I fear for my friends and neighbors who voted for Donald Trump.
Public health and public safety nets
I know some of you rely on Social Security or Medicare and have no private savings. Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee, said earlier this week that the GOP plans to cut “mandatory programs”— a category that includes Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Education
Republicans have long sought to privatize public education. The thought of all the money to be made trumps any interest in child or state welfare. Trump appointed Betsy De-Vos as Secretary of Education in his first term because she scorned public education. Now Trump has appointed Linda McMahon, co-founder with her husband of the WWE, as Secretary of Education. Like the DeVos family, the McMahon’s have been major donors to Trump’s campaigns. Like De-Vos, McMahon scorns public education, supports private school vouchers, and will help Trump keep his promise to eliminate the Department of Education altogether. McMahon has no experience as an educator, yet Trump touts her “deep understanding of both education and business.”
Children who differ physically, sexually, emotionally, or in learning abilities will be left out in the push for private school vouchers. Children in my family have had all kinds of different abilities and challenges, and I imagine your family has as well. Private schools will admit the healthy, wealthy, white kids first. We who want a quality public education for the community that includes everyone and prepares children to live in the real world will be mocked in this administration.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He is a long-time vaccine skeptic who could cut funding for mandatory vaccines for school children. For decades, schools have required immunizations to protect children from infecting each other with dangerous diseases. I know some of you remember the threat of polio, as just one example.
Environment
Anyone who treasures clean air and water over corporate profits needs to add bottled water and anti-pollution masks to their shopping lists. In his first term, Trump appointed Scott Pruitt, a wellknown Oklahoma crook, to dismantle the EPA. He was forced to resign after too many of his scandals could not be covered up.
Project 2025, the extreme far-right plan “for the next Republican president” that Trump has publicly disavowed (wink, wink) and his campaign staff’s Plan 47 both call for dismantling, at a minimum, the clean water and air rulings of the EPA.
Human Resources
Trump says he will begin the “largest (migrant)deportation operation in American history.” Unless you have native ancestors, you are an immigrant. How far back is he willing to go?
About 90,000 unauthorized immigrants live in Oklahoma, and 61% of them have been here longer than a decade (https://www.migrationpolicy. org/data/unauthorizedimmigrant- population/state/ OK). Although Trump vows to eliminate birthright citizenship, that hasn’t happened yet (if it would ever), so that still leaves many families with children born in America. Will all these families be sent to holding camps for deportation?
However enacted, deportation will be a logistical, financial, and diplomatic nightmare. The plan will remove millions of workers on farms and construction sites who are paying billions in state, local, and federal taxes. If you have only a selfish interest in this, consider that your food prices are bound to increase after many farm laborers are deported.
My fears for the welfare of my extended Trumper family are too many to discuss here. Only a very few of you had ears to hear my “bleedingheart liberal” warnings. All I can promise for the future is not to scream “I told you so.”