Societies are typically organized along one of two lines: “We” or “Me.” We societies drive wealth and rights from the bottom up. Me societies do it from the top down, much like the kingdoms of old.
It’s a choice every nation must make. Franklin Roosevelt turned America into a We society with the New Deal; Ronald Reagan began the process of turning us into a Me society with the Reagan Revolution. And his and the GOP’s efforts are now coming to full fruition.
Imagine this:
Your grandmother — 87 years old, Alzheimer’s setting in, barely able to recognize your face — is being wheeled out of the nursing home she’s called home for three years. Not because she’s better, but because the home is closing. The Medicaid funding dried up. The next available care facility is three hours away and it doesn’t take Medicaid. You work full-time. You have kids. You don’t have the money, or the time, or the training to care for her full-time.
This isn’t fiction. This isn’t a thought experiment. This is exactly what Donald Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress are planning with their grotesquely misnamed “One Big Beautiful Bill.” A better title? One Big Ugly Betrayal.
Don’t be fooled by the branding. This bill is neither “big” nor “beautiful” for the 71 million Americans who rely on Medicaid.
And in a particularly slick move, the cuts to Medicaid and food stamps/SNAP will not kick in until January 2027, two months after the midterm 2026 elections, so people won’t notice the damage before they vote next year.
It’s big only in its cruelty and the size of its handouts to billionaires. And it is ugly in every moral, economic, and democratic sense of the word.
This is what happens when advocates for a Me society gains control of the levers of power.
For four decades, we’ve seen a war — not just on the poor, not just on the working class — but on the very idea of a We society.
A nation built on the idea that, as Paul Wellstone used to say, “We all do better when we all do better.” That we look out for one another. That government exists not to enrich the already-rich, but to ensure a decent life, dignity, and democracy for everyone.
That We vision is faltering under the Trump/GOP/billionaire siege.
The Republican Party — now fully captive to the whims of the morbidly rich and authoritarian ideologues — has declared war on our social contract. Their weapon this time? A trillion-dollar axe to Medicaid.
Let’s be clear about what this means:
All so morbidly rich billionaires can afford a bigger yacht and another $50 million wedding spectacle. All so hedge fund managers can stash more profits in the Caymans. All so the American oligarchy can squeeze one last dollar from a country they’ve already plundered beyond reason since Reagan took an axe to unions, taxes, and the middle class.
And Mitch McConnell has the audacity to say: “Get over it.”
No. We won’t “get over it.”
We will not “get over” watching our parents and grandparents discarded like garbage because a handful of billionaires want another tax cut.
We will not “get over” watching our communities hollowed out, our hospitals shuttered, and our democracy drowned in dark money.
And we will not “get over” the cynical, deliberate destruction of our shared future, done behind closed doors, rushed through Congress, and shrouded in lies.
This isn’t just a policy debate. This is an ideological war.
On one side: the We society. A vision born out of the Great Depression, hardened in the fires of World War II, and realized in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP: programs that say, “We are in this together.”
On the other side: a Me society. A cult of greed that sees solidarity as weakness and democracy as an obstacle. A worldview that reveres wealth and sneers at compassion. That says: “If Grandma can’t pay, let her rot.”
The GOP’s Me society didn’t arise by accident. It was sold to us by think tanks funded by billionaires, by media owned by corporations, by politicians whose campaigns are financed by the very people they’re supposed to regulate. It’s the Powell Memo and Project 2025 come to life.
And now, we’re at the crossroads.
This is the moment. The inflection point.
Because this isn’t just about Grandma. This is about who we are. About whether we believe in democracy — real democracy — where every voice matters and no one is left behind.
Or whether we surrender, finally and completely, to the rule of billionaires and bankers, the Fox “News”-fueled poison of hate and greed, the slow-rolling destruction of the American dream.
The arc of history doesn’t bend itself. It bends when we bend it with action, with solidarity, and with outrage channeled into purpose.
History is watching.
So is Grandma.
Let’s not fail her.