Donald Trump Recently Learned a New Word: Groceries
And yet, many poor Americans think he has their interests at heart.
“Come on, get dressed. We gotta go.” My mother would say, poking her head from the hallway.
Never wanting to go anywhere because we wanted to play all day, one of us would ask, “Where are we going?” There were five of us.
“We need to do some grocery shopping.”
“Groceries” and the act of driving to a supermarket and buying them is something that most Americans and citizens of the world engage in daily. Some hate it, and some love it (I love it). The president-elect of the United States never engaged in that act of survival. He never had to because other people have been doing it for him throughout his life. In Trump’s world, the refrigerator is always full — I am not even sure he knows what a refrigerator is. He probably thinks his cans of Coke come perfectly chilled.
Why am I writing about this now? It seems that a few weeks ago, Trump began telling people that he was elected because he had been talking about “groceries.” The look on his burnt-umber-colored face was one of complete shock. Each time he repeated the word “Groceries, groceries,” he became more animated by how the word slid off his fat tongue. He was like a puppy playing with a new squeaky toy.
“It’s an amazing word. People say, ‘I gotta go for groceries,’ and everyone understands it. That one word means so many things.”
Donald Trump is like an alien among us, and yet, a majority of Americans think he is just like them.
It was all that penny-pinching that drove the part-time tax consultant to abandon the Democratic Party this fall and vote for Donald Trump.
“He is more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich,” Mosura, 55, said on a recent afternoon. “I think he knows it’s the poor people that got him elected, so I think Trump is going to do more to help us (Low-Income Voters Hope He Doesn’t Slash Their Benefits).”
Lori Mosura is 55. She has been a lifelong Democrat in New Castle, Pennsylvania, which hasn’t voted for a Republican candidate since 1956. Trump won New Castle by 400 votes. 1 in 4 residents in the city live below the poverty line. Somewhat oddly, they blame Joe Biden and Democrats, even though it is Republicans who consistently vote against them and for the wealthy. Ms. Mosura, however, is confident that Trump cares about her and people like her.
Donald Trump not only doesn’t care about Lori, but if he had the chance to offer her a helping hand, he would shove that hand in his pocket, look the other way, and mutter to himself, “What a loser.” Donald Trump can’t understand why everyone didn’t just take their daddy’s millions and invest in money-losing deals as he did.
New Castle’s poorest residents weren’t alone in putting their faith in Trump. Network exit polls suggest he erased the advantage Democrats had with low-income voters across the country.
Fifty percent of voters from families with an income of less than $50,000 a year cast their ballots for Trump, according to the data, compared with 48 percent for Vice President Kamala Harris. Four years ago, President Joe Biden carried those voters by 11 percentage points; Hillary Clinton won them by 12 points in 2016 and former president Barack Obama by 22 points in 2012 (Low-Income Voters Hope He Doesn’t Slash Their Benefits).”
Low-income Americans are in one of the rudest awakenings in generations. Just as so many Americans were fooled by Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” lie, the off-the-wall belief that Donald Trump cares about them will very soon come back to take a hearty chunk out of their asses. The Musk-led DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) looks to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget, with most of the money coming from social programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and other programs.
While Trump does his best to resemble Jane Goodall and marvels at the culture of regular Americans, the African and wealthiest human on Earth, Elon Musk is making heartful pronouncements like: “The cuts will hurt many in the short term but will make Americans stronger in the long term.”
Steve Tillia, 59, receives $1,600 a month in Social Security disability payments and $300 in food stamps to support himself and his son. Tillia, who said he is unable to work after suffering from mini-strokes, still drives around New Castle with a Trump flag anchored on the bumper of his SUV.
Tillia said he’s confident that Trump and GOP leaders will reduce spending by “cutting the fat” out of government — and not slashing benefits (Low-Income Voters Hope He Doesn’t Slash Their Benefits).”
Maybe Trump won’t cut his benefits, but Musk will, and there is little Steve, Orange Donald, or others can do to stop what is coming. While the residents of the New Castles across America are focused on the imagined problems caused by the “wave of immigrants,” programs will be slashed, and good, albeit tragically misinformed, people will suffer.
Good luck, people. You voted against your interests yet again, and now you will reap the benefits.
While we talk about all this through the lens of 'late-stage' capitalism - the condition that allows billionaires to siphon off the country's wealth - we should also talk about 'late-stage Protestant Victorianism'. The old American notion that the man goes out to work and conquer the world while the woman stays home to raise both the kids and the family's morals is gasping its last breath as women claim a bigger place in the public realm - university education, business formation, etc. Meanwhile, the lower-income male population still believes that it is the focus of everyone's envy and attention, and will never be abandoned. These guys will have to hit rock bottom, with all the attendant social upheaval that will result, before they realize they have to join with their poor counterparts among women and people of color to wrest the nation's wealth and power out of the clinging, greedy hands of the billionaires. It will likely be very ugly when it happens although the unions may provide a less upsetting outlet for change through strikes and new contracts.
Absolutely true.