Fireworks, Lies, and Billionaire Grifts: The Real State of Trump’s America

As Trump races to sign his “big beautiful bill” before the Fourth, Medicaid gets gutted, USAID is shuttered, Big Tech dodges taxes, and billionaires feast while the rest of us foot the bill.

Good morning! They’re going to plaster the morning shows with confetti headlines: The U.S. added 147,000 jobs in June! The economy is strong! The unemployment rate is down! Look over here, folks, everything is fine!

Except, of course, it’s not.

Yesterday, ADP data showed the private sector lost 33,000 jobs, a stinging miss that screamed recession vibes across the rusting factories and strip malls of America. Now the official BLS report waves a “better-than-expected” banner, but if adding 147,000 jobs while the dollar slides, inflation creeps, and manufacturing shrinks for the fourth month straight is your idea of winning, congratulations, you’re exactly the mark Trump’s America is looking for.

While they brag about “booming growth,” let’s talk about what’s actually booming. ICE’s budget, for one, with Trump’s “big beautiful bill” stuffing $175 billion into migrant hunting while gutting Medicaid by nearly a trillion dollars. If that sounds like a parody of cruelty, it’s not. It’s policy.

And here’s the kicker: Trump didn’t even realize his own bill was slashing Medicaid, Medicare, and putting Social Security on the chopping block. In meetings with Republicans, Trump reportedly told them not to touch these programs, while his bill explicitly cuts them. The man demanding the bill be passed before the fireworks doesn’t even know what’s in it, only that he wants the “win.” It’s like watching a toddler scribble on a wall and call it legislation, except the scribbles will kill people.

Speaking of Medicaid, while Trump races to strip millions of Americans of their healthcare before the Fourth of July fireworks, we discover his administration didn’t simply leave medical data leaking into private hands; they handed it over to DHS and ICE, explicitly so it could hunt down immigrants. They repurposed your medical records, including immigration status, as deportation intelligence without oversight, accountability, or proper legal authority. If you’re going to throw people off healthcare, might as well weaponize their medical files first.

They quietly dismantled USAID, America’s lifeline to the world. The cancellation of 83% of its programs, the layoff of over 10,000 employees, and the slashing of funding by more than $54 billion in foreign aid this year alone shocked everyone. According to Lancet modeling, this could lead to 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children under five. Again, they say it’s about “efficiency,” while watching millions die quietly as billionaire stock buybacks surge.

This gut punch to human decency was so appalling that Barack Obama and George W. Bush joined forces, yes, really, to condemn it, calling the closure a “travesty” that will stain America’s legacy.

Canada’s Mark Carney, once hailed as a “wartime prime minister” ready to stand up to Trump’s tariff tantrums, just folded like a cheap suit on the digital services tax. Why? Because Carney feared Trump’s threats of 50% tariffs on Canadian steel, auto parts, and agriculture would tank Canada’s already slowing economy. He feared the Trump administration’s promise to blow up Canada’s supply chains, targeting Quebec dairy and Ontario’s auto industry, just weeks before key provincial elections. He feared Trump would torpedo a separate climate cooperation deal unless Canada backed down.

And what was the digital services tax? A modest measure designed to make Big Tech pay its fair share in Canada, taxing revenue from companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta, multinationals that funnel profits offshore while extracting billions from Canadian consumers, businesses, and advertisers. The tax would have funded public services and leveled the playing field for Canadian media and small businesses competing against these giants.

But Carney blinked, hoping to buy “stability” by throwing Big Tech a free pass, letting Amazon, Google, and Meta keep hoovering up your data, your attention, your democracy, and now your money, tax-free.

And the Trump administration didn’t even pretend to hide their glee. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary who has made a career out of lying to the American people, mocked Canada on Truth Social, crowing that “even our polite neighbors up north know better than to cross President Trump’s America,” and posting a maple leaf emoji with “#cucked” underneath it for her 4 million followers.

Former MP Charlie Angus spoke plainly, “The US is no friend of Canada.”

And if you ever wonder where your tax dollars go, look no further than El Salvador, where those anti-terror prisons we helped fund tortured, starved, and beat Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported under Trump’s ICE raids. This isn’t a footnote, it’s the logical end of cruelty as policy, cheered on by the same people who claim they’re “pro-life” while funding torture abroad and cutting healthcare at home.

But Trump, ever the dealmaker, has moved on to his next con: a “trade deal” with Vietnam that involves slapping 20–40% tariffs on imports, tariffs you will pay, while he cuts a deal to build a shiny new $1.5 billion Trump Tower in Ho Chi Minh City. We get higher prices at Target. He gets a new golden lobby to stumble through, bragging about how tough he is on trade while America foots the bill. Classic Trump.

And it’s all happening while Fox runs literal gangster-style photos of Republican holdouts with the caption “We’re coming after you” if they dare oppose Trump’s 900-page billionaire giveaway before July 4. A “big beautiful bill,” they call it, loaded with tax cuts for the ultra-rich and big slashes to everything that keeps working people afloat, just in time for the fireworks and sweaty backyard barbecues where people will wonder why their insulin costs more than their mortgage.

Trump rages in all caps about “booming economies” and “no taxes on tips,” which, sure, is technically in the bill, but it’s a gimmick that phases out, just like everything else meant to help working people in Trump’s America. Meanwhile, his promise of “no taxes on Social Security” is nowhere to be found. It’s a scam wrapped in a press release, capped with a phase-out, and tied to your healthcare being ripped away so billionaires can buy another yacht. The only thing that truly booms in Trump’s America is debt, cruelty, and the fortunes of people who already have more money than God.

All while the dollar slides, manufacturing withers, and consumer debt spikes, we’re supposed to celebrate a jobs report that looks decent only because immigration has collapsed, shrinking the workforce and hiding the cracks under a coat of cheap paint.

Meanwhile, Ukraine bleeds, because Trump lifted sanctions on Russia without telling NATO, stopping weapons shipments to a democracy under siege, while Russia’s propagandists cheer from Moscow. The same man who bankrupts casinos, airlines, and his own fake universities is now bankrupting America’s moral standing and stability, one ego-driven tantrum at a time.

Let’s light the fireworks and pretend the con isn’t happening right in front of us while the rich get richer, the poor get sicker, and Trump’s grift expands like the golden towers he builds in corrupt foreign deals.

This moment demands clear eyes, sharp humor, and stubborn hope. Because hope without action is just a wish, and action without hope is just rage. And we need both: hope and action, to tear down this oligarchy masquerading as freedom and to build something better, block by block, precinct by precinct, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Because if we don’t, the next “big beautiful bill” will be even bigger, even crueler, and even more golden for the people who need it least. And they’re counting on us to look away while they sign it into law under the rockets’ red glare.