The simple truth is that Trump ignored almost every major issue facing this country’s working families in his first speech
I was at the Trump inauguration on Monday, and needless to say, I disagree with almost everything he had to say.
What really struck me, however, is not what he said, which was not surprising given his general rhetoric – but what he didn’t say. The simple truth is that Donald Trump gave a major speech, the first speech of his second presidency, and ignored almost every significant issue facing the working families of this country.
How crazy is that?
Our healthcare system is broken, is dysfunctional and is wildly expensive. We remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee healthcare for all. Not one word from Trump about how he is going to address the healthcare crisis.
We pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs – sometimes 10 times more than the people in other countries – and one out of four Americans is unable to afford the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe. Not one word from Donald Trump on the high cost of prescription drugs.
We have 800,000 Americans who are homeless and millions of our people spend 50% or 60% of their limited income on housing. We have a major housing crisis in America – everyone knows it. And Trump, in his inaugural address, did not devote one word to it.
Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had. The wealthiest three people in America now own more wealth than the bottom half of our society. But Trump had nothing to say about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else. And maybe that’s because he had those three people – the three wealthiest people in America – sitting right behind him at his inauguration. And, I should add, those three people – if you can believe it – saw their wealth increase by more than $233bn since the November elections. No wonder they were sitting right behind Trump. They couldn’t be happier.
During his inaugural speech, Trump did not have one word to say about how we are going to address the planetary crisis of climate change. The last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters are taking place all over the world – from California to India, across Europe to North Carolina. Not one word about climate change – except, of course, to make it clear that he intends to make this horrific situation even worse with “drill, baby, drill”. Brilliant.