Donald Trump has never made a promise he has not broken. He has never encountered a trust he did not violate. He has never had a close relationship that he did not betray.
Ask his wives. Ask his business partners. Ask his children.
For many of us, it comes as no surprise when he lies or steals or violates his oath of office. It is what those of us who have observed him for years have come to expect.
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In fact, it is what we warned would happen. If he were elected the first time. If he were elected again.
Trump is a despicable human being. Despicable human beings behave despicably.
Due to his charm or his brand; to their gullibility or their ambition, there have throughout Trump’s life always been those who dropped their guard—even if just for a moment. Despite the philandering, the bankruptcies and the many thousands of suits filed against him, the lies that have been counted in the tens of thousands and those have yet to be revealed, there are always dupes, stooges and suckers who think somehow he will do something to benefit them.
(In reality, he will have he wanted or needed them to satisfy some base urge or fulfill some grand inevitably Trump-centric, Trump-benefiting, twistedly Trumpian plan.)
During the 2024 elections, just over 77 million Americans ignored this president’s flawed character and miserable track record. Now, less than six months after they helped him re-take the presidency, they are the ones who are discovering what happens when Donald Trump has used you and no longer feels he needs you.
Trump’s supporters are discovering that they have become 77 million Ivanas. They are 77 million Marla Maples. They are 77 million customers of Trump steaks or Trump universities, 77 million of the creditors he left high and dry.
The domestic policy bill that passed the Senate Tuesday, thus inching closer to being signed into law, is many things. All of them are bad. But for the vast majority of his supporters, what he calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is really just his latest big brutal betrayal.
And among those most hurt by it will be Trump voters. The $1.1 trillion in healthcare cuts will result in an estimated 12 to 17 million people losing their health insurance in the decade ahead. Not only will those people be impacted, but so will their families, their neighbors, their businesses and their employers. With one fifth of Americans receiving Medicaid, it is clear the damage will be sweeping. Hospitals and clinics will close across America. Drug prices will go up. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost.
Trump voters who supported the president because he decried the economic policies of the Biden Administration will find that their man has pushed through a bill that will increase the national debt by between $3 trillion and $5 trillion—according to conservative estimates. If the Trump cuts are extended into the future, that number will go up.
Trump will lie about this. His supporters already are. But soon, the lies will be revealed as they always are by the truth of the lives that those he is betraying are leading. More national debt means more expensive mortgages, slower growth, fewer jobs even as cuts to healthcare and to other vital services like SNAP food aid programs will hurt the most vulnerable in our society.
Surely then, it means that Trump is really only screwing his poor supporters, his rural supporters? Well, the bill’s massive increases in spending on his militarized round-ups of immigrants will target many among or adjacent to Latino communities who supported him. When the bill is signed, ICE will get more funding than the Marine Corps. (And of course, under Trump, it will have the benefit of direct support from the Marine Corps.)
Not only will he not just be targeting the very bad people he promised would be his priority, his plans go much farther. Indeed, on Tuesday, at the ribbon cutting for his newest concentration camp, Alligator Alcatraz, Trump mused about denaturalizing American citizens, rounding up those he sees as enemies.
Already, his gestapo-like operations have many major sectors which once supported him—agribusiness, hospitality and construction—crying for help. In the same way, the fat cats who think Trump is bringing them big pay days with tax cuts are being forced to contend with the economic consequences not only of his increases to the national debt but of his wildly erratic and unsuccessful trade policies, which will slow growth and cost U.S. jobs. Remember 90 deals in 90 days? Trump is on track for zero real trade deals in 90 days. Nothing but a couple of band-aid measures and one feeble framework agreement with the U.K. And if your industry depended on brainpower, Trump’s attacks on immigrants and universities are driving away the kind of smart, talented people upon whom our growth has depended for decades.
Even big donors and prominent supporters are feeling the burn. Just ask former #1 Trump fan Elon Musk, who just yesterday had to endure more speculation by Trump that he might be deported and see his big federal grants canceled.
It may well be that Trump has taken things so far that America finally rejects the winner-take-all economics of the super-rich.
At least we can hope so. And we can work for those outcomes.
The people Trump used to get elected are now being abused and discarded just like everyone else he has taken advantage of and ditched during his life. Why? Because the 79 year-old Trump is not running in any more elections. The schmucks on Capitol Hill who are putting their careers on the line by backing the bill, the most unpopular piece of big legislation in modern U.S. history, are about to find out the cold hard truth themselves.
Trump is about Trump. Which means three things now: monetizing the presidency through the kind of corruption that will stain the GOP for decades, advancing his personal legacy even if it means political disaster for his party (and its followers) and enacting retribution against his enemies even if it means that, once he is gone, the backlash will be felt by those who once made the huge mistake of defending him.
Not that we should have one droplet of sympathy for Trump’s enablers. They are the co-authors of the disaster that is befalling this country. They deserve what they have coming. In the very near future, they will come to feel the pain to which so many who trusted Trump in the past can relate.
Which means that forever afterwards they, like the country, will not view this bill as a triumph for Trump but rather they will recognize it as the latest and largest scale betrayal of those who made the enormous mistake of investing their trust in the world’s least trustworthy man.
