Little Rock       There are so many battle lines on the Trump offensive against the American people and the government, but it’s hard not to see a central theme being an attack on the poor and workers.

Workers have gotten more of the headlines with the layoffs and attempted firings of tens of thousands of federal employees.  Collective bargaining contracts have been voided.  Dues checkoff is being withdrawn from federal worker unions.  The National Labor Relations Board has run back and forth in the courts over whether it is legal to fire one of the members, necessary for the board to make decisions.  Of course, pretending to bring back industry via Trump’s tariff tantrums have also directly meant auto and other factories are closing now.  The populist pretend claims of Trump and this team to be advancing and protecting workers are high profile gaslighting.

In the war Trump and his people have launched on the poor, there isn’t even a claim that they are doing anything other than hurting them.  Spurious allegations of fraud and corruption are advanced without a shred of evidence.  If workers are collateral damage for the Trump administration, lower income people and families are the designated victims.  Top of the list continues to be the negotiations in Congress and the administration about how to fund continuing tax breaks for the rich by cutting Medicaid coverage and Social Security access for the poor.   It’s important to realize that Medicaid is just the topline, because many of the assaults to the poor can’t even compete for any space in the news.

Here are just some of the fronts in this assault:

• AmeriCorps, the volunteer program that was one of the last thin legacies of the earlier VISTA programs that benefited lower income communities and projects throughout the country, is now being gutted.
• The administration has shut down the LIHEAP or Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program which was not an entitlement, but did provide energy assistance money for lower income families dealing with high heating or cooling bills.
• The administration is terminating the $8 cap on credit card late payments as well as the limits on the amount that banks can charge for overdrