Headlines focus on how Americans are struggling with rising prices for gas and food. The war in Iran is blamed for our economy taking a hit and that effect happened fairly fast. It has taken longer for the negative effects of Trump’s policies to be felt by the American people. Many of those suffering identify as MAGA and were somewhat naive, believing that Trump’s draconian policies would spare them. As the three examples below show, the damage Trump and his cabinet continue to inflict means that no one is truly safe.
Erosion of Food Safety Oversight
Last year, Trump delayed a rule meant to track the source of food contamination. When cases of cyclosporiasis spiked in Michigan, state health officials, knowing many who were sickened had eaten at Taco Bell, asked the company for its supply chain records. That request, on July 1, went unanswered. On July 3, they wrote and made the request again. Yet again on July 6. It wasn’t until July 13, nearly two weeks after that first request, that Michigan and the Food and Drug Administration, received the information they needed to identify a Taylor Farms plant in Mexico as the source of the outbreak.
According to a New York Times article: “A federal rule that had been scheduled to take effect in January would have required Taco Bell to send those records within 24 hours. But last year, the Trump administration delayed the implementation of that rule until mid 2028, saying companies needed more time to prepare.”
“Time translates into illnesses and lives,” said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, who reviewed the emails from Michigan and was quoted in the article. “We would have had a much better response to this outbreak if they hadn’t delayed that rule.”
People point to the cutback in regulations and laying off many in the FDA as being responsible for lapses in food safety. “So far this administration has made our food less safe, not safer,” said Scott Faber, the senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, said to the Times. “By firing food safety experts, by reducing the number of inspections, by tracking fewer pathogens, and by failing to set up a traceability system that makes sure that we’re able to to clear the shelves quickly.”
Among the programs cut? One that focused on cyclospora tracking.
Deported by ICE
Brent Jindra, a tech salesman, voted for Trump three times, mostly because of his immigration strategies. “He never imagined the crackdown would ensnare his own wife,” according to an article in the New York Times. His wife, Galina Bobreneva, is from Russia and has a pending green card application. That didn’t prevent ICE from whisking her away to a deportation facility when she and her husband got off their flight in Burbank, California.
After spending the night in a Los Angeles holding cell, she spent two weeks in a Mojave Desert detention center. In the Times article, she described the horrific conditions in the facility run, not by ICE, but by the GEO Group. She told the Times there were seven showers for 120 women, but only four worked. Sick people were denied care. Potable water was scarce. “I never thought that it was so easy to take freedom from anyone,” she was quoted in the Times piece. This from a Russian!
As for her husband, that three-time MAGA voter: “We are living in fear in my own country.” That fear will last for him and his wife for many months until her case can be heard in court. Previous administrations did not deport people with expired visas. But Trump and Stephen Miller are pushing to detain and possibly deport 2,000 people a day. Galina is just a number to them.
Medicaid Cutbacks
The front page of the Washington Post was dominated by a story featuring Annie Morgan who is a full-time caregiver for her daughter, Ava. Annie is not alone. Family caregivers, defined as those who provide care for children or adults with serious health conditions, now number an estimated 63 million Americans, an increase from the 43.5 million ten years ago. Ava, now 14, has angelman syndrome, a rare genetic nervous system disorder that affects roughly 1 in 15,000 people. Those diagnosed with the syndrome suffer severe developmental delays, intellectual disability, and difficulties with balance and movement.
According to the Post article, Annie’s family receives some caregiving support through Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, and other state programs, including a few hours of weekend care and financial support for caregiving. “But it hasn’t been enough, and recently Trump administration officials, including Mehmet Oz, who oversees the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have questioned Medicaid programs that pay relatives to provide care and have subjected in-home services to increased scrutiny over alleged fraud,” the story goes on to report.
Annie, who was once a dancer and a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders, is now a full-time caregiver for Ava, who starts ninth grade this fall. Ava doesn’t speak but communicates by making sounds and pointing at images on a device. After dropping Ava off at school, Annie often spends the rest of the day dealing with her daughter’s many needs – filling prescriptions, scheduling therapy sessions, battling with insurance companies. If Ava has a problem at school, Annie’s day becomes even more complicated.
In the comments left after the article, several identified themselves as also being caregivers for a child with a disability and worried about more cuts coming to Medicaid. One, a grandmother helping to care for a grandson with severe autism, said: “As many others have commented, we have billions for a war nobody wants and billions more to prop up the conceits of an elderly man who would be king.”
These are just three examples that were deemed serious enough to be run on the front pages of the Post and the Times. But they are certainly not the last. The cuts made by Elon Musk’s DOGE, which basically saved much less than he promised, will begin to bleed into more headlines as we approach the midterms. Will those who voted for Trump continue to vote for Republicans who support what he is doing, or, like Jindra, who is now living in fear, have second thoughts? We will have to wait and see.
Top Bigstock photo by digitalista
