Cruelty isn't a side effect of Trump's policies. It IS the policy.

It seems that Trump’s administration will not rest until the poor die from starvation and disease, after toiling their lives away for slave wages to enrich these stupid, lazy, bloated, evil creatures who congratulate themselves for holding the whip.

I couldn’t afford heat when my kids were small. Some of my Trump-supporting loved ones beat the Bible or bragged about their wealth from the comfort of their heated homes while I wrapped my children in layers and layers of clothes and blankets to keep them warm at night and in our old van with its broken heater. I ran the heat only for an hour each morning while getting the boys ready for school/daycare.

Still people would tell me, “Be more frugal. Use coupons. Make better choices,” as if you can budget your way out of single motherhood and poverty with untreated medical conditions, no self-esteem, little in the way of a “village,” and no education or work experience beyond retail, customer service, and short stints as an unlicensed home daycare provider, a neighborhoor greeter/marketing agent, and an SEO writer.

I thought those days were over. For many years now, we have been able to afford heat. It became a struggle again during Trump’s first term. Our income is limited because chronic illness is genetic and my boys are still young in the world & workforce. This year we will set the thermostat to 60–65 degrees, just warm enough for the animals to be safe, and bundle up.

We don’t get SNAP. We don’t get Section 8. We had WIC when the boys were very small, and it was a complicated program that covered precious little. We have never got anything but Medicaid, and only ONE of my boys has that now. We were always just outside of the eligibility criteria, despite how much we struggled, and yet I never resented those who did qualify for help. They were much poorer than me, and I had seen firsthand how they lived, all around me in my hurting community.

Poverty isn’t a moral failure. It’s an engineered condition, created by people who benefit from cheap labor. The idea that anyone can “bootstrap” their way out is an illusion. I’ve worked and watched people work hard everyday of their lives only to fall further behind because of inflation. America has never been great for those it treats as expendable. If greatness exists here at all, it’s in the compassion ordinary people show each other when the government refuses to care.

We just watched the Trump administration fight all the way to the Supreme Court to take food out of the mouths of poor people in order to facilitate their quest to take healthcare away from millions of Americans, which is the root cause of the government shutdown that is depriving federal workers of pay even as Nancy Mace collects a federal paycheck to scream obscenities at TSA agents in the Charleston airport while they do their jobs unpaid because of her politics.

Cruelty isn’t a side effect of their policies. It is the policy. Every cut to food assistance and healthcare is done with open contempt for the people who will suffer. The goal is to keep the working class desperate, obedient, and forever in the thrall of the rich. As ever before, the upper class can survive any storm, while the rest of us are left to freeze.

When they said, “Make America Great Again,” this is what they meant.