No. of Recommendations: 7
In a broader sense, and despite his vindictive intentions, Trump’s economic project actually threatens red districts more than blue ones. His signature second-term domestic-policy package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, slashes the Medicaid budget by close to $1 trillion, which means that hundreds of small-town hospitals in Appalachia and clinics in the Deep South might not be able to keep their doors open. Two of the three states expected to see the largest increases in their uninsured populations are Kentucky and Louisiana.
Right now, Republicans are extending the shutdown to deny insurance subsidies to families that purchase health coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. If the GOP succeeds, an estimated 20 million households will see their premiums rise next year. South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and Utah would be hardest hit, the Kaiser Family Foundation has estimated.
Trump’s trade war has functioned as a sales tax on every single American household. The average family will pay $1,800 more a year for groceries, clothing, and other common goods thanks to the tariffs. But manufacturers and farmers have so far borne the brunt of the pain. Input prices have soared: The costs of fertilizer, machinery, lumber, aluminum, steel, and auto parts have risen. Export demand has plunged as the United States’ trading partners have put retaliatory tariffs in place. The agricultural sector is in the midst of a quiet recession; the manufacturing sector is shedding jobs. Bright-red states such as Iowa, South Dakota, and Indiana are getting the worst of it.
Trump might want to use his executive power to damage the country’s blue islands and coastal elites, but the places he’s harming the most are the very ones that powered his rise. No one should feel any schadenfreude, however, because pain in red states will spill over into blue states, and pain in blue states will spill over into red ones. A farm failing in Iowa has a way of increasing the cost of breakfast in Los Angeles. A hospital closing in Louisiana means fewer job opportunities for health aides training in Seattle. A cut to heavy-infrastructure spending in New Jersey might depress sales for a machinery business in Ohio. An HHS office shutting down in San Francisco might mean falling IT spending in Virginia.
The country’s economy is more interconnected than Trump realizes, and its polity more indivisible than he might think too: There are more Republicans in California than there are in the Deep South. More Texans and Floridians voted for Kamala Harris than did residents of New England.
In the United States’ economy, there’s no way to separate “us” from “them.” When Trump signs bills that help the rich and hurt the poor, he ends up hurting everyone. When he punishes blue places, he damages red ones too. We’re in this together, whether Trump sees it that way or not. ——Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic Magazine
