Every day we see news of the great purge of lazy workers and useless programs operated by our government, and we are told that Mr. Trump, with the expert help of Mr. Musk, is going to make it things right again by getting rid of them. Many people said, and believed, that Mr. Trump was a good business man and therefore would be a good president – they believed this because he told them so and he was a TV celebrity,
The truth is that, although there is fault to be found in all human agencies, because the faults are in people, those agencies are necessary for society. Trump and Musk don’t want to get rid of them – they just want to turn them over to their rich friends who will operate them, not for people, but for profit. Two opposing ideas are at work here: the government’s purpose is to make money, or, the government’s purpose is to take care of its people.
When the Veterans Affairs, the Defense Department, Consumer Protection and the Medical care of citizens is not longer in the hands of the government, it will be given over to private companies who will operate, as they are meant to do, for a profit. They will pay as little as possible and get as much as possible. That will be at the expense of the workers and consumers.
With this in mind, Mr. Trump wants to get rid of immigrants who work for poverty wages, and fire all the government workers. He hopes to create a society in which all the people at the bottom of the economic ladder have to take the jobs that the immigrants have done. Garbage collectors, septic tank cleaners, hotel maids, miners, farm laborers – have you ever driven past a big farm in your air conditioned car and seen the immigrant people working in the fields under the blistering sun and thought, “Ah, that’s the job I want for my son”? The reason we have enjoyed the good life and low costs we have is in part because of the hard, honest work of those people.
The future that Trump and Musk hope for, and are working toward, is one in which the billionaires, with gold toilets and multiple mansions, vacation in exclusive resorts while their companies destroy the parks that once served citizens for vacations. They see men on the bottom of the economic ladder filling the low paying jobs, with no benefits and no future, while the women produce babies. Musk says we don’t need child care centers because that’s what older women are for. I’m not sure what the older men are for. Of course, according to Musk, if they are REAL men, they hang out in the tavern, drink beer and tell dirty jokes.
The hard truth is that Trump and Musk want to change our country from a place where the goal is a middle class that is comfortable and productive , a small upper class of reasonable wealth, and a very small lower class – always to be helped and assisted – change it to a two class system – one of billionaires who rule the economy and the government, and everyone else.
That “everyone else” must earn enough to buy their Companies’ products and pay for their services. Right now, their actions seem shortsighted, or too rushed.
The 300,000 people who have been fired by Mr. Musk were people who paid taxes and bought cars and fed families. Perhaps he didn’t know – thought they all had a bank account like his – well not that big, but enough. He certainly did not have a reasonable plan and a functional operation in mind. It has been detrimental to the workers, the economy, our reputation in the world, and to him and his partner , Mr. Trump. It has embarrassed, offended, frightened and saddened those of us who love this country and hope for its future.