The One, Big, Beautiful Bill: The Slow and Steady Descent into a Hellscape of the American Democratic Project
"Cpl. Carlton Chapman . . . is a machine-gunner in an M-4 tank, attached to a Motor Transport unit near Nancy, France" By Ryan, November 5, 1944, via National Archives and Records Administration
My fifth-grade teacher steered me wrong. She taught us that when we vote, we should vote for what’s best for society and not what’s best for the individual. I remember her making a face afterward, a face that revealed that she was betraying her own beliefs by teaching us an ideal versus the reality of politics–that it is seldom for the betterment of the whole and often, solely used for the benefit of the individual. For the individual without real power, it convinces them that they have a semblance of it. For the individual with systemic power, it perpetuates their ability to operate under the guise of justice.
At that moment, I chose to believe her civics lesson. I noticed the look, and I decided to disregard it. It made more sense to take a utilitarian approach, and maybe I misread her betrayal.
This spring, I went to a few graduations. The keynote speakers (one of whom included my soon-to-be middle schooler niece) left the crowd with the sort of hope that Barack Obama preached. At a Fordham Law School graduation, the words “Do the right thing, especially when it’s hard” rang true to my idealist heart. The speaker said defiantly, “The point is not to be fearless, it is to be brave.” And, at my niece’s fifth-grade graduation, the adult in charge of invigorating the country’s future gave them an edict: “Growth takes time, effort, and curiosity.”
Theories that are important for the betterment of one’s self and the country were shared haphazardly and irresponsibly.
Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill underscores this. It reveals a number of things about society, particularly the society that voted for him. Its impact on real people has not gone unnoticed. It runs counter to what appears to be the ideals of the country: microcosms within that society, within lesson plans, and individual teachings on how to engage in a growing country properly.
Republicans are admitting their fear in opposing Trump’s attempts at authoritarianism. And, except for Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Thom Tillis, Senate Republicans have conceded to the fear or the cowardice. They proved the idealists wrong. They voted for the bill almost unanimously.
Here’s what that means for Americans.
States’ rights have been weakened
There is a Medicaid expansion penalty for states that provide benefits (related and unrelated to Medicaid) for immigrants. The House Republican proposal calls for the federal government to “strip some states of federal funding based on how states spend their own state dollars.” States, in essence, would be penalized for what they do with their own money–the cost of providing services to persons the federal government deems unworthy of care: immigrants.
Energy and the environment are taking a hit
Trump’s attempts at policy put the United States at a deficit. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s position on the reliability of energy positions solar and wind power as not only inefficient, but costly and unreliable. His back and forth on the topic aside, the One, Big, Beautiful Bill purports to “drive down costs of energy with a massive expansion of domestic oil and gas production capacity.”
Electricity demands continue to rise. This bill’s reduction of tax credits and subsidies leads to higher costs for energy across the country. Removing the solution to old energy (enter: solar, wind, and hydro power) and instead framing the inefficient use of coal as “innovative” hampers progress. It not only affects the speediness of climate change, but it also removes the country as a true competitor in the global landscape and decreases the likelihood of new global investment in clean tech.
Americans are losing access to food and healthcare
The White House’s website states that the cuts to Medicaid are to strengthen it by “eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse and blocking illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid.” Its vagueness aside, the bill will result in 3 million people losing access to food assistance and 12 million losing access to health insurance. It stipulates an employment requirement that will ensure additional red tape in receiving these life-saving aids.
Prior to the July 4th deadline for the bill, undocumented immigrants were not eligible for Medicaid, and immigrants who were in the US legally also faced obstacles to receiving the assistance. The strengthening seems to be used frivolously. The bill’s goal is to be xenophobic. Its emphasis on restricting healthcare doesn’t harm immigrants who are here illegally because they were never going to receive Medicaid except in emergencies.
Medicaid’s relationship to special education care, its safety net for hospitals and healthcare workers, and its assurance that a family will be able to deliver a healthy American citizen (as it stands) seems to be unimportant. The waste that the Trump administration is purportedly cleaning up is non-existent.
To the question of this bill’s impact on real people, Andre Fields, a political and policy strategist who helped Georgia elect two U.S. Senators and secure an electoral college win for the first time in a generation, had this to say: “The stripping away of Medicaid isn't just a policy tweak —it's a death sentence for countless families who rely on it not for checkups, but for chemotherapy, for their elders' last dignities.”
Immigrants are continuing to be scapegoated
Money is being set aside to continue the failed project of a wall between the United States and Mexico. In their desire to “secure the border,” the Trump administration neglects the fact that a majority of terrorism is domestic. The $170 billion gifted to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on immigration is unprecedented and ill-considered, given the Americans who have now been deprioritized for an imagined threat.
Inching toward the secularism we see in France–an imagination of what it means to be American, Donald Trump, his White House, and the republicans who are helping to make this happen are continuing a theme of propaganda, painting all “outsiders” as scary and themselves as salvation from the threat.
The country is going into greater debt
The United States is already running a deficit, and The One, Big, Beautiful Bill increases the national debt by about $3 trillion. Fields’ position on the state of the country’s debt and continued tax expansion sums it up:
“Layered on top of this cruelty is a garish expansion of tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, those whose portfolios are padded with passive income and private equity gains, who haven't known hunger in generations, who can charter flights to bypass the very systems they're voting to dismantle. These tax cuts are not benign; they're a redistribution of suffering. They steal bread from public school cafeterias, siphon funding from public transit and housing, and hand it to billionaires under the guise of ‘economic freedom’.”
Despite the performance of having the bill signed by the country’s independence, an act that suggested care or concern for the country’s future, the irony is commendable. The One, Big, Beautiful Bill’s assurance is that society may not vote for others, but they won’t vote for themselves or their constituents either. They’ll vote for what’s easy.
Dr. Claire Green-Forde, mental health expert and Founder & CEO of Dr. Claire Speaks!, told us:
“The fear this bill unleashes will ripple far beyond those it directly targets. It deepens racial and health inequities, forces people to choose between care and survival, and tells millions their lives are negotiable. This is how systemic violence operates: quietly, through paperwork, through budget lines, through confusion, through a pen stroke, until one day, people can’t access insulin, can’t feed their kids, can’t stay alive.”
The One, Big, Beautiful Bill is shepherding in a world where the unsaid is stated boldly: you don’t matter unless you have access to power and wealth. Saying the quiet part out loud may be refreshing for some. Doing the quiet part out loud is catastrophic for most.
Its abuse of the American people and the celebration on America’s official birthday is ironic at best. But, knowing that on the fourth of July in 1776, there were scores of human beings still not considered human makes the irony more straightforward. It communicates the same ideals: some men are created equal, everyone else must fend for themselves.
In juxtaposition to the holiday, the One, Big, Beautiful Bill established a new America. Similar to what the country looked like in 1776, Trump’s America is recalling a simpler, more cruel form of democracy.