A Dark Day in American History

Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" will inflict untold misery on millions of Americans

I don’t have much to say about this atrocity that others haven’t already said, other than that it marks one of the lowest moments in the history of the republic. The Faustian bargain that Republicans have made with trump has reached its apotheosis, and in due course we’ll learn whether the wreckage this vile piece of legislation leaves in its wake can be undone some day or whether the damage is irreversible.

In that regard, I’ll mention an observation by Brian Beutler in his “Off Message” Substack that struck me as reason for both hope and dismay. He notes that quite apart from the economics of this unprecedented giveaway to the rich, the most repugnant aspects of this repugnant bill are the secret police force and prison network created by its $100 billion ICE slush fund and gulag budget.

“Medicaid can be funded again, food stamps can be funded again, clean energy can be funded, taxes can be increased progressively,” he writes. “But an immigrant prison network, overseen by Trump-loyal paramilitaries, with no resources for due process, will be very hard to dislodge, and could easily be turned against the citizenry. This is Stephen Miller’s wet dream and it will stain the whole country.”

Of course, while it’s true that Medicaid, food stamps, clean energy, and progressive taxation can be restored, millions will die or suffer needlessly in the interim. All to provide tax cuts for, and sate the bottomless greed of, the ultra-wealthy donor class, which owns the Republican Party lock, stock, and barrel and to which the GOP owes its sole allegiance.

Even though the bill cynically defers until after the mid-term elections its savage Medicaid and food stamp cuts, I expect the already softening economy to take further hits. Not just because the effects of trump’s deranged tariffs will soon begin to be felt, but because trump’s threat of mass deportations and the terror campaign he’s waged against immigrants have, predictably, driven many migrants into the shadows. The effect of that on the economy will be profound as a range of industries highly dependent on migrant labor—construction, agriculture, hospitality, and health services, among others—begin to experience severe labor shortages.

If that turns out to be the case, one can reasonably expect the electoral blowback to be immense, leading to a Republican wipeout in the midterms. I know, I know, the Democratic Party seems to be floundering right now and its approval numbers are in the tank. But as Josh Marshall pointed out the other day, the party establishment shouldn’t be confused with Democratic voters. And the evidence from polls, town halls, protests, and campaign activism, he notes, “is that the public is deciding for themselves that they really don’t like what they’re seeing. Elected Democrats may not be doing enough to help that process. But voters are jumping into the breach and doing it themselves.”

Marshall wrote those words last week, before this radioactive piece of garbage of a budget bill was passed. And as more Americans learn about its obscene provisions, let alone experience its impact on their daily lives, it is bound to generate the kind of rage and fury that translates into big election gains.

As Beutler memorably put it, this bill represents a combination of civic degeneracy and social Darwinism that has become Republicans’ favorite flavor combination. And that flavor combination is going to leave a very bitter taste in the mouths of millions of American voters, including many who voted for trump.

All of which puts me in mind of a short poem by Carl Sandburg called “I Am the People, the Mob,” which I read as his paean to an empowered citizenry. It was first published as part of his 1916 collection “Chicago Poems.” Here it is, an apt piece of prosody on the holiday that commemorates America’s Declaration of Independence—the quintessential expression of the ideals on which the United States was founded:

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

Happy 4th.