MAGA Will Sacrifice Our Kids for the ‘Broligarchy’

MAGA could have invested in education, public health, and anti-poverty programs. Instead, it chose to sacrifice the country's children.

Originally written for the May issue of The Progressive.

Once upon a time in America, a violent, rightwing cult in service of a criminal predator took control of every branch of government. Like most cults, its faithful members were zealous in maintaining their delusional ideology, even as their self-destructive policies raised the price of eggs, increased inflation, and undermined social programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which they had relied upon to (barely) stay afloat.

Their cult leader, Donald Trump, and his billionaire capos led by Elon Musk needed to feed their endless appetites with tributes that included tax cuts for the rich, government contracts for their companies, and deregulation of agencies charged with holding their avarice and corruption accountable.

Their slavish devotion to their leader demanded not only that they reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears, but also that they bend the knee and forfeit their dignity and integrity, as evidenced by Republican elected officials like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who adulated the cult leader even after Trump mocked and ridiculed Cruz’s wife and father.

However, the most severe form of loyalty came in the form of voluntarily sacrificing their children. For most observers, this was a stunning betrayal of the GOP’s alleged commitment regarding being “pro-life” and “saving the children” from perceived nefarious elements—such as Black History Month, books written by people of color, critical race theory, diversity initiatives, and the existence of LGBTQ+ people.

To “save the children,” the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court had already overturned Roe v. Wade, which led to red states severely restricting women’s rights and punishing OB-GYN doctors. These medical professionals began fleeing Florida and other states due to the fear of prosecution for simply providing medical care to pregnant people. In turn, this led to the tragic and preventable deaths of pregnant people and infants in Kentucky, Texas, and other states.

But logic and common sense had no place in a cult that had been radicalized by hateful, anti-science conspiracy theories fed to them 24/7 by rightwing media during the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than a million Americans. As such, Republicans decided to attack doctors, science, and vaccines and form an alliance with the Grim Reaper.

To lead our Department of Health and Human Services, they chose a thoroughly unqualified elitist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a notorious anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist. While this man—whose own cousin, Caroline Kennedy, described him as a “predator”—once had a brain worm, he had no medical experience to speak of. No matter, because the sole goal of the cult was to “own the libs,” even as their own children were being infected with measles, and tuberculosis and bird flu were quickly becoming great again in America.

The Trump Administration also decided to “save the children” by leaving the World Health Organization and gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provided lifesaving medicine to vulnerable children around the world. Russell Vought, a Christian nationalist and architect of the notorious Project 2025, was chosen to direct the Office of Management and Budget. To further his crusade against the “woke” and affirm his commitment to the cult’s mission, he agreed to freeze funding for the National Institutes of Health—an organization that had saved his own daughter’s life by facilitating access to a “miracle drug” to treat her cystic fibrosis.

To pay for the broligarchy’s tax cuts, Republicans decided to eviscerate programs like Head Start and Meals on Wheels, which fed American children and homebound seniors who were otherwise unable to receive proper food and nutrition. Instead, they urged these children and seniors to pull themselves up by their Velcro bootstraps. After all, even though people like Trump and Musk grew up with immense privilege, there’s no reason why American children should benefit from government taxes that the rich don’t pay anyway.

The broligarchy and its Republican underlings also believed that educating our children was secondary to investing in the military-industrial complex. As such, they advocated for destroying the Department of Education and weakening public schools, which educated about 90 percent of American children and provided many parents with necessary child care. Instead, these students could attend private Christian schools and charter schools that have repeatedly failed in states like Arizona and Michigan.

One of the easiest measures the GOP could have implemented to “save the children” was to enact strict gun control or, at the very least, ban assault rifles. The leading cause of death of children and young teens in the United States—a country that has more guns than people—was gun violence. Yet as life expectancy in the United States decreased, mass shootings continued to increase. America continued to slip behind in major economic and health categories when compared with other industrialized countries, yet it remained number one in gun violence. Mass shootings became so frequent that Americans became numb to the images of children’s bodies and flesh torn apart by AR-15s.

However, a cult must maintain fidelity to its teachings and symbols, so Republican lawmakers remained wedded to the National Rifle Association, and some even wore AR-15 pins to the floor of the U.S. Congress.

Unfortunately, to “Make America Great Again,” the members of the GOP cult decided to voluntarily sacrifice their dignity, health, and well-being, and bury the country’s future: its children.

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