by Rex Huppke
Let’s take a quick look at the MAGA agenda checklist:
Lower grocery prices? No.
Increased manufacturing? Nope.
Increased spending on home construction? Sorry, no.
Rising consumer confidence? Big no.
Deporting moms and beloved community members? YES! A million times, YES!
Look at Trump’s empty promises. Cruelty is all that matters.
If you voted for President Donald Trump and hoped something good would happen to you.
Because that’s where we are at the start of June 2025. Trump’s promises of a better life for Americans are proving to be empty.
And his promise to round up “millions” of “criminals” and deport them hasn’t materialized, because the claim that there are millions of criminal immigrants in America was a lie in the first place.
Instead, the administration has resorted to grabbing immigrants at courthouses where they’re appearing for hearings – in other words, following the rules – or snatching up and deporting working moms and high school kids.
ICE isn’t just going after criminals. Moms and kids are easy targets.
An 18-year-old high school junior was recently arrested by ICE agents as he drove with friends to volleyball practice in Milford, Massachusetts.
Communities are watching people they love get rounded up
In the small Pennsylvania town of Honesdale, ICE agents recently raided a pizzeria and detained three employees, rattling the community. Resident Connor Simon told WNEP-TV: “It’s really hard to fathom that the guy making my pizza for 25 years is a gangster and a terrorist, and the person who shows up in an unmarked car wearing a mask and body armor comes to take him away is somehow the good guy.”
And the recent ICE arrest in Kennett, Missouri, of a mother – an immigrant from Hong Kong – has led residents to denounce what happened to the longtime resident who works at a diner.
“I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here,” Vanessa Cowart told The New York Times. “But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.”
These actions by the Trump administration benefit only the most sadistic among us.
But it’s part and parcel of the harm Trump’s MAGA policies have already caused.
Construction and manufacturing are down …
We were promised a booming economy and lower food prices. Here are quick examples of what we’re actually getting:
Total construction spending has dropped for the third straight month, down 0.4% in April, with residential construction spending 4.7% below where it was a year ago.
Reuters reported June 2: “U.S. manufacturing contracted for a third straight month in May and suppliers took the longest time in nearly three years to deliver inputs amid tariffs, potentially signaling looming shortages of some goods.” A report from the Institute for Supply Management quoted a respondent saying: “Government spending cuts or delays, as well as tariffs, are raising hell with businesses. No one is willing to take on inventory risk.”
… and so is America’s global favorability
Axios reported June 2 that China is surging ahead of America in global favorability ratings: “As of the end of May, China had an 8.8 net favorability rating, compared to -1.5 for the U.S., according to favorability data for last month provided exclusively to Axios by Morning Consult. In January 2024, the U.S. rating was above 20 and China was in negative territory.”
The Morning Consult report referenced in the Axios story adds this less-than-encouraging line: “Russia is the only country where views of the United States have improved substantially among the general population this year.”
Consumer confidence is tanking, and more Americans fear job loss in six months
In less than six months, Trump has shown he’s only good at being mean
But hey, at least Americans don’t have to worry about that one working mom from Missouri, the Massachusetts high school volleyball player everybody loves, or the immigrants who follow the law and show up for their asylum or immigration hearings. If performative cruelty is the only thing that matters to you, things are working out great under President Trump.
For the rest of us, America is swiftly and painfully going down the tubes.
Courtesy by USA TODAY.
