One Hardcore Trumpanzee Wakes Up...

[Lord Jim]

to the cruel con job he was sold:

‘Trump Troubadour,’ who attended 45 Trump rallies to honor his late son, feels ‘betrayed’ because of health care



The grieving father stood with his guitar and his cowboy hat in the cold, crowded lines for hours, driving to towns big and small in nearly every corner of the country.

Beginning in January 2016, Kraig Moss traveled to 45 rallies, belting out songs in support of Donald Trump and telling the story of his late son, Rob, who died three years ago from a heroin overdose. In this way, the musician earned the title of “the Trump Troubadour,” a true believer said to symbolize “the voice of unheard America.”

He stopped making his mortgage payments and sold the equipment for his construction business to stay on the campaign trail, galvanized by Trump’s promise to help young people — like Moss’s late son — who struggle with drug addiction. Trump, Moss thought, was the candidate most capable of bringing an end to the heroin epidemic sweeping the nation.

Trump made this promise to Moss personally at a rally in Iowa in January 2016. Speaking through a microphone to the crowd, he addressed Moss directly: “The biggest thing we can do in honor of your son … we have to be able to stop it.”

“I know what you went through. And he’s a great father,” he said of Moss to the crowd. “I can see it. And your son is proud of you.”

But about two weeks ago, Moss caught his first glimpse of the Republican proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act. The proposed health care bill, slated for floor vote in the House Thursday night, would eliminate a requirement that Medicaid cover basic mental-health and addiction services in states that expanded it, a mandate that covered nearly 1.3 million people.

“This bill is just the absolute opposite,” Moss told The Washington Post. “I felt betrayed. I felt let down.”

He had put all his weight behind the Republican’s promise, sacrificing his business and his livelihood to sing Trump’s praises. But this bill backed by the president “disgusted” him. He no longer sings songs about Trump, and he now wonders if any of his sacrifices were worth it.

“You hear that echo?” he said in a phone interview from his home in Upstate New York. “That’s because there’s no furniture in this house. It’s completely gutted.”

“The one platform that I was just so genuinely involved in with my heart was the one thing that he just turned right around,” Moss said. “He’s turning his back on all of us.”

He had hoped to see provisions in the bill calling for boosted resources for addiction treatment centers, lower deductibles and lower overall health care costs. If Trump wanted to, Moss said, he could “wave his pen” and provide funding necessary to supply emergency responders in every small town in America with naloxone kits to reverse possible heroin overdoses.

“Every one of those doses of Narcan represents a saved life,” Moss said. “If the emergency squad that came down to save my son had that dose, my son would’ve been alive today.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... f7ecff5f6a

[dales]

I wonder how many Drumph supporters feel betrayed by the snake oil salesman?

Sad.

Lettuce not overlook this:

An Indiana woman who voted for President Donald Trump was stunned to discover that her husband, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, is set to be deported as soon as today.

Despite her spouse’s immigration status, Helen Beristain said she agreed with Trump’s hardline policies.


“We don’t want to have cartels here, you don’t want to have drugs in your high schools, you don’t want killers next to you,” Helen told Indiana Public Media earlier this month. “You want to feel safe when you leave your house. I truly believe that. And, this is why I voted for Mr. Trump.”


But Helen didn’t think those policies would apply to her husband, who owns a popular restaurant in Granger, Indiana.


“[Trump] did say the good people would not be deported, the good people would be checked,” Helen said.


According to the South Bend Tribune, her husband Roberto Beristain came to the United States in 1998 to visit an aunt and stayed. Then, he met his wife and the two started a family.


Roberto was detained during a trip the couple took to Niagara Falls in 2000 after they accidentally crossed the border into Canada. When U.S. immigration agents discovered he was undocumented, they ordered him to leave the country.


Since his wife was pregnant at the time, Roberto did not.

For the past 17 years, Roberto has been checking in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials once a year and has a work permit, Social Security card and driver’s license, The Tribune reported. He worked for eight years at Eddie’s Steak Shed in Granger, then bought it from his wife’s sister in January.


This year, during his annual check-in with ICE, Roberto was detained

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tru ... 2eaab244cd

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

It's important to bear in mind that one doesn't have to be stupid or uneducated to fall for the machinations of a con artist...

(Bernie Madoff's sucker list was full of doctors, lawyers, and others with advanced professional degrees)

All that is required is a desire to believe...

That makes one susceptible...

And in an environment where millions of people felt let down and betrayed by numerous politicians over a period of years who had failed to deliver what they promised, there was an enormous market for susceptibility for a first class snake oil salesman, who was promising at the very least to be "different..."

One of the most telling things I've seen about Trump is one interview, where he was asked about how he felt about being compared to a list of people, and the one person he said he didn't mind being compared to was PT Barnum...

I think that explains a lot about Trump...

That he's perfectly happy being compared to PT Barnum...

Trump capitalized on the fact that there were millions of people who were "just sick and tired of politicians"...

There were a lot of people who were willing to buy into the idea that he was a "successful business man" (which was of course untrue based on the facts, but it was a concept he could sell) so maybe this "successful business man" could use his skills to do for the country what he had done for himself...

Surely he couldn't be any worse than the politicians, who had nothing but a record of failure...

These folks voted for Trump not because of his racist dog whistling, or his adolescent self-absorbed narcissism, or his general vulgarity...

But rather, in spite of it...

Donald Trump was not elected President because somehow a bunch of racist yahoos tipped the balance in the election...

Donald Trump's election was a vote of "no confidence" in the existing political order...

A vote that said, "We would rather take our chances with a completely unqualified lout, then let you lot continue to run the show"..."What have we got to lose?"

And of course the choice was magnified by the fact that the Democratic Party nominated the ultimate establishment political candidate...

But buyers remorse will ensue...

And fairly soon, it will start to dawn on folks that "kicking over the table" only results in a big mess to clean up...

[Long Run]

This is one issue where there could be a broad bipartisan effort. Given that, a thinking pol might figure out how to help themselves and the country at the same time.