Columns/Opinion, Letters to the Editor

Trump administration just a big, cruel con

Susan Case, Morgantown
D.M. Bennett (DP–June 28) raises an important question. How can we trust the news?
You shouldn’t assume a story is real because you like it, or fake because you don’t. Check the facts. You can use a nonpartisan, online fact-checking site like Politifact or Fact Check. Or, check several different sources, not just one.
None of us wanted to believe our government would take children from their mothers’ arms and put them in cages. It’s almost too cruel to believe.
But sadly, it’s true. Thanks to a policy adopted in May, more than 2,000 children crossing our borders were separated from their families and imprisoned. And they’re mostly still there.
Why in heaven’s name did they do this? Here’s my opinion:
Trump promised to make America great but has done little to help ordinary people. He passed a tax cut almost entirely for the rich, and now, he and his buddies in Congress are trying to cut Social Security and Medicare. (That part’s a fact, so check it.)
Of course, they don’t want us to notice they’re planning to cut benefits we paid into our whole lives. So, they created this crisis, hoping we’ll worry about immigrants instead of what they’re doing behind our backs. It’s the nastiest kind of politics, confusing people instead of helping them.
Immigrants are not our problem. Donald Trump and his friends are. How did that “middle-class” tax cut work out for your family? Did you get a big raise? Me neither.
Some people like Trump because, “He tells it like it is.” I think the whole thing is a big, cruel con. And the Republican majority in Congress is just going along for the ride because he’s helping their rich donors, who loved their tax cut.
It’s time the rest of us wake up and smell the coffee.