‘America First’ is anti-middle class

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To hear the Republicans tell it, immigrants have been taking jobs away from “American workers.” That’s why the regime must purge “illegals” – to free up space in the job market and make America great again.

But the question of whether native-born white workers will do the work of immigrants overlooks the larger goal of rightwing politics. In particular, it overlooks that the purge of “illegals” won’t stop there.

The purge is expansive. It overlaps with an array of immiserating policies. Collectively, these policies aim to destabilize the middle class.

Why do that?

In rightwing politics, society should have a shape – a pyramid in which wealth and power are concentrated at the top, while at the bottom are the vast majority of people who have little power and even less wealth.

This shape is a rightwing ideal, as it reflects “the natural order,” or “God’s plan.” The strong rule. The weak get what’s coming to them.

In rightwing politics, any attempt to flatten this social hierarchy, which is to say, any attempt through democratic means and liberal values to enlarge the range of economic opportunities and to manifest some measure of equal justice, is seen as a perversion of “the natural order.”

That’s why, in rightwing politics, the very existence of a middle class is a bad thing. Anyway, a middle class can’t be controlled. It has too many options. And those options are due almost entirely to the outcomes of liberal politics. So the outcomes of liberalism must themselves be “corrected” in order to restore society according to “God’s plan.”

That “correction” can be seen in the GOP’s new reconciliation bill.

Known as “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the legislation dramatically accelerates funding for ICE, Border Patrol and other immigration authorities while dramatically defunding Medicaid, food stamps and other safety-net programs, all the while cutting taxes for the rich. It also makes significant changes to college access, including new limits on grants and lifetime caps on the amount young people can borrow.

Budgets are statements of belief and with this new budget law, the Republicans are stating their belief in “naturalizing” society. By getting rid of “illegals,” they make room at the bottom of the social ladder for “American workers” who no longer have a safety net to keep them from falling out of the middle class and those who don’t have access to the skills, education and opportunities they need to climb up into it.

The new reconciliation bill is an attempt to take a diamond-shaped society, in which there’s a broad middle class with wealth and power widely though not evenly distributed – and turn it into a pyramid.

And in that, it’s an attempt to steal social status.

That’s why the Republicans talk about it as if it were merely an effort at reform – by enforcing federal immigration law, by reducing “waste, fraud and abuse,” by getting people off “welfare” and by encouraging work. Here’s how US Senator Eric Schmidt of Missouri recently put it:

“The answer is opening those opportunities up for American workers. You just saw a food processing plant open up that had some folks who were arrested and sent away, and then you had American workers actually sign up and do those jobs. It’s a myth that Americans don’t want to work hard and do these jobs. Of course, they will.”

Actually, it’s not a myth. Farmers and businesspeople have long known that native-born Americans, which is to say, white Americans, will not do what their immigrant counterparts do for the same meager wages.

In 2012, Alabama passed a strict anti-immigrant law that forced tomato farmers to hire white workers to pick their crop. Just one problem, a farmer told the AP: “They’re not physically in shape to do it, and they’re probably not mentally tough enough to do it, some of them.”

Put the reconciliation bill with other harmful developments — higher tariffs; higher inflation; defunding science, medicine and the weather service; corrupting disaster relief programs; rolling back consumer protection services; the abolishment of the Department of Education – and you have a picture of a regime that is not only anti-immigrant.

It’s anti-middle class, too.

The Republicans are rewriting the rules of society so that people in the middle fall down more frequently and more quickly, while people at the bottom will never get the opportunity to climb up. It is an attack on status itself – a covert, one-sided war against the American dream.

And because it’s all being done under the banner of “America First,” most white people won’t notice what’s going on until it’s too late.

I’m afraid that’s the biggest takeaway from my interview with Teri Carter, a journalist in Kentucky. After the Republicans passed their reconciliation bill by a one-vote margin, I got in touch with her.

The people of Kentucky, most of whom are rural and voted for Donald Trump, celebrated the legislation’s passage. I wanted to ask Teri if they really understood what they’re cheering. Sadly, Teri said, they don’t.

“They are not connecting the dots at all," she told me. "When I tried to talk to a Trump voter about this recently, he held his fist in the air and said ‘fight fight fight!’ (the image from the attempted assassination).”

