THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE

A Descent Into the Inferno

Sitting here, reading and worrying about the midterm elections, I become more concerned the more I learn about what Trump is doing to enrich himself, his family, and his friends while simultaneously working to suppress the vote.

It is almost inconceivable that a man who received only 18% of the vote in his own hometown could be elected president. That says something troubling about our electorate.

This week, Bone Spurs trashed the families of sailors who complained about substandard conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln because of the extended length of its Middle East deployment. Trump’s response? The deployment wasn’t long enough.

Think about that. Said by a man who avoided the draft, who reportedly called fallen service members “suckers” and “losers,” and who has never served a day in uniform. The guy simply doesn’t care.

Then I read the reports about Trump’s federally chartered bank, World Liberty Trust, approved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency under an official he appointed. The Trump family reportedly owns 38% of the bank, which is backed by World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency venture co-founded with his sons. The United Arab Emirates invested $500 million in the venture, and Trump reported enormous profits, $1.2 billion, from his crypto interests in 2025.

Combine that with the newest arrangement in which investors can reportedly pay $1.2 million a year for advance access to Trump’s social-media posts, posts that can move financial markets and you have to ask:

Where is Congress?

Where is that other branch of government whose constitutional responsibility is to provide a check and balance on presidential power?

We are being ripped off right in front of our eyes, openly and unabashedly.

And while Trump is lining his pockets, his policies are hurting ordinary Americans, including many of the people who voted for him. The major exception is the wealthiest American supporters, the top 10% who benefit disproportionately from tax policies favoring wealth and who continue to support him out of their own economic self-interest.

His tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and increased the national debt, leaving our children and grandchildren with the bill. But what is especially egregious is the damage being inflicted on Americans living paycheck to paycheck through his assault on health care.

Consider this headline:

“ACA Marketplace Enrollment Is Down by 3 Million After Big Jump in Premium Payments.”

When the impact of Trump’s reconciliation law is combined with the expiration of the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits, CBO estimates indicate that the number of uninsured Americans could increase by more than 14 million by 2034. Millions of those newly uninsured would live in states such as California, Florida, Texas, New York, Illinois, Georgia, and Ohio.

The reduction in access to affordable health care will hit especially hard in many states that voted for Trump, people who believed he cared about them because he promised a better health-care system and an end to expensive, taxpayer-funded foreign wars.

We are already beginning to see reductions in access to care. As this unfolds, more hospitals will close, particularly in rural and less densely populated areas. Reduced access will increase preventable illness and mortality while driving overall health-care costs even higher. Families will once again be forced to choose between food and medicine, literally making life-and-death decisions. And all of this is avoidable.

The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet it remains the only major advanced industrial nation that does not provide or guarantee health-care coverage for virtually all of its citizens.

We don’t hear much anymore about Trump’s promised “better” health-care plan. But we hear plenty about hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on new ballrooms, reflecting pools, marble for the Kennedy Center, a new helicopter pad, new marble columns for the White House, and even a new golf course for Washington; along with repeated pronouncements that the Iran debacle will somehow end tomorrow.

If we are going to recapture the spirit of America, protect our inalienable rights, and have a fair government that protects and serves everyone, then we need to hear less about Trump Ego Projects and much more about People Projects.

The only way we can slow this Dante-like descent into the Inferno is to elect members of Congress who actually care about the people they were sent there to represent.

Perhaps the MAGA-controlled Congress thinks its constitutional responsibility to provide “checks and balances” refers to their personal bank accounts or their ego accounts.

It doesn’t. Checks and balances define Congress’s solemn duty to ensure that no president becomes a deity, a king, or a tyrant, and that every branch of government ultimately remains accountable to We the People. They have failed in that responsibility.

And we will fail, too, if we do not reject the self-dealing, self-serving sycophants who are selling us down the river.

VOTE FOR CHANGE!

VOTE!!!

RESIST!!! & EDUCATE!!!