Well Played, Mr. Trump

So *this* is who we are!

Sally Edelstein’s blog Envisioning the American Dream included a post last week (July third, the day the house approved the senate version of Project 2025) that mourned the loss of American exceptionalism. To her, exceptionalism meant a country striving towards the ideal stated in the last line of the original Pledge of Allegiance: One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I left a comment that I began workshopping earlier in the week on a couple of other blogs touching on the concept of American exceptionalism: American exceptionalism began its slow crawl to its grave with the U-S-A chant at the 1980 Olympics. The only exceptional part of America today is our arrogance. We are now the bullies of the world–the kid you liked in 2nd grade but became a dick long before high school. The house is about to cast the vote that will codify poverty, double-down on climate change and cast us ever closer to insolvency. The America you’re looking for is gone.

Today is the culmination of the Republican vision from my entire adult life. The rich get richer… Other benefits include more funds to deport our working class, millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage, more financial pressure on American colleges and college-bound Americans, and a last-ditch-effort to try to prove trickle-down economics can work.

A couple of populist tax cuts included in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” directly benefit my family:  My wife Susan earns tips, and both our kids earn overtime. All that income is now tax free. I suppose this should make me happy, but I’d rather see the nation pay down its debt. Donald Trump’s businesses have filed for bankruptcy six times. Is this his clever endgame for America?

On the day Trump solidified his first Republican nomination, I posted on Twitter: Today’s news seems like the last sentence in the first chapter of a dystopian novel. Using that analogy, I feel like today, Independence Day 2025, we’ve hit the cliffhanger chapter break immediately prior to Armageddon. The chaos of the past nine years was the exposition. Tomorrow, things get ugly.

Trump is often portrayed as an undisciplined megalomaniac. The undisciplined part just got harder to prove. Today, he achieved many long-held goals of the Republican party. That he did it on his self-imposed, symbolic deadline of Independence Day is icing on his cake. Well played, my nemesis, well played.

Buckle up, America. The ride gets rougher from here.

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Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial, Washington D.C., United States of America

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Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.

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Photo credit: Unsplash