The new GOP mantra: caring for those who cannot help themselves is waste and civilization weakness

The GOP mantra: caring for those who cannot help themselves is waste and abuse. The true believers in Trump have twisted themselves into pretzels to rationalize the immoral cuts to US food and vaccination programs in Africa that will lead to 14 million deaths in 5 years and yanking health care from over 12 million in the US and food assistance from the elderly, disabled, and too poor to pay their medical bills or afford nutritious food. It has been replaced by cheering for the cruelty of family separation and sending those whose only crime was no documentation to offshore torture prisons and alligator-infested onshore gulags, beating those they snatch from the streets without warrants in full view of public videos.  What the hell have they embraced?   Are empathy and sympathy for those who are suffering no longer American values? Sharing our surplus of food and our vaccines is a waste of resources and a form of fraud? Is cruelty now the standard for treating those who do not merit it or are deprived of the process to which they are due to protest their treatment as illegal or inhumane?

 Was it moral and OK that Elon Musk cut US Aid in his chainsaw attack in search of ways to cut government funding so Trump could cut taxes to the ultra-rich?  Not only is USAID dead this month, which is now, but also millions who will die without that aid in the next few years.  No problem in Musk's value system, and he was famously quoted that 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.'"I believe in empathy, like I think you should care about other people," Musk said as part of the same discussion on Joe Rogan's podcast, "but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide." ( fact checked on Snopes). So he must mean sharing our abundance as the richest country in the world with the poorest, and funding the methods of distribution is the US committing suicide? 

Christianity should be outraged. In some twisted religious minds, it is not.. In Trump's world of Christianity, empathy and charity are now to be reviled by some preachers. Empathy  is now a dirty word, "walking in others' shoes", is a sign of feminizing churches because women are so vulnerable to appeals for charity,  so it is no longer a Christian value to some professed Christians,  per a report on NPR

  https://www.npr.org/2025/03/22/nx-s1-5321299/how-empathy-came-to-be-seen-as-a-weakness-in-conservative-circles 

USAID cuts may lead to more than 14 million deaths globally, including 4.5 million children under 5 by 2030, researchers say. https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/USAID-cuts-global-impact-14-million-deaths

My declaration of independence from King Trump and list of grievances

My Declaration of Independence from King Trump and a List of Grievances.

As we celebrate the declaration of independence from a king in 1776, we also decry the re-establishment of one who thinks and acts like one in 2025. In the Declaration of Independence of 1776, a list of grievances against the King (a bill of particulars) was presented as the reasons for declaring independence.

Here are mine..)in no particular order of importance.

• He claims his executive orders are the law of the land and acts accordingly.
• He accumulates vast wealth from enterprises that include customers who are foreigners..
• He uses "his" active army to repress protestors and put fear into the hearts of those who would show their anger toward his policies
• He forces by threat and fear his parliament to pass legislation that does not reflect the will of each member's own constituents
• He sets up prisons to contain those who have no chance to protest and builds concentration camps which deprive persons of their rights or send them to foreign, harsh prisons, without any evidence that they committed crimes other than having documents of status violations.
• His masked, unmarked, street-clothed federal agents snatch those off the street to arrest targets or those who look like they are from south of our border without warrants, sometimes using excessive force...
• He threatens to delicense media that do not toe his line and calls all media that criticize him liars
• He threatens to remove federal funding from education that does not reflect his ideology or the ideology of his core supporters in his political party, while his legislative initiatives are approved around 30% of those polled who know what is in it, the contents about which he lies on his favored media outlets he owns or approves.
• He abuses his power by using "his" Department of Justice to investigate opponents without any probable cause as a tool to threaten opponents to his reign or make examples of them to frighten others into silence.
• He reverses the rights of minorities, religious or love preferences, and non whites, by removing all references to diversity, equity, and inclusion in any federal documents he controls... reinstating the ability of the federal government to discriminate against them again.
• He adopts all policies of white Christian nationalists written in a document as a blueprint for the takeover of the federal government and institutes them by installing their authors in key positions
• He refuses to confirm whether he would honor treaties or come to the defense of allies who are attacked and have signed such a treaty...NATO
• He ignores court orders of any court lower than the Supreme Court if he does not like the ruling..
• He tries to sell off public lands, institutes tariffs, deprives the poor of health care and nutrition programs to compensate for the loss of income to the treasury due to tax favors and reductions granted to the very rich. 
• He pardons criminals who were found guilty by jury trial or had already confessed to crimes because they were his supporters, contributors, or friends of his. In so doing , he encourages those to commit crimes on his behalf in the future, believing they, too, would be pardoned..

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription | National Archives

Cute GOP trick.Most won't know they will lose health care after Nov. 3, 2026 midterm elections

 There is a cute GOP trick afoot. Most won't know they will lose health care after the Nov. 3, 2026  midterm elections. Most of the dire cuts to Medicaid. CHIPS and Obamacare premium hikes will not take place until after the Congressional elections on November 3. 2026.  Depending on the state, nearly 12 million of you will receive notification anywhere from Nov 1 to Dec 20, 2026, that individuals will lose your Medicaid-related insurance beginning Jan.1, 2027 (pre the Congressional Budget Office, not per the opinions expressed by the GOP mouths), and those on the ACA  that your Obamacare premiums might have doubled or tripled. Before Nov. 3, 2026, some will begin to see nursing homes and rural hospitals close and ACA premiums rise as they anticiiipate their loss of income beginning Jan.1, 2027. The GOP has pulled a fast one on you to protect the reelection of their members of Congress from voter wrath.  For sure, the fallout will be a reality, and the pain will be felt every time many get medical bills they cannot afford to pay on time for the 2028 presidential elections. The reality of Medicaid funding loss sets when it is too late to get mad at your congressperson for screwing you for voting for the "Big Beautiful Bill".  You will have that much time, you get a notice to move Grandma out of a nursing home and take over her care expenses, too. 1.2 million nursing homes get Medicaid coverage. covering 60% of institutional costs, and it will cause many nursing homes to close their doors to the 40% of self-paying patients, as well.   That's why it is so silly for Mitch McConnell to think that between then and November 2026 and November 2028, you, voters, are so gullible that nothing has happened, so you will forget they lost health insurance, and to be informed before in time you have a chance to vote your Congresspeople out.  You will "get over it"  McConnell claims.  That is why J D Vance, VP, thinks you will be so happy with mass deportations funded in billions in the Big Beautiful Bill, cuts to your health insurance as an issue will be   "immaterial" per USA Today. Your health care costs are "immaterial"? Are you really that easily fooled? You'll know who to blame, and it will not be an incumbent Democrat Senator or House member.

When We’ll See the Full Damage From Trump’s Megabill

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: The new GOP mantra: caring for those who cannot help themselves is waste and civilization weakness

Will it cost the GOP House in 2026.  It could. Republicans just cut Medicaid. Will it cost them control of Congress?

Also slated for post 2026 are cuts to food stamps (SNAP)  Medicaid, SNAP cuts not supposed to take effect until after 2026 U.S. midterm elections | Watch

 Google AI: Medicaid is the primary payer for the majority of nursing home residents in the United States. Over 60% of nursing home residents rely on Medicaid to cover the costs of their care. This translates to roughly 1.2 million individuals who are Medicaid beneficiaries in nursing facilities, according to KFF. (That does not count the number of nursing homes that will go out of business  and rural hospitals that 

close  so even paying patients will have to scramble to find new facilities or drive many miles to the nearest hospital.

In response to those who think cutting out waste and abuse of Medicaid will strengthen them, 

There is no free lunch here...we will all be paying the price in some way...in heartbreak or in money. When a rural hospital closes, it affects far more than those on Medicaid. How do we know this? Because that is what happened before Medicaid and Obamacare.  It is why both came into being. It affects the self-paying patients, also depriving them of timely and easy access to hospital care. It affects the families who have to take over the care at home of those who can no longer afford in nursing homes, because the nursing homes serving rural communities close. It affects all those employed in the closed hospitals and nursing homes who become unemployed. It can be a matter of life and death..with long and deadly ambulance rides, for those in a medical crisis.

What about those hospitals and nursing homes in both rural and urban America that survive, and the patients who use them, both who lose Medicaid and Obamacare, and those who do not and are still self-paying?. If non-paying patients reach the nearest hospital, they become a charity-funded case, covered by a shift of higher bills for paying patients to make up the difference. It means greater use of hospital emergency rooms, the most expensive form of primary care available, as sicker patients who delayed attention have to depend on them. If surgery, diagnosis, specialists are needed, and there is no money to pay for follow-up care, either the patient dies or they go bankrupt, and no one gets paid....the provider, the hospital, the doctors, or other creditors..

 Expect MAGA-dominated states to do what Alaska did: demand supplemental federal aid or special carve-outs. In the federal budget. Expect the blue states to raise state and local taxes to cover the loss, partially..

Messaging: bank shots vs direct hits

 One of the problems both Democrats and the GOP have is to communicate to voters "where they are". Most voters are not into political philosophy and political science, autocracy v democracy. That is a bank shot; do this, and then such and such could result. They just want to know if there is enough money in the bank or their paycheck to pay bills and live comfortably. The end result is what voters want to know.  

Most politicians like to put public policy issues into some sort of context, and then argue how this or that fits in or violates that.  ( i.e., GOP: tax breaks for the rich are good for the economy; lifts all boats) It is a harder sell just to talk about context than to talk about the end result of how that affects daily lives. That's the problem with a bank shot. It takes thought and leaves room for scepticism. Here are examples of just context theories: from the GOP side, "small government, low taxes," and big tent Democrats  these days, "protect democracy, no Kings, support middle class and not billionaires." 

 "Hands off ", don't take away government services that benefit me. That's a good example of a direct shot with everyone demonstrating, identifying what is important to themselves. The end result is what voters want. Trump won in 2025 because he was specific, made promises to lower the costs of living, and now is vulnerable because he is making life even more unaffordable. Voters still ask, so how does he, she, or that policy help me cope with life's demands? Does it make it easier to afford what I need, groceries, a place to live, educate my kids,; can I afford to go to a doctor and pay bills if I  or family members are in the hospital or a nursing home, a job,  and transportation to get to work? The candidate who addresses these questions specifically is the winner if Mamdani's success in the NY primary is a template: rent control, free transportation, and child care.

The No Kings turnout did show many do equate fear that Trump is a threat to their personal freedom as a benefit of not being governed by a King, but that direct shot needs to be better expressed to be a direct hit.  For example: free to speak out without being a victim or fear of revenge and military crackdown threats, or permtting media that may differ from a leader fair for all insteand of a loyal few, (basically first amendment freedoms and civil rights and due process, rule of law, not rule by executive orders, checks and balances), but put in terms of the end benefits of protecting those civil rights protected in the amendments). 

  Along comes Zorhan Mamdani, and he talks about affordability (a concern of most Americans and says how with rent control, free public transportation, and child care.   Nothing abstract there, and he leaves every other candidate in the dust. Those are direct hits, not theoretical bank shots. The GOP yells, he's a communist,  he's for infatada,  while voters ask, so what's bad about rent control , free transit, and child care,  and being fair to everyone, too, so that's bad?  He's talking about treating everyone fairly, respecting, that's so bad? That's a direct hit and a lesson to the rest of the Democrats seeking election wins in 2026 and 2028.

Others agree, too. .in different words.  Democrats could look to Mamdani's win for guidance