Anyone who has ever spent time in a military chow line knows that, when the menu says Shit On a Shingle (SOS), you can expect a delicious meal of creamed chipped beef on toast. Imagine the surprise of the MAGA faithful who heard chef Donald say he was serving Shit On a Shingle, and they actually got a scoop of excrement on a thin tapered piece of roofing cedar.
Yes, within his first 100 days, President Donald John Trump has force fed all of America a steady diet of what he promised with a few surprises thrown in. The MAGA faithful used their selective hearing to foresee prices going down and a newly revitalized economy with more jobs that would be the envy of the world.
Those of us who knew him, never expected a better economy, but none of us foresaw the Spanish Inquisition. It came in the form of a wholesale dismantling of federal departments that included, mass arbitrary firings for “poor performance,” a formerly healthy stock market headed quickly toward recession in under two months, investment portfolios decimated, Social Security threatened, and the suspension of habeas corpus using the pretext of an undeclared war and an 18th century law.
Even the MAGA faithful are feeling some pangs of buyer’s remorse, but only a few are willing to risk the blasphemy of criticism. Any who had retirement plans that relied on investments in the stock market, have seen those dreams threatened. That next car or truck purchase may now have to be postponed. That will mean you will need to hang on to that aging Ford F150 truck just a while longer.
If that pickup breaks down, you may be in for a surprise. If your F150 truck has the 3.5-litre EcoBoost engine that one comes from Mexico. Springs marked with NHK come from Shiga-ken, Japan as do the truck's suspension stabilizer linkages. If you have the 10-speed automatic transmission in your F150, or the 5-litre V8, or 3.3-litre V6, or the 2.7-litre EcoBoost, those come from Canada. With higher prices hitting the parts market, you can be thankful for the fact that you aren’t relying on a government paycheck. Remember, the difference between a recession and a depression; a recession is when your neighbor loses their job, a depression is when you lose yours.
With retirement plans in jeopardy, perhaps you should work a bit longer. That will allow your 401K time to recover while you build up a bit more in Social Security. Whoops, the political sacred cow known as Social Security is now in the cross hairs of the Trump billionaire coalition. Billionaires don’t need Social Security, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or food assistance, or help from FEMA in a disaster. You may also have to work longer if your parents are still alive. If you were counting on your children to support you in your reclining years, those manufacturing jobs and agriculture field hand opportunities may not be enough to support them without your help.
At least the fruit and vegetable-picking job market is opening up. With fewer immigrants available more Americans will need to pick up the slack in this physically demanding labor market. If not, crops will be left unharvested and allowed to rot in the fields. This will result in higher prices for consumers. The dairy industry likewise relied heavily on immigrant labor so milk and dairy prices will soon be on the rise. If domestic production faulters we will need to import more. Whoops again, we forgot about those pesky tariffs.
How many times must the MAGA fanatics get burned touching the Trump stove before they realize it is too hot for any of us to survive? A Wisconsin Trump voter, Bradley Bartell, says he doesn’t regret his vote for Trump. His Peruvian wife was recently snatched up by ICE and detained. They were returning from their Puerto Rican honeymoon when Camila was placed in custody. Bradley doesn’t blame Trump; he blames the system where ICE doesn’t have enough information. He says the system is very inefficient, but Trump didn’t cause it.
Camila’s “crime” was that she overstayed her student visa 5 years ago when the Covid pandemic forced the cancellation of her return flight to Peru. For her honeymoon, she was held in a Louisiana detention center for 49 days before being released on $3,000 bond. If her hearing doesn’t go well, the Bartell family will consider moving to Peru. It won't hurt for Bradley to continue to blow kisses in Trump's direction and hope that his Messiah will perform another in a long line of miricles.
Now, that’s a faithful Trumper. He claims the system is broken somehow and that is “the system’s fault.” Mr. Bartell forgot that Trump ran that system for four years and didn’t fix it. Now that he is back in office, instead of fixing it this time, he is haphazardly destroying people’s lives on his immigration rampage. Could Trump have fixed the broken system before he started his purge that is making predictable mistakes? Sure, but why bother. His wife is safe, unless she pisses him off.
Mr. Bradley seems like a nice guy, and I wish he and his new wife well. He says he feels sorry for the other people still in detention where his wife had been. He just wonders about the logic of it all. One might ask him, who he thinks is currently responsible for this “logic” or the failed system.
Well, Mr. Bradley’s honeymoon certainly got off to a bad start. Likewise, Mr. Trump’s honeymoon period has been more like two self-driving Tesla’s crashing into one another and catching fire than the promised well-oiled machine. Who could have seen that one coming? Last November, 42% of us knew. Today that figure is certainly a bit higher even if some hard core MAGA-fanatics won’t admit what they see right in front of their lying eyes. To them I say, enjoy your “creamed chipped beef on toast,” and try to ignore the smell.
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