Snapshot: An Immoral Bill, Delivered By A Cult
Every Democrat opposed it, all but three Republicans supported it, most Americans reject it, but the Senate passed this repugnant legislation anyway
The U.S. Senate just passed an immoral and repugnant piece of legislation, providing a sickening monument to a party gone mad in service to a suicide-inducing cult leader. Now it returns to the House, where the Trump cult will likely march in step to ram through this odious, deeply unpopular bill—and push aggressively to do this by July 4 to meet the arbitrary deadline created by their dear leader.
This so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”—even its name nauseates me—could not be a more cruel and hateful piece of work. It includes kicking more than 12 million people off of Medicaid and likely forcing the closing of hundreds of rural hospitals, reducing food assistance for more than 40 million people (including 16 million children and 8 million seniors), destroying nearly 6 million jobs and increasing the national debt by at least $3.3 trillion—all to give the richest Americans and corporations more tax breaks and particularly increase funding for Trump’s mass deportation plan carried out by masked, unaccountable men. This jammed-through legislation—a more than 900-page monstrosity that not any senator fully read—will make America meaner, more insecure, more unequal, more determined to make the poor poorer, the rich richer and the fascistic Trump dream of a police state closer than ever.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that two-thirds of Americans have an unfavorable view of the bill. That even includes one-third of Republicans and two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say they are not MAGA supporters. It’s worth noting that most Americans believe that Medicaid, which would be cut by nearly a trillion dollars, is already underfunded. Yale University researchers estimate that the bill would kill 51,000 Americans annually.
But that has proved to not matter to the 47 Republicans who care more about demonstrating their fealty to Donald Trump than serving their constituents or any basic human principles. He wants a win, he wants it now, he has threatened to destroy the career of anyone who voted against the bill (in other words, him). He could care less how many people this legislation will hurt, how politically suicidal it may be both for those who voted for it or how perilous it promises to be for an economy that’s already suffering over $36 trillion in debt. As the promise of America declines, the oligarchs and the kleptocrats are feeding on the spoils.
In the end, Senators Rand Paul, Thom Tillis and Susan Collins voted against it, requiring Vice President JD Vance to swoop in like a vulture to provide the 51st vote. This was a chance for the opponents of empathy, compassion and basic decency to celebrate their power to cause pain and suffering.
Now the bill returns to the House, where the Republicans will make a show of opposing it. But in this hypnotized climate—in which fear, intimidation and sadistic pleasure in causing destruction rule—it’s hard to imagine that there are enough House Republicans that would dare to kill the bill and displease their leader.
If a version of this bill ends up being signed into law, we can look ahead to increased poverty, food insecurity, hunger, death and dying by the most vulnerable among us. We can expect to see a significant expansion of illegal and inhumane arrests and deportations.
This is a tragedy, a heartbreak. But I hope it will motivate each of us to deepen our commitment to overcoming this cruel regime in whatever way we can, including taking to the streets in protest. This is a day for outrage and sadness, but we can’t let it discourage us from the job ahead. We have nothing less than a country to save.
The elected Trump cult has proven that they have surrendered all principle to serve their master. We need to prove that their days in power are numbered.
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The cruelty is sickening, and the regression from our vision of the Great Society could not be more tragic. It is especially galling as it comes on the eve of the 61st anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. To quote historian Julian Zelizer, “The basic social ethic championed by liberals of President Johnson’s generation is under severe threat in 2025. As the nation mourns Moyers’ passing, we would do well to think about the vision that he, and President Johnson, championed — of a government that helps lift people up rather than pushing them down. Under Trump, it’s clear that Washington is hostile to domestic programs that help minimize widening economic disparities and address social hatred and inequality.
President Johnson called on a generation of Americans to renew the meaning of freedom. Sixty-one years later, the meaning is shrinking and LBJ’s appeal to the moral conscience, along with his demand to build a Great Society, is quickly fading.”
I agree that this is a party that has gone "mad in service to a suicide-inducing cult leader." But at what point does the blame also have to go to the American people who have not only enabled but embraced this madness and cult? We've been dealing with this in one form or another for eight years, and every time the madness grows worse, their political power only seems to grow. The fact of the matter is that voters keep rewarding this madness, and so what we're seeing with this party is a reflection of what too many Americans have become. What's the solution? We always hear how deeply unpopular their policies are, how much pain they inflict, yet voters keep rewarding it. It's not like there aren't other options. Republicans could nominate sane, decent people, but they seem to like what their party has become, and enough other people are willing to go along. Elections have consequences, as one or two people have said over the years.