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I’m for it if it hurts them, not me! [1]

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Date: 2025-03-03

The American political system is seriously broken, thanks to American politicians of both parties—although, one party in particular seems to be at the controls of most of the current wrecking balls. But, while we’re at it, we must not ignore the fact that the American voter is also complicit in the destruction of a bipartisan system that seeks policies that benefit the country as a whole and not just a select few.

Political polarization in the U.S. has become so pronounced that people who identify with one party or the other not only vote straight party lines, but sometimes even chose places of residence or whom to socialize with based on political identification. Further contributing to the partisan divide is the fact that people tend to select their sources of news and information based on their beliefs, self-shielding from sources that don’t confirm their already held beliefs.

The aforementioned tendencies, it seems, causes people to make choices in the voting booth that objective analysis indicates is against their overall best interests. The 2024 election was a prime example of this. Donald Trump, despite his constant anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail, aimed mostly at Latin American immigrants, his history of racism, and his piggish behavior toward women, showed increases in support from Hispanic, Black, and women voters of all ages.

Four months after the election, though, many of those who cast their ballots for Trump are beginning to have ‘buyers’ remorse’. Arab-Americans in Dearborn, Michigan, for example, who voted for Trump because they were unhappy with the way Joe Biden was handling the Gaza crisis. Their vote to ‘punish’ the Democrats for their unwavering support for Israel, though, has given us a president who wants to expel all Palestinians from Gaza and turn it into a luxury resort. One can be sure that ethnic cleansing wasn’t on their minds when they voted, but perhaps it should’ve been. They obviously ignored Trump’s comments on Gaza during the campaign.

GOP politicians are facing angry backlash across the country from Trump voters who apparently didn’t think that the policies he clearly announced during the campaign and that are now being carried out by South African immigrant Elon Musk with reckless abandon would affect them. Republican lawmakers, now that they see that the Trump/Musk chainsaw cuts all trees, Democrat and Republican, are beginning to howl—quietly, because they’re still afraid of the monster their feckless cowardice created. They’re full of praise for Trump’s blizzard of executive orders that threaten to undermine the Constitution and the stability and security of the country, until the pain hits their constituents. Alabama Senator Katie Britt complained about reduced funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which meant a reduction of grant money for the University of Alabama in Birmingham, the state’s largest employer. Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana also spoke out against the NIH cuts because it hurt their states. Cassidy even went so far as to say, “I want people in Louisiana to benefit from research dollars, and for it to not all go to Massachusetts and California.”

While we should sympathize with anyone who is hurt by this reckless, undisciplined, scatter gun approach to governing, we have to ask whether they were thinking when they voted. Seriously, did people think that eliminating USAID, whose humanitarian feeding programs overseas is done with about $2 billion in purchases of U.S. commodities annually, wouldn’t hurt the American farmers (mostly red-state Republican voters) who supply those commodities? Were they not aware that of the top 20 states that take more money from the federal government than they send in tax payments, 13 are solidly red states that voted for Trump in the last three elections? Throughout the campaign, Trump talked about drastically slashing federal spending and pushing the responsibility down to the states. Was anyone with a brain listening?

What seems to be at work here is the view that he was talking about punishing Democrats and those who didn’t support him. Surely, he would look out for his supporters. When reality began smacking them in the face, such as the rising price of eggs, which is expected to increase by more than 40 percent in 2025, they howl. Trump hasn’t yet figured out how to blame post-election price increases on Biden, so he’s just apparently ignored them. Has that changed how hard-core Trump supporters view their demigod or his reckless policies? Apparently not very much. According to a national study conducted by Emerson College Polling, Trump’s overall approval rating (48 percent) decreased one point, while his disapproval rate (42 percent) increased one point. The needle has barely moved despite unease with many of his domestic and foreign policy ideas. But, when you break things down along party lines, the irrationality of people shines like a beacon. Some 62 percent of Republicans, for example, support eliminating USAID despite the fact that the American farmers most hurt by this are in red states and were Trump voters. A majority 65 percent) of Republicans think that tariffs create American jobs.

Playing the blame game won’t solve our problems, but recognizing all of the elements that feed into the problem is a good starting point and accepting the fact that lack of critical thinking skills along with the partisan silos people have decided to inhabit are significant components of the problem. Sorely lacking in American society is the ability to see the ‘other’s’ viewpoint, or to feel the ‘other’s’ pain. Empathy is in short supply in the general public.

Until a critical mass of the American public gains the ability to think of ‘we the people’ instead of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ this is a problem that will go unsolved. For those who believe in Judeo-Christian values, a verse from 1 Corinthians 12:16 says it all; ‘And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.” You don’t have to be Christian to see the meaning of that. When ‘We the People,’ ignore the suffering of ‘them,’ ‘we’ suffer as well. When one person is hurt, all of us feel the pain.

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