Trump no longer needs MAGA supporters, so he is cutting Medicaid and laying off veterans | Opinion

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Trump no longer needs MAGA supporters, so he is cutting Medicaid and laying off veterans | Opinion

President Donald Trump appreciates your service, but he considers you expendable. Please enjoy your Denny’s omelet surcharge and continue purchasing MAGA merchandise and Trump family cryptocurrency!

If Trump was honest, his supporters would get that message. It would be preferable to the president’s “So long, suckers” message conveyed through his administration’s priorities and reckless actions.

Trump promised you a rose garden, MAGA. Instead you’ll get dirt.

Aside from some draconian immigration and transgender rights policies that he promised his base, consider where we are now since Trump took office.

Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, is tearing through the federal government like he owns it, firing workers left and right, including thousands of veterans, while the Republican Congress looks on.

Trump has been considering taking over Gaza, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada, all while siding with Russia and alienating America’s strongest European allies. His erratic tariffs have caused economic uncertainty, rattling the stock market and resulting in economic reports like this one from Reuters:

“The Conference Board said consumer confidence deteriorated in February at its fastest pace in three-and-a-half years, with estimates for 12-month domestic inflation surging amid worries that U.S. tariffs on imports would raise prices for households.”

Layoffs, jittery markets aren’t going to help your grocery prices

On Tuesday, the CEO of Alcoa, a Pittsburgh-based aluminum company, said Trump’s tariffs on aluminum imports could cost the industry 100,000 jobs.

CEO William Oplinger stated, “It’s bad for American workers.”

I apologize, but I was told that electing Trump would benefit American workers. In fact, I was specifically told that food prices would plummet and the country would enter a new Golden Age.

Well, it’s looking increasingly like that was – GASP! – a lie, and once Trump won the election and was able to put his numerous legal issues behind him, he immediately abandoned the “forgotten men and women” he so sincerely promised to champion in favor of helping himself and his fellow billionaires.

For proof of Trump’s priorities, look at the billionaires lining his Cabinet

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts summed it up on the House floor Tuesday while speaking out against a GOP budget that, among other things, would gut the Medicaid program on which many Trump voters rely:

“We all knew this was coming. Who was in the front row at Donald Trump’s inauguration last month? It was not people on Medicaid. It was not factory workers. It was not nurses, teachers, or firefighters. It was not even his own cabinet. It was the wealthiest people in the world.”

That should have been a red flag to any forgotten men and women in America. Trump had won on the backs of Americans who believed his dishonest populist message. And since he got what he wanted and saved his own hide, the people who matter are obviously the ones with money.

So in comes Musk, deemed brilliant by virtue of his wealth. His smug talk about “wokeness” and diversity, equity, and inclusion may pique the interest of MAGA supporters. But they’re realizing Musk’s ax is swinging for necks, including their own.

Wait a minute, I didn’t know DOGE might fire people I don’t hate!

Consider what Fox News’ Jesse Watters, a Trump toady if there ever was one, said after learning that a friend of his – “a guy I met at a shooting event in New Jersey” – is a 20-year military veteran about to be laid off from the Pentagon by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE:

“He texted me, ‘Jesse, you know, this isn’t good. I am upset. This is very sad. And this individual is not a DEI consultant. This individual is not a climate consultant. This guy is a veteran. So, when it comes to DOGE-ing people, veterans should take priority. Because if you’re going to go out there and kill enemies and risk your life for this country, you shouldn’t be in the same category as people who are doing DEI.”

Watters had previously squawked enthusiastically about the DOGE firings, saying things like “DOGE is dishing out spankings like ‘Daddy Daycare’ “; “There was a huge exodus over at the National Archives, persnickety librarians were getting DOGE’d silly”; and “DOGE is a blessing from the heavens above.”

Do you see how that works? It’s fine when it relates to Watters’ definition of “others,” but not when it’s about someone he knows – one of those “real Americans,” I suppose.

Of course, he ignores the fact that veterans have long been regarded as part of the “diversity” in DEI.

Trump’s con was apparent. Those who didn’t see it are about to feel it.

As the tens of thousands of federal layoffs continue, Trump supporters will feel the effects more acutely in their own communities and social circles.

We’re talking about a massive number of people about to lose their jobs, including veterans and MAGA supporters, who will be laid off and forced to deal with food prices that haven’t gone down and federal services, such as Medicaid, that may dry up.

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Trump got what he needed from his voters. And he will undoubtedly continue to try to dupe diehards with shady cryptocurrency investments and anything else he can slap his name on and sell.

But for all intents and purposes, he is finished with you all. He only cares about the billionaires who fill his Cabinet and his own personal fortune.

And you’re stuck with an additional charge for your Denny’s omelette.

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