Robert Reich , The Guardian; Trump is threatening the basic needs of poor Americans. How low he has sunk
[Kip Currier: This is a very persuasive opinion piece by Robert Reich on moral authority and moral sustainability. I encourage everyone to reflect on these observations (excerpted below) about the contrast between FDR's actions in the 1930's and Trump's actions now and share them with others. Each of us has a choice we can make as to which approach we support and advance: adding more and more wealth to the ultra-rich or showing compassion and generosity to persons in need.
For those who follow a religious tradition, too, ask yourself which approach your higher power would support? Giving more money to a billionaire -- even potential trillionaire Elon Musk -- or providing compassionate assistance to a school with hungry children, a military family experiencing food scarcity, or a disabled individual with ongoing healthcare needs who is unable to work?
Realistically, we can't imbue a moral conscience or basic sense of decency upon those who even now emulate the Gilded Age Robber Barons, as Trump's Halloween Great Gatsby party unequivocally demonstrated while SNAP food benefits were being eliminated. However, we can make a choice each day about what each of us can do to help someone in need and support political candidates and organizations who are helping those less fortunate than we are.]
Eighty-eight years ago, in his second inaugural address, Franklin D Roosevelt told America that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
It was not a test of the nation’s military might or of the size of the national economy. It was a test of our moral authority. We had a duty to comfort the afflicted, even if that required afflicting the comfortable.
The Trump regime has adopted the reverse metric. The test of its progress is whether it adds to the abundance of those who have much and provides less for those who have too little.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/07/trump-snap-medicaid-moral-authority
[Excerpt]
"How low Trump has sunk.
Eighty-eight years ago, in his second inaugural address, Franklin D Roosevelt told America that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
It was not a test of the nation’s military might or of the size of the national economy. It was a test of our moral authority. We had a duty to comfort the afflicted, even if that required afflicting the comfortable.
The Trump regime has adopted the reverse metric. The test of its progress is whether it adds to the abundance of those who have much and provides less for those who have too little. It is passing this test with flying colors.
What is the Democrats’ demand amid the shutdown? That lower-income Americans continue to receive subsidized healthcare. Otherwise, healthcare premiums for millions of lower-income Americans will soar next year in large part because the Trump Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act (really, Big Ugly Bill) slashed Obamacare subsidies.
Republicans had rammed the Big Ugly Bill through Congress without giving Senate Democrats an opportunity to filibuster it because Republicans used a process called “reconciliation”, requiring only a majority vote of the Senate.
The Big Ugly Bill also requires Medicaid applicants and enrollees – also low-income – to document at least 80 hours of work per month
Many people dependent on Medicaid won’t be able to do this, either because they’re not physically able to work or won’t be able to do the required paperwork to qualify for an exemption from the work requirement.
The Congressional Budget Office, as assessed by KFF, estimates the work requirement will be the largest source of Medicaid savings, reducing federal spending on the low-income Americans by $326bn over 10 years and causing millions to become uninsured.
All told, the Big Ugly Bill cuts roughly $1tn over the next decade from programs for which the main beneficiaries are the poor and working class, and gives about $1tn in tax benefits to the richest members of our society.
It is the most dramatic reversal of FDR’s moral test in American history.
By the time of FDR’s second inaugural address in 1937, most of the country was still ill-housed, ill-fed, and ill-clothed. Yet we were all in it together. The fortunes of the robber barons of the Gilded Age had mostly been leveled by the Great Crash of 1929...
Trump is throwing a huge party for America’s wealthy – giving them tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks to ensure that their wealth (and support for him) continues to grow.
Meanwhile, he is throwing to poor and working-class Americans the red meat of hatefulness – hate of immigrants, people of color, the “deep state”, “socialists”, “communists”, transgender people and Democrats.
This is the formula strongmen have used for a century – more wealth for the wealthy, more bigotry for the working-class and poor – until the entire facade crumbles under the weight of its own hypocrisy.
On Tuesday, millions of American voters refused to go along with this unfairness. They repudiated, loudly and clearly, the formula Trump and his regime have used.
It is the responsibility of all of us to return the nation to a path that is morally sustainable."
