGA, or we can fight back. We can fall to the hurricane onslaught of Trump depredations, or we can stand firm for the America we believe in. Americans who truly believe America is Reagan’s “shining city on the hill” know that if we slam the gates shut and ignore the world suffering around us, eventually that world will come for us. Trump is slamming the gates shut in fear: fear of change, fear of difference, fear of the unknown.
Be not afraid. Instead, act, in one way or another, to demonstrate belief in America. Dan Rather said it best when he used one word to close his nightly newscast. He told Americans what they needed then, and now.
It was this word — Courage.
