Courtesy of wikipedia.org
If I were a social scientist studying human behavior, I’d want to understand why wealth tends to bestow status on people. Wealth has its uses, true. But it has limitations, also. Being lost in the desert, would a lump of gold quench my thirst, heal my blistered feet, or provide a map to the nearest oasis? About to celebrate my 89th birthday, I know money doesn’t buy happiness. Frankly, finding them a burden, I’ve given most of my treasures away.
Why poor people are thought to be lazy is another idea I’ve never understood. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, calls them the “Parasite Class.” He’d sneer at someone like Blessing Aghayedo, a licensed practical nurse. Paid $7.25 per hour for years, she needs food assistance not because she’s lazy but because her wages are shamefully low. Give her Musk’s federal grants, $38 billion and counting, and I’m certain she’d give up her food stamps. In any case, it’s fair to ask which of them is the greater parasite.
Like Aghayedo, migrant farm workers spend grueling hours in the fields and are also poorly paid. No white Americans are lining up for their jobs. in 2018, for example, high school athletes were given a chance to pick fruits and vegetables in the summer. They lasted a few hours in a cantaloupe field before being laid off because they refused to work in the heat.
Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill includes punitive work requirement for folks needing government assistance. The program will fail just as similar programs in the past have failed, and for the same reason. Seventy percent of those receiving Medicaid assistance have jobs. Those who don’t are too ill, too disabled, caring for a family member, or attending school.
When Georgia reviewed it’s work requirement policies, it discovered such programs were costly. The salaries for well-paid administrators depleted large portions of the budget meant for the poor.
The Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank, also studied work requirements and concluded the policy fails because the regulations are based on ideological perceptions rather than evidence—based decisions.
Europe, in contrast, takes a different ideological view. They see helping the poor as a benefit to society. Homeless people don’t sleep on the streets. Health care cost don’t rise precipitously, and neither do crime rates. When everyone has access to housing, food and healthcare, class disparities matter less.
Trump and his Cabinet members seem to prefer a pecking order that supports discrimination and cruelty. Americans have almost grown used to the daily street abductions of assumed migrants–acts performed by masked agents without warrants. The CATO Report, published by a conservative think tank, found that seventy-five percent of the men who were abducted and sent to a prison in El Salvador not only had no criminal record, but dozens of them had violated no immigration laws.
So far, public protests and court rulings have had no effect on the Republicans in Congress. They have given Trump an additional 45 billion dollars to ensure that these ICE raids will both continue and grow. Against the tide of lawless deportations, Trump has thrown open our borders to White , South African farmers. A State Department spokesperson Christopher Landau explained the contradiction. He said the government wants immigrants who can be “assimilated into our country.” (The Civilization Myth,” by Chris Lehmann, The Nation, July/August 2025, pg. 10.)
Other than being white, there is no commonality between the average American and these farmers, not even a shared language. Afrikaners speak Afrikaans and know less about American history than the deported Latins, many of them descendants of ancestors who owned large portions of the land we call home. Remember the Alamo?
Chris Lehman in his article for The Nation has pointed out that our government has fallen into the hands of self-appointed guardians of European civilization. Said Trump, by way of example, if we don’t rid ourselves of immigrants, “we won’t have a country anymore.” (Ibid. pg. 10.)
If Trump’s cruelty and ignorance prevail, soon most of us won’t recognize the country we live in–a county that honors its Constitution; respects the idea of justice for all and believes in equal opportunity. If the words chiseled on the statue of Liberty still have the power to thrill us, then we must defend them. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
