Happy Thanksgiving from a Radical Left Lunatic
Reflections on Politics, Healthcare, and Community
This is the Last Thing I’ll Say About the Election
I shared a long post on Facebook a day or two after the 2024 General election. In that post, I said, “This is the last thing I’ll say about the election.” Then, I talked about nothing but the election from that day forward. Oops.
A few days ago, my spouse joked:
“So you said you wouldn’t talk about the election anymore, and now you’re starting a blog about politics?”
“Well, sort of. I mean, religion, and politics, and maybe some Jewish culture…”
“Uh-huh.”
The Radical Left Lunatics and Their Failed Policies
I woke up today, Thanksgiving morning, to see a message from President-elect Trump posted to apparent co-President Elon Musk’s X:
Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Don’t worry, our Country will soon be respected, productive, fair, and strong, and you will be, more than ever before, proud to be an American!
It is a totally normal and not at all unhinged message to post on a day that is about gratitude and giving thanks.
Let’s Talk About It: Healthcare
My spouse has been working at the County hospital, a Level One Trauma hospital, for nearly 20 years. Her life, or at least her career, is political. Whitney does not engage in the constant barrage of political news and analysis like I do. In fact, just the opposite, she’ll tolerate me giving the headlines for five minutes, but she’s not up for the discourse, the podcasts, the op-eds, and the polling.
Still, Whitney may avoid the political discourse, but as I said, her life is political. The patients she cares for at the hospital are disproportionately undocumented, without health coverage, or covered through Medicaid programs. Whitney works in an environment where people must present at the Emergency Department for illnesses, conditions, and accidents that may otherwise be treated through Primary Care Physicians if the healthcare system didn’t fail population health.
This is why the Affordable Care Act covers preventative medicine screenings to lower healthcare costs and avoid future emergency care.
Word on the street these days is that many voters didn’t realize “Obamacare” and the Affordable Care Act are the same. In more tragic irony, enrollment in the Affordable Care Act doubled in southern red states during Biden’s administration, and the President-Elect is sure to damage the program, if not dismantle it completely, depriving coverage of the people who voted for him! Remember his “concepts of a plan” statement during the debate? That was about replacing the ACA. The plan he’s proposed in the past would decrease federal spending but at the expense of higher costs for everyday Americans.
This US Department of Treasury report (September 2024) shows that more than 50 million Americans have received healthcare coverage through the ACA since the Marketplace opened in 2014. A Kaiser Family Foundation report released just yesterday (!!) shows that Medicaid expansion is a significant issue for both red and blue states. As of November 2024, according to this report, 41 states, including the District of Columbia, have adopted Medicaid expansion, with an almost even split between states that voted for President-elect Trump (21 states) and those that voted for Vice President Harris (20 states). This widespread adoption means any changes to Medicaid expansion or the ACA will significantly impact blue and red states.
Dismantling the ACA or decreasing the federal funding match for state investment in Medicaid expansion will hurt Americans. By the numbers, whether you voted R or D, your political alignment won’t protect your access to care if you are a Medicaid member or enrolled through the ACA.
Medicaid membership isn't solely for healthcare; many social services and home and community-based services are funded through Medicaid. My disabled sister, for example, receives some services through Medicaid funding. Her disability is from a chromosomal mutation. She was born with it. There was nothing she or my parents could have done to prevent this genetic abnormality. And yet, to save money at the federal level, my parents could receive a higher burden of costs for care should Medicaid and social services receive a dip in funding. Is that something that people truly want to vote for?
My life also is political simply because I exist. I benefited from federal disability benefits while going through treatment and recovery for brain cancer. You should know that I also withdrew from the program when I felt well enough to return to work, so spare me from this nonsense that people receiving social services are lazy or “don’t want to work.” The program was there as a safety net for our family to get through a difficult time, and now I’m back to work, out-earning my disability benefits. The program functioned as it should. To protect an American who needed a backstop because of an unexpected serious illness.
Like Whitney’s, my professional life depends on federal funding and social services. I run communications for a professional services firm that works in health and human services to train and equip state staff and healthcare organizations to run their programs more efficiently, save money, and better serve their members—in other words, all of us! If federal match dollars decrease and states pull back on funding these programs, our organization may experience a decrease in revenue, leading to layoffs. The system is so much bigger and more intertwined than people realize.
The reality is that the ACA, which has benefited 50 million Americans, is a “radical left lunatic policy.” Does this sound like something that is "work[ing] so hard to destroy our Country”?
Let’s take a look at a few more Democratic policies: The PACT Act is to increase healthcare benefits for veterans, the CHIPS and Science Act is to move microprocessor manufacturing back to America, and the bipartisan infrastructure law is building roads, repairing bridges, and expanding broadband access. The NEVI program is scaling electric vehicle infrastructure across the US to prepare for the future of electric vehicles, something American companies are wise to invest in so we don’t get out-innovated by China.
