Our struggles for independence from the rule of a king started with something as simple as a complaint of being taxed without our input. You remember, right? It was called the Boston Tea Party.
A short overview of what lead up to the “Boston Tea Party”:
While you may be familiar with a movement in the recent past called the Tea Party, it was, perhaps, a misnomer. For the Tea Party was a bit of a precursor to MAGA, the group that supports Donald Trump. Or at least they were part of the Republican Party, which has veered so far to the right as to be unrecognizable.
So now that brings us to today, where we have the “Trump Tariffs” and his “Big, Beautiful Bill”. The tariffs are nothing more than a tax on goods that are imported into this country. That tax will be passed on down the food chain until it reaches the end users, which are you and me. This will lead to reciprocal tariffs by our trading partners on the goods we sell them. Both of these taxes will affect us through higher costs of goods we purchase and hurt our companies that sell overseas affecting their markets and our jobs. After Trump’s first term our agriculture markets took some time to recover from his tariffs.
The “Big, Beautiful Bill” is nothing more than a transfer of wealth to the higher income strata of American society. It has made Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and cut social programs which help lower income Americans survive. This while eliminating thousands of jobs in the public sector which were in place in departments set up to help our government function smoothly. While you may not have seen the ramifications of these Trump and Republican polices, unless you are one of those fired or rounded up and deported, you will eventually. Someone once said that the United States economy is like a battleship, it doesn’t turn on a dime. And, despite what you may have thought, it was doing quite well under Biden, when compared to other countries.
So where does that leave us? I hold out little hope that the true MAGA followers will ever realize what they have done by supporting Trump and his enablers. Even as many lose their jobs and their families sink further into poverty. They have drunk the Kool-Aid of the Trump cult. If those who voted for Trump, voted third party, or simply sat out the election do not come to understand what they are throwing away, then this country is in serious trouble.
So it was hard to celebrate the 4th of July this year. But, I cannot leave this post with such a depressing ending. Because I do see signs out there of that America which stood together in times of trouble, the America we fought for in our revolution, the America that gives hope for our future.
On July 4th there was a catastrophic flood in Texas. A short video:
They call this a historic flood, but I suspect it will become more of the norm in our future. But what we saw, again, was the strength of those who were affected. We saw people helping each other. We saw some of the grit and determination that this country was founded on. I don’t know if the people there were Trump supporters or not, but they stood together as Americans and that is what really made this country great. It is what we need to get back to, helping all of our citizens, not just those who are fortunate to be born to wealthy parents, and have no clue as to what many Americans are going through. My heart goes out to those affected by those Texas floods. Even as I write this it appears that more flooding may be on the way.
I just ran across this video tonight and want to add it to this post, because the point made is important. What do we really want our country to be?
