The Greedy Gut’s Ethos Now Running America
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Donald Trump and the MAGA cult have turned the GOP into the greedy gut’s party. The political party that represents those who already have a lot and want ever more at the expense of those with next to nothing. America has a problem with obesity among its people. Folk sitting on their fat arses a lot. Meanwhile, ICE is targeting brown skinned Americans to tone that population down by detaining and deporting them. The greedy gut’s ethos now running America is not about equal opportunity. In fact, DEI is on the nose in the USA.
Greedy Americans Attacking The Poor
You have a situation in the US where there are billionaires with enough wealth to support the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings. Elon Musk the richest man in the world, worth reportedly $200 billion, has been busy dismantling USAID via DOGE. Bill Gates said this was the richest man in the world attacking the poorest people globally. Musk, along with Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, have been big supporters of Trump 2.0. If this is not a clear illustration of the greedy gut’s ethos now running America I don’t know what is.
“Bill Gates recently announced that the Gates Foundation will spend down its endowment over the next 20 years, contributing approximately $200 billion to global health and development. This is a bold move— and one that invites reflection. Given the foundation’s impact over the past quarter-century, the question now is: How should Bill Gates spend $200 billion?”
Greed Is Good On Steroids In Trump’s America
Movies and popular culture are big in the mind of Donald Trump, if his Truth Social posts are anything to go by. In my view, American reality for most folk is a blend of fiction and fact. In a country where much of what has gone on has been declared top secret by those in charge this has fuelled a rich conspiracy theory culture. We live in a time where the average American spends more than 10 hours a day looking at screens. Think about this and what effect this has on conceptions about what is real and what is not. Donald Trump has famously stamped inconvenient allegations as fake news. Is it any wonder that many Americans believe in a strange blend of fictions and few facts? The GOP has purposely polluted the idea of virtue, as a campaign strategy. It has twisted things to make greedy, selfish behaviour a masculine good for Americans. Trump embodies this characteristic and Americans voted for it and him in 2024. They did this in stark contrast to what Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, represented. The US electorate rejected appeals to normative ideas of virtue and chose Trump instead.
Project 2025 & Gullible America
The greedy gut’s ethos now running America is about limiting access to the wealth pie. Project 2025 is a Federalist Society blue print for creating a whiter, more insular America. Expelling hundreds of thousands of brown skinned undocumented immigrants is top of the bill. Slashing spending on social services for Americans and, especially, on programs for minority groups, which they don’t see as embodying core American values is another priority. The GOP has long promoted an idealised America, where self-reliant white men in the cowboy mould spurn welfare and do things their own way. This fantasy allows them to reward the wealthy whilst punishing the poor. Tax cuts for billionaires and reduced services for the sick and the needy are proof positive of this. The great big beautiful bill is an abomination, in this regard. Americans live in a fantasy about themselves and this makes them susceptible to political manipulations that the rest of the world clearly sees that the emperor has no clothes. Project 2025 and the Dobbs decision in the red states removes the autonomy of American women over their reproductive health. Women are primarily vessels for the procreation of America. Traditional values and Christian Nationalism promote this conception of what it means to be an American woman. Putting white men back in charge of things, across the board, will re-establish the status quo of an earlier age. Trump idealises the Gilded Age and frequently makes reference to it as a golden age.
American History & The Indigenous Folk
The history of America is like much of what was once known as the new world, where European settlers took the land of Indigenous peoples by force. The desire for a homeland seems to outweigh the moral rights of the previous occupants. Look at the West Bank settlers in Israel today. Inject into the United States of America slavery and the importing of millions of Africans to work the land for the profit of American slavers and the larger economy. The GOP, since Reagan, has idealised the pioneering spirit of the white skinned cowboy. This popular cultural theme has never been out of fashion for long – look at Yellowstone today and the ongoing mythologising of the wild west. White men taking things by force is a macho wet dream for Republicans and some Democrats too. This is seen as a pure American thing to do. It works by demonising those in the way as less than and not deserving of this promised land. Brown skinned people were savages back then and now are illegal aliens and gangsters, according to Trump. Paint them black.
Trump’s Police State
The greedy guts party’s appeal is predicated on the idea that there is now not enough to go around. Therefore, limiting access to the wealth pie becomes an urgent priority. Kicking out illegals and unwanted folk is on high alert. The MAGA faithful conveniently ignore that it is greedy billionaires and oligarchs hogging the pie and not marginalised folk on the fringes. Rich people are too powerful to take on, however, and so demonising different folk becomes the name of the game. LGBTQI people, immigrants and refugees, Indigenous folk and non-white men more generally make softer targets to put the boot into. Civil servants painted as the deep state get the crosshairs. Foreign academics in the US making protest noises about the genocide in Gaza are grabbed by masked ICE agents and detained illegally. The Trump police state on steroids is up and about. Bring out the National Guard. Turn out the marines. America is no longer a free Western democracy but an authoritarian state.
Trump’s Tariffs
The greedy gut’s ethos now running America seeks to establish righteousness for its violence and despicable behaviour. Trump is backing the despot Putin in Russia’s aggressive invading of Ukraine. Birds of a feather, perhaps. Longtime US allies are making alternative plans for their international futures. Trump’s America is now considered an unreliable ally. Things are complex, however, because for decades since WW2 the US has been at the centre of NATO and global arrangements for an American led world peace. Australia has gone to war several times in response to US calls for assistance in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Australians and Canadians have been gobsmacked at being slapped with tariffs by Donald Trump to hamper their exports into the US. Allies around the world have similarly been appalled at their economic treatment by Trump. Treaties and international contracts have been broken by Trump making the US a bad bet in 2025.
“American cop shoots Australian journalist in LA. The LA immigration riot was the setting of what looked like a deliberate act by an LAPD officer firing upon and hitting a Channel Nine journalist with a rubber bullet. Is this an act of war? Extremist American cop firing on a member of the press in a scene reminiscent of what is happening in Israel. The action showed a complete lack of respect for the role of the international media covering an event of this magnitude. It is just another indication of the depths to which the United States has fallen over recent years.”
- (https://www.midasword.com.au/is-this-an-act-of-war/)
Greedy billionaires are running the show in Trump’s America. Donald Trump is the ultimate ugly American. He is a compulsive liar and a convicted felon. You cannot trust anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. Parents around the world are having to explain to their kids how it is possible for such a man to reach the top. The greedy gut’s ethos is running America and the world is much worse for it.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters and America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
©MidasWord