Recently, Pete Buttigieg had to fact-check Donald Trump Jr. and unelected co-president Elon Musk from pedaling misinformation about the NEVI program. Speaking of electric vehicles, Vivek Ramaswamy, slated to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, raised concerns about a Biden admin loan to Tesla competitor Rivian, even though Tesla received a loan of $465M from the same program in 2010. I don’t have any more information than that, and I don’t love speculating. Still, it seems odd that Ramaswamy would target a competitor of Elon Musk’s Tesla just before the two are slated to reduce government spending by $2 trillion.
My point is this: Everything from healthcare to VA benefits, to manufacturing, to infrastructure, these are “radical left lunatic policies.” It’s not only patently false that these policies are seeking to “destroy America,” but there are tangible benefits to the American people as a result of this legislation.
The Real Americans
A focus of my now infamous Facebook post after the election was to remind readers of the divisive rhetoric and personal attacks that Democrats have faced from the right for decades. In 2008, with the rise of the Tea Party in rightwing politics, Republicans began the rhetoric that Dems are not “real Americans”; we’re not “True patriots.” Also, in 2008, then-citizen Donald Trump tried to convince America that President Obama was some radical Islamic Kenyan who couldn’t produce a birth certificate.
Since then, President-elect Trump has called us extremists, radical lunatics who want to destroy America. We’re socialist, communist groomers who hate America and want to indoctrinate your kids. Listen to yourselves. Not only is that factually incorrect, it’s simply mean-spirited. And that really matters! We are Americans bound by the Constitution and civic duty. The very Constitution that protects our right to criticize the government. We thrive in diversity and competing policy proposals. To resort to name-calling and accusations should not be tolerated.
I imagine a rebuttal from the right may be to point out that we’ve called them fascist. Well, stop quoting fascists and we’ll stop calling you that! Moms for Liberty quoted Hitler. Trump praised Hitler. Hungary’s strongman leader, Victor Orban, was invited to the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference, where he called liberalism “a virus.” Orban has been praised by conservatives.
To use such insulting rhetoric, not to mention the dehumanizing language used to malign immigrants, is far more dangerous than some may admit. If Democrats are un-American extremists and radical lunatics and immigrants are vermin poisoning the blood of our country, political violence is not far behind. Indeed, already neo-Nazi marches are popping up across the country, most recently a few days ago in Columbus, Ohio. Not to mention Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally in 2017, when men carrying tiki torches chanted, “Jews will not replace us!”
Criticism for Dems
No doubt, the democratic establishment has consistently failed its constituents. The establishment shut down Bernie, put up a moderate with corporate interests, and coronated President Biden without a primary process after Biden had committed to serving only one term.
I am angry with my party about Gaza for failing to condition military aid to Netanyahu in exchange for a ceasefire and negotiation. I am angry at my party for not leaning into our pro-union stance that benefits the labor class. My grandad worked his career as a Union railroader in Terre Haute, Indiana. I am angry at my party for not developing better messaging around trans people and allowing them to be bullied and demonized by the right. I am frustrated with my party for not making sure Americans understood that it was Donald Trump who killed the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Indeed, as of October 2024, border crossings under Biden have been the lowest since August 2020 under Trump. Many of President-elect Trump’s fear-mongering immigration rhetoric is false or misleading. As for fentanyl, this crisis is funded by US citizens in their purchase of these controlled substances, and at the heart of the smuggling, it’s US citizens, not illegal immigrants, who are arrested the most for smuggling (see here and here).
Will You Stand Up for Me?
Certainly, we can engage in substantive policy disagreements, and it is important that we do so. It’s how democracy works! But resorting to defamation and dehumanizing rhetoric should not be tolerated. In my social media videos, I often repeat, “It’s just Adam here, the guy up the street who will knock back a couple of beers with you and get your mail when you’re out of town.”
I am not an extremist, a lunatic, a radical, and I don’t hate America. I love this country and am thankful every day that I have the privilege of raising a family with Whitney in this country of opportunity.
Also, I’m Jewish, I have several gay and trans friends, I have a friend who has to go in front of an immigration attorney for the second time, and I need federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health to continue groundbreaking research into my terminal cancer.
Here is my ask to you; really, my plea. Regardless of how you voted, if the Proud Boys of Oath Keepers take up arms, if the neo-Nazis come marching down my street. If ICE starts patrolling neighborhoods to round up supposed immigrants, if public school starts teaching the Bible from a Christian perspective as the official curriculum, I hope you’ll come to my defense and stand up for me and my family.
I’m grateful this Thanksgiving because I know many of you will.
But will it be enough?
Quick Acknowledgments: With much gratitude, I want to thank all subscribers of this brand-new newsletter! We jumped up to 54 subscribers in no time! I want to give special thanks to founding member Linda S, whose generosity helps me to continue writing, and to my annual paid subscribers for their vote of confidence: Greg L, Jim E, John C, Kathryn, Rachael K, and Sandy S. Thank you so much! The recognition of my efforts through a paid subscription is humbling. If you like what you’re reading here, please share the newsletter with your community! xx. <3 -a.