Donald Trump has been president of the U.S. for two months now — months that feel like years, every day bringing a new embarrassment for the U.S. on the global stage. Instead of staffing his White House and crafting a legislative agenda, the president has issued unconstitutional executive orders, picked public fights with former-President Barack Obama and spent his weekends golfing at Mar-a-Lago.
If it wasn’t obvious throughout the campaign, Trump voters must now realize an inconvenient truth: Donald Trump just isn’t that into you.
Great Lakes voters, many of whom voted for Trump, stand to lose a lot from Trump’s environmental policies. In his latest budget proposal, the president proposed to eliminate the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, promising to “Make America Flint Again.” The initiative has directly prevented the inundation of Asian carp into Lake Michigan and funded protection efforts in the Sheboygan and Lower Fox Rivers in Wisconsin. The proposed cuts would directly damage the Midwest’s quality of living and put our natural resources in direct peril.
While the House’s Affordable Care Act alternative wasn’t even brought to a House vote, the ramifications of such a health care policy bear an explanation as well. Voters in red states would suffer under the implementation of the House GOP’s Obamacare repeal and replacement scheme, which would slash subsidies for older health insurance customers.
In the state of Kentucky alone, which voted for the president by a 33-point margin, repealing the Affordable Care Act would throttle 440,000 low income citizens off of Medicaid and throw thousands more Kentuckians off the private exchange market. Kentucky, it’s worth noting, is the success story of Obamacare: It experienced the highest drop in the uninsured rate among states and saved over two billion dollars in “charity” medical costs.
Trump simply doesn’t care. In 2015, he promised not to cut Medicaid. Recently, when asked about the disproportionate hit to his own voters by the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, Trump’s response was a dismissive and almost predictable, “Oh, I know.”
But that’s not all.
Trump’s actions against free trade hurts assembly plant workers who depend on parts imported from around the world, as well as American workers in foreign-owned plants. His attitude toward immigrants and refugees is hindering the U.S.’s ability to innovate and standing in the world. His executive order freezing federal hiring is negatively impacting understaffed Department of Veterans Affair’s hospitals and jeopardizing the troops he claims to care so much about.
His attitude regarding international relations, including his embrace of Russia and cavalier stance towards NATO, endangers the very nature of the free world.
Through notion of ‘fake news,’ Trump is sending American people into an existential crisis
Trump supporters voted for him for a wide variety of reasons: political frustration, economic anxiety and a misplaced hatred of Hillary Clinton, among others. But those voters stand to benefit from liberal reform of our institutions, rather than the “alt-right” destruction of the status quo.
Amending the Affordable Care Act to include a public option and tinkering with the mandate and subsidy scheme can bring down costs and expand insurance enrollment. A robust foreign policy that involves honoring our international commitments will deter our enemies and preserve the western values Trump supporters hold dear.
Well-negotiated free trade deals, coupled with stronger unions and better investments in research and green energy, can revive the Rust Belt and other struggling economic areas. Criminal justice reform, policing reform, stronger gun regulations and better economic support would staunch the so-called “American carnage” that plagues the alleged “hell” that is our inner-cities.
Republicans fail to deliver on yet another promise: repealing Obamacare
Reforming our education system to make college affordable and preschool universal can increase the long-term competitiveness of our workforce in the global economy. None of these beneficial changes come with Trump in the White House or Republicans holding Congress.
In 2018 and 2020, Trump voters ought to reconsider their political choices and realize where their economic and national security interests really lie.
Zach Urisman ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in finance.