The GOP reconciliation bill is going to take a lot of money away from people who need it to pay for their healthcare. Of course, I'm talking about Medicaid. This is especially true in places like Kentucky. What are people there expecting to happen? How bad is it going to get?

We expect the defunding or decrease of Medicaid funding to be catastrophic. With rural healthcare specifically, Kentucky is likely to suffer more than any other state. We are a small state (4.5 million people), but we are divided into 120 mostly small, mostly rural counties, and 130,000 rural Kentuckians may lose their Medicaid coverage over the next decade. And it's not just the insurance. It's the access to local hospitals and the jobs provided by those hospitals.

Governor Andy Beshear said half of kids in Kentucky benefit from Medicaid coverage in some form. Taking that away would also be in addition to rampant anti-vax conspiracy theory as well as worsening climate impact, like that in Texas, which saw biblical flooding recently, also killing kids. How are people in Kentucky seeing the impact on future generations? Are they even thinking about that?

It is true that half of our kids benefit from Medicaid. And I think it's hard to think of the future when you are trying to survive day by day, and it is enraging that this obvious fact appears to be either irrelevant to our elected officials or that they just don't care. Kentucky has also had 100-year floods occur in the last few years, and we are seeing parents choosing to shun vaccines. Recently, two infants died of whooping cough, and we have cases of the measles.

Mitch McConnell said Kentuckians will get over it. Will they? Even if their own kids die as a consequence of these cuts? I don't mean to exaggerate, but there does seem to be potential even for that.

Unfortunately, you are not exaggerating. There is also a potential of their children being killed in a school shooting, but that has certainly not gotten the attention of Kentucky's elected officials, and they know that they will be able to get the best care for their own kids if the need arises. McConnell said Kentuckians will get over it, but surely even he knows this is a lie. We may be a poor state, but we take care of each other and we have a long memory. McConnell doesn't care. He's been in office for four decades. He's leaving the legacy he wanted to leave, packing the courts. I don't see evidence that he cares about much else.

How do rural folks in Kentucky square the following circle: they support the president but the president doesn't support them? How do the people you know personally, and who see passage of this legislation as a win, explain it to themselves? I know not all rural folk voted for Trump but most did. Can you explain their thinking?

I live in a small, central, rural Kentucky county (pop. 24,000) where more than 70 percent voted for Trump each time he ran. What people tell me is he's doing what they wanted him to do, what no one else has been willing to do, and that is to "stop the illegals" and keep them safe.

When you talk to them about Medicaid -- even if their own family members use Medicaid -- they are convinced of the "waste, fraud and abuse" talking point, and will say things like people need to "get off the couch and get a job" or "get off the dole."

Sadly, they are not connecting the dots at all. When I tried to talk to a Trump voter about this recently, he held his fist in the air and said "fight fight fight!" (the image from the attempted assassination).

I will argue this: it's not that they don't think Democrats care about them; they think Trump cares about them more and that whatever "scare tactics" we use to say he's hurting them is disregarded. Until hospitals actually close, or their own grandmother can't stay in her extended care facility due to Medicaid loss, they will not understand.

Yet Kentucky has a Democratic governor. He said that the “one big beautiful bill” is the worst piece of legislation of his lifetime and it will kill Kentuckians. How does he get around all the cognitive dissonance? What can he teach Democrats nationally?

I often wonder how much worse things would be if we did not have Beshear as governor. I cover the statehouse. There is a massive GOP supermajority. What was their big bill this year? House Bill 4, anti-DEI, which has zero to do with jobs, healthcare, safety or financial security.

And yet, I often talk to Trump voters -- including elected Republicans on the local level -- who voted for Andy Beshear for governor, twice.

Beshear's great gift is he never, ever talks ugly about anyone, and he talks to citizens like they are his family. He doesn't preach about who anyone should be angry at, either, huge in today's environment.

I was recently at the swearing in for a new state Supreme Court justice, and Beshear made his way through the room, shaking hands, saying, "Hi, I'm Andy," over and over. Rural Kentuckians know he's the one who shows up during a 100-year flood, offers someone his jacket, and gets them the aid they need. Democrats nationally need to stop putting out talking points and telling everyone how bad Trump is. They need to say, "Hi, I'm _____, how can I help?" and then really listen.

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