Though it was not surprising to me that nearly half of Americans voted for President Trump in 2024, I was surprised that more than twenty percent of Dorchester voters gave him a vote, and that in some precincts, he got more than a third of the vote. In the leadup to the balloting, Trump promised that his term would involve retribution against states and people who were against him. States like Massachusetts.
I know people who have remained faithful to Trump, but I wonder how many have changed their minds, considering the massive changes that have happened to our state and our country. Because, as the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, told the world at the Davos Summit, the world order has been disrupted.
This is what I have seen from Trump 2: The shredding of the Constitution, including smashing down doors without warrants, the hiring of goons who, wearing masks and driving unmarked black vans, the kidnapping of American citizens and deporting them after being forbidden to do so by federal judges, and the shooting of American citizens in an American city by federal agents.
Trump has eliminated nearly every aspect of government that monitors government corruption. In November, he pardoned the former president of Honduras, who had been convicted of drug trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Then, he kidnapped the president of Venezuela in January and charged him with (what else?) cocaine trafficking.
He has squandered our moral authority as a nation, alienated our friends and allies, destabilized the world via weakening NATO, and made our country untrustworthy, except maybe by Russia. The list goes on and on. I guess maybe he really could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and not lose any of his voters, as he said in 2016. There is a pile of amendments to the Constitution that need to be considered to prevent any furtherance of Trump-style corruption, provided he actually leaves after his second term ends. And yet Trump still enjoys around 40 percent approval, if somewhat less in Massachusetts.
Is there anything that can shake that Massachusetts support?
How about his war on the Massachusetts economy? Our state economy and jobs are built on two major industries – education and medical care. Medical and scientific research is a major part of our economy, and Trump wants to cut it by $44 billion in the federal budget, leading to an expected cut of $463 million for Massachusetts, which ranks third in grants nationally. You may not care about Harvard University, a major target for Trump, but 20,000 local residents are employed there. Harvard’s School of Engineering has laid off 16 percent of its staff, and most colleges in our state have had layoffs.
Scientists who help create our economy are being driven out, as the US loses its reputation as a global powerhouse in scientific research. Elimination of funding for mRNA research, which created the Covid vaccine and showed great promise for other diseases and future pandemics, is a major blow for Moderna and other Massachusetts-based bioresearch companies. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), created in the 1960s by Dorchester-bred Robert White, measures global warming and the weather. Its budget has been “zeroed out” by Trump, a disastrous development for the fishing industry. And with FEMA experiencing massive cuts, we’ll be on our own the next time a hurricane hits our coast.
Hunger issues are increasing due to cuts to SNAP for 160,000 Massachusetts residents, and the $26 billion federal cut in rental subsidies and research will result in the need to increase state budget support in those areas. Nationally, $15 billion in special education support is at risk.
The state’s Department of Revenue estimates that the “Big Beautiful Bill” will cost the state $664 million this year. A 19 percent decrease in international students coming to our colleges will result in budget shortfalls in higher education. The bizarre game Trump is playing with tariffs has destabilized many of our manufacturing companies.
Trump policies are terrifying immigrants, essential to our economy, who stay away from medical care, resulting in less prevention and more expensive treatment when patients skip preventive primary care but not emergency visits.
Trump promised oil barons that he’d make it worth their while if they raised a billion dollars for his reelection, and following his inauguration, he stopped wind farm construction, which would have powered 550,000 homes and provided 4,000 jobs here. Thirty green energy grants in Massachusetts were eliminated due to an $8 billion cut in green jobs nationally.
Trump’s budget will cut more than 300,000 Massachusetts residents off health insurance, resulting in more medical bankruptcies, worse health care for residents, and more financial strain for our health care system. We have lost $425 million in federal support that makes health insurance more affordable, dramatically increasing premiums for 337,000 residents. Most of the hospitals and insurance companies in our state have had layoffs. Our community health centers have been destabilized, with many having had layoffs.
And Canadians have stopped coming with their tourist dollars.
A recent study by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy found that 96 percent of Trump’s tariffs were paid for by American consumers, with only four percent absorbed by foreign exporters.
Meanwhile, despite the cuts, the US ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, mainly due to tax cuts. Our grandchildren will need to deal with the national debt, now nearing $40 trillion. And the Massachusetts unemployment rate rose from 4.1 percent to 4.7 percent in 2025, a credit to Trump’s war on the Massachusetts economy.
Our Commonwealth and our nation have endured major damage, and we’re only one year into Trump’s second term. With three more years of Trump, we may never recover from the destruction of America’s moral authority, the alliances that guided a stable world, our sense of unity as a nation, and the economic wreckage wrought by despotic actions of retribution against states that didn’t vote for Trump.
As John Adams said, “Power without any restraint is tyranny.” Trump said the only check on his power is “My own morality. My own mind.” We’re running out of time to stop this despotic regime.
