Everyday Americans Foot The Bill While Billionaires Profit and Have Dinner With Trump
As Trump nears the one-year mark of his second presidency, the country is living under nearly half of Project 2025’s playbook. The results are higher costs, shrinking rights, and a sense that the America we once knew has been monopolized into a billionaire’s playground.
Who’s Been Touched?
Tariffs have driven up consumer prices and farming costs. Production costs are squeezing already fragile margins for U.S. farmers, while retaliation abroad makes it harder to sell crops. Even so, surveys still show many farmers cling to Trump’s promises of a long-term win.
DEI rollbacks gutted diversity programs across government agencies and schools, stripping protections and funding streams that greatly lifted up minorities and women. Courts have stepped in to block parts of Trump’s agenda, but the chilling effect remains.
Immigration enforcement has ripped away protections at schools, churches, and courthouses. Fast-track deportations, even when partly blocked in court, have fueled fear in Latino communities. Trump’s directive to Kristi Noem to “paint the wall black” was a literal attempt to make the wall untouchable from the sun.
Students now face funding cuts to higher education programs, minimized Grad PLUS loans, and fewer protections against discrimination. Title X and Medicaid cuts have rolled back reproductive health access, and Trump’s “Big Beautiful Law” pushed millions off insurance rolls while slashing nutrition aid.
In short, minorities, farmers, immigrants, students, and working families—the very people who keep the country afloat—are carrying the weight of Project 2025 that this administration has burdened us with.
The Oligarchs of Today
But not everyone is hurting. A few have benefited from these policies: Trump and his family, corporations, and the ultra-rich.
According to reporting in The New Yorker, Trump and his family have made $3.4 billion in this term alone, with $2.3 billion tied to cryptocurrency ventures.
From Trump’s DEI policies, corporate America fell in line. From Amazon to Disney, Citigroup to Walmart, companies have been scrubbing DEI from reports, ending diversity hiring goals, and repackaging inclusion efforts as “talent strategy.” At least the efforts from leaders like Pastor Jamal Bryant with the Target boycott show that resistance is possible. Target took a huge hit, lost $12.4 billion in market value, faced lawsuits from investors, and even saw its 11-year CEO step down after scrapping DEI.
This past week, Trump hosted 33 Silicon Valley leaders at a White House dinner. The guest list included Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, and several others. Tech leaders are leveraging Trump’s “pro-business, pro-innovation” posture to dodge oversight and grease pathways for AI projects. In the newly renovated Rose Garden, Trump pressed them for U.S. investments. Zuckerberg pledged $600 billion through 2028, Google pledged $250 billion.
He is making the deals right in front of our faces. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans could see average annual tax cuts of $309,000. The top 10% stand to gain over $13,000 a year, while those earning $30,000 or less could see an increase in taxes.
Let’s Play Monopoly!
So who hasn’t Trump touched? Only those wealthy enough to dine at Mar-a-Lago or the White House, wealthy enough to buy sponsorships for events like the Easter Egg Roll, and wealthy enough to insulate themselves from the chaos the average American deals with. For the rest of us, the second Trump term has touched everything from wallets to freedoms.
And Trump is not the only politician squeezing us. State and local governments, especially in places like Florida and Texas, are enabling and extending these Trumpian-era policies.
This is the moment to scrutinize every dollar spent, every decision made, and every action our elected officials take. Here we are, playing a never-ending game of Monopoly with our leaders at every level, and they are running us dry.
What is happening with Target shows what good faith resistance does. People get fired, money is lost, and a billion-dollar company is scrambling to make amends.
Until then, goodnight and good luck.
