One Thought, One Goal

There is a Lot Going On. Let’s Focus on Effects and Causes to Frame the Rest

And So It Continues

The chaos, cruelty, and destructiveness of the Trump administration continues. It is being blocked or tripping over its own feet in some areas and is being aggressive in others. As I heard someone say recently, we are in only the first quarter of a four quarter (four year) engagement. Not the time to get tired yet.

Part of the Plan 2025 modality is to overwhelm the opposition and to flood the media and public consciousness every day, leading people to feel hopeless, to doubt everything, and to drop out.  They are having some success with that, but it appears not as much as they might have hoped.

Those who hope to bring our country back to its values at some point might do well to focus on just a couple of things that could make a difference. One is effect, the other is cause.

Effect:  We Will Never Know the Number But It Still Counts

It has occurred to many of us more than once that a very direct effect of this administration is that a staggering number of people are needlessly dying, and many more will die in the same needless way in the future. Those numbers need to be called out and accountability demanded.

Start with the abrupt killing of USAID. One could, of course, make a case that the US does not have to provide such aid, as this administration has chosen to say. One could make that case and announce a short period of phasing out, giving others the time and opportunity to fill the gaps in providing food, medicine, and other essentials.

But the Trump administration could have cared less about the human cost. People began dying within days for lack of food, water, and medicine. This while warehouses of food set aside for aid rotted and was destroyed. I heard one estimate that at least 4,000 people died in the first month or so of this cut off.

By now, it is surely in the many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Others are struggling to fill the gaps, but it takes time and distribution infrastructure to do this. Some, like China, are doing so in a gift of soft power for China to exercise.

And How About Domestic Numbers?

It will likely be impossible to accurately estimate the numbers, but many thousands of Americans will die needlessly from the gutting of medical research and support by this administration. Although this is taking place on many fronts, the most visible damage is being done by RFK, Jr. and the crew of unqualified people he has brought in to ruin Health and Human services.

Three examples highlight just how bad this is.

One is cancelling hundreds of millions of dollars in vaccination research, especially in further developing mRNA, the miracle process that stopped the COVID plague from being more like the Black Plague of the middle ages. We know that mRNA has amazing potential, but only if government provides the foundations for research that universities and private companies can connect to and develop.

Let us not forget that the US under Trump last time had the worst infection and death rate of any developed country by a wide margin. Hundreds of thousands died needlessly then, and here we go again. Does anyone really think this crew will do anything useful with the now spreading outbreaks of tuberculosis, whopping cough, measles, and more?

A second illustrative example is found in the cuts to cancer research. We have made real progress in recent years on many types of cancer, in large part because of the Biden administration’s Cancer Moon Shot. Just look at this chart showing how drastic the cuts are in this area. Similar cuts are in many other medical areas. People will die.

A third illustration is in the drastic cuts to Medicaid, plus administrative chaos and cuts in Medicare and the Veterans administration. One outcome of all this is that many smaller and rural hospitals will be overrun in demands and will go broke, shutting down. People will have to travel extraordinary distances to find basic or emergency care. The shutdowns have already begun. The Trump administration hopes to camouflage this by providing some limited funds for such hospitals. It is not enough and is on the books only long enough to get them through the next election cycle.

Cause: Trump is Only Part of the Problem

Let’s talk about causes.

Trump and his administration provide the long list of issues, decisions, and changes that most Americans already hate. But we do not have a parliamentary system, so we lack the ability to topple a government with no confidence votes. But we have intermediate steps open to us.

First and foremost is to hold Republican legislators and governors, especially members of Congress, but those at state level also, we have backed Trump in all this damage. They voted for what is literally the worst cabinet in US history, abrogated their responsibilities for oversight and for control of the budget (including tariffs), and turn a blind eye to the mind blowing corruption that is this administration.

Call Them Out

So by all means, keep calling out the Trump administration but focus as a priority on Republicans who let all this happen, even endorsed all this, and cull them from American politics in any upcoming special elections, in the midterms, and in 2028. Miss no opportunity to call them out, by issue and by name. Remind your fellow voters what these people have done to us and the world. Remind them they are loyal only to Trump, not to them, and that they lack both courage and morality.

Someone once said that democracies are not taken, they are more often given away. These people turned a blind eye on so much that is wrong, and we know it. Get rid of them and start the slow but steady process of making this once again a country we can be proud of and one that lives up to its promise.

Bill Clontz

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