Donald Trump Is Robbing His Own Rural Supporters, The American People, You

Manufacturing jobs have been lost in key states that swung right to elect Trump. Coal is still a dead industry walking (because it’s not competitive). Funding for military families has been taken from them and redirected to funding for what will be a useless portion of an ineffective, incomplete wall — a wall Mexico is very clearly not paying for. The middle class hasn’t benefited from any Trump-generated manufacturing revival. Instead of protecting US national security and improving our global economic position with international partnerships, Trump is trading friendly US policies for personal political help from foreign countries.

In Trump’s useless trade war with China, he has demolished some US agricultural industries. At the moment, the US government has put these agricultural companies on welfare to make up for it. However, as business owners in that industry and objective experts will tell you, it would take years to get their business (customers) back even if the trade war ended tomorrow — if they can ever get it back. So, they will either see their businesses collapse or will be on permanent welfare checks from the US government (that is, taxpayers).

It blows my mind on a regular basis. There are so many stories of hucksters from New York City conning country folk that you’d think rural populations would have their guard up against this kind of thing. Nonetheless, you’ve got a career con man who promised them the world, has given them nothing, has destroyed rural economies, keeps funneling money from the middle class and poor (programs that help the middle class and poor) to the billionaire class, and yet, rural voters continue to support him. Why? Because a news network owned by an Australian billionaire has more or less brainwashed them.

Trump has cut numerous regulations that protect the average American. He has allowed all sorts of industries to pollute more. His administration is letting banks take more risks and is cutting protections Obama put in place against fraud and risky financial behavior. He is letting pharmaceutical companies rip off consumers. He tried to collapse the Obamacare health care marketplace that has provided affordable health care to millions of people, which was only saved by an act of basic sanity and decency from John McCain. Trump has even taken $3.6 billion allocated by Congress for military construction and directed it to be used in a wall Americans were never supposed to be paying for (according to 2016 campaigner Trump). “Many of the 127 projects the president canceled would have improved the quality of life at work or home for military service members and their families. …  The president is also canceling dozens of essential projects that would affect hurricane recovery in Puerto Rico, weaken our ability to combat Russian aggression in Europe, counter North Korea and protect our national security interests.”

Trump is not helping average Americans. He is funneling money from them to billionaires. He is using government (taxpayer) money to try to prop up poorly performing Trump properties in the US and abroad. His kids are flying around the world on taxpayer money while using the White House to get business deals through. He is the textbook example of a corrupt president, times 100. He has never been willing to show Americans his tax returns, almost definitely because 1) they would show he’s not nearly as rich as claimed and/or 2) he has received billions of dollars in help from Russians, Saudis, and others in undemocratic nations. He and his kids have essentially admitted as much on numerous occasions, and it’s the most logical explanation for how a repeated business failure who could no longer get bank loans from US banks survived without further bankruptcies.

What has Trump shown more recently regarding the trade war with China? He has seemingly shown, from his own words in front of cameras and in calls with Chinese leaders, that he is willing to give in to China a bit if China helps him investigate (or create fake investigations around) his top political rival, Joe Biden. Considering the possibility that Elizabeth Warren is the Democratic candidate, he reportedly also brought her up on those calls with Chinese leaders. Not only is this a crime, but Trump is throwing the US economy under a Chinese bus in order to try to survive politically.

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In the meantime, Democrats in the House of Representatives have passed a ton of legislation to benefit normal Americans, but Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has let it all die on the table. He has even jokingly called himself the “grim reaper” in reference to that. Trump has done nothing to get any legislation through Congress, aside from the tax cuts for his rich buddies that he and Republicans pushed through when the controlled the House, Senate, and White House — apparently their only true priority.

Donald Trump is clearly using US political power to enrich himself, to prop up failing properties, and to extort political support from foreign countries — both adversaries and friendly nations. If it wasn’t clear that the Republican Party had lost all sense of decency and principles, it is clear today, which is why people like David Jolly (former Republican Congressman), Justin Amash (current Congressman who was a Republican until recently), Steve Schmidt (former top Republican strategist who worked on the political campaigns of President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain), Joe Scarborough (former Republican Congressman), Nicolle Wallace (former White House Communications Director for George H.W. Bush and senior adviser for John McCain), Charlie Sykes (conservative media personality), Rick Wilson (former Republican strategist), Bill Kristol (conservative media personality and former chief of staff to Dan Quayle), and other well known conservatives have flipped and indicated that the United States is under grave risk from this Donald Trump presidency.

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David Jolly and Justin Amash — as noted above, both were Republican Congressmen — are calling out the sharp turn the Republican Party has taken toward supporting our adversaries instead of American taxpayers, and even spending the 4th of July with them!

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It is not just an interesting side note that these Republicans spent the 4th of July in Russia. I’m not saying they’re all under the thumb of Putin — I don’t think they are. But Trump has very clearly been doing Putin’s bidding consistently during his whole presidency, and he very likely scared them into going to Russia for such a meeting. These morally questionable Republican politicians are too scared of Trump’s tweets to stand up for what they know is right. The Russian web is wild, and the fact that so much is blatant, right there in open for people to see, makes it more so.

• Trump publicly asked Russia to help with the election in 2016. Later that day, Russian operatives hacked into Democratic Party servers and started interfering in the US election.
• Former Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, now in federal prison, who previously worked in Ukraine for years for a pro-Russian Prime Minister who fled to Russia following a democratic uprising, had one thing changed in the Republican Party platform after Trump got the nominee — a pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine change.
• Manafort has more recently been working with Trump “lawyer” Rudy Giuliani in his and Trump’s efforts to, reportedly, extort the Ukrainian government in order to get political help in 2020 against Biden.
• Rex Tillerson, an extremely unlikely and surprising choice for Secretary of State, was picked by Trump for that position despite no previous connection and no clear logic. Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil for years, had, however, been a key player working with Russia to exploit its oil & gas resources. He even received a rare Russian Order of Friendship from Putin. It has been reported that Putin personally directed Tillerson’s appointment, through two messengers.

• Pence also has deep connections to Russia and pro-Russia Ukraine.

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• This blatantly traitorous behavior:

• Trump has done what Putin would prefer regarding sanctions, Russian cyber warfare during the 2016 US election and 2020 US election, NATO, Syria, Turkey, international climate agreements, economic policy concerning China, and, of course, Ukraine. Even the military funding robbery noted higher up was in part for military bases in countries formerly part of the Soviet Union that the US once upon a time thought it was important to protect — until Trump came along.

It’s highly ironic. The party that was supposed to be “the party of law and order” has been breaking the law more than Nixon and his crew. “The party of free trade” has us suffering from perhaps the biggest trade war in US history. “The party of national security” has turned its head while Trump and his henchmen have demonstrated traitorous behavior dozens of times. The party of farmers has destroyed their business — not just this year’s business, but their business for years to come. For that matter, the party has ignored science, denied our climate crisis, and is setting up American farmers for massive long-term disaster and pain. There will be two options: 1) let them suffer or 2) use billions or trillions of dollars of taxpayer money as welfare for them. Why? So that polluters can pollute more.

Perhaps it should not be surprising that “the oil party” has decided to align itself with oil-dependent dictators instead of US democratic principles, human rights principles, and the American people themselves.

Want to do something about it? Cut your own oil dependence. And get political.