Following on from yesterday’s exposé, we continue with an investigation that truly exposes why Trump has now become so unpopular.
It has been one year since America made its catastrophic miscalculation, returning Donald Trump to the White House on a wave of grievance and economic anxiety. To mark this grim anniversary, one need only travel from the sun-drenched plazas of Miami to the rust-streaked streets of Steelton, Pennsylvania. The journey exposes the fundamental, vicious lie of his presidency: while he sold himself as an ‘America First’ champion, he has always been a ‘Capitalism First’ president, whose loyalty is reserved exclusively for his rich donors. The rest of America are finding out the hard way that they are merely collateral damage.
In Miami this week, the victory lap was a nauseating spectacle of self-congratulation. At the America Business Forum, Trump preened before a crowd of wealthy entrepreneurs and investors—his real constituency. “We’ve done really well,” he cooed to them. “I think it’s the best nine months… of any president.” The vibe was glitzy, the cheers were bought and paid for. These are his people now; the grassroots folk who propelled him to power have served their purpose and been discarded.
His speech was a masterclass in delusion, tailored for an audience insulated from the consequences of his policies. “Record high, record high, record high…” he chanted, referring to a stock market that serves as a proxy for the fortunes of the rich. The message was clear: your portfolios are bulging, so what’s there to complain about? When he offhandedly admitted, “A lot of people don’t see that” his great economy, it was the most honest thing he said all day—a fleeting, cynical acknowledgement of the millions he is actively screwing over.
Because a thousand miles north lies the reality he dares not face. In Steelton, Pennsylvania—the very heart of the ‘Trump Country’ that handed him the keys to power—the air is thick with the stench of betrayal. The local steel plant, the lifeblood of the community for over a century, is shutting down. Men like David Myers, whose family has worked there for generations, are now listening to their union rep talk about severance and redundancy. Their lives are being dismantled, their futures shredded.
And the bitterest irony? The plant’s owners, Cleveland Cliffs, have seen their stock price surge. This is the core of Trump’s ‘Capitalism First’ doctrine: corporate health is measured by share value on Wall Street, not pay cheques on Main Street, nor the survival of a community. The plant’s closure isn’t a failure in Trump’s world; for the Miami crowd, it’s probably just a smart, necessary business decision. The human cost is irrelevant.
This is not an unfortunate side-effect of his policies; it is the intended outcome. His administration has systematically favoured capital over labour, shareholders over workers, and wealth over well-being. Nowhere is this more visceral than at the food bank run by Elder Melvin Watts in Steelton. “The cost of living is high,” he states, a simple, damning verdict on Trump’s year in power.
Then came Geraldine Santiago, one of 40 million Americans cut off from full SNAP benefits because of a government shutdown born of political gamesmanship in Washington. Her desperate sobs in that food bank are the soundtrack to Trump’s ‘greatest economy’. She wasn’t crying over a fallen stock index; she was crying because she couldn’t feed her family. For the ‘Capitalism First’ president, her hunger is a acceptable price to pay for political brinkmanship.
Trump didn’t bail out these communities; he played them. He promised an industrial renaissance but has delivered a masterclass in asset-stripping the American dream. Pennsylvania, and states like it, were useful idiots in his electoral college game. He took their votes, offered them slogans, and then flew straight to Miami to assure his wealthy patrons that their interests were secure.
One year on, the mask is off. The ‘America First’ president has never existed. In his place is a ruthless ‘Capitalism First’ mercenary, for whom the nation is merely a portfolio to be managed for the benefit of the already-obscenely rich. The people of Steelton, and millions like them, are discovering a brutal truth: they weren’t the base; they were the mark.
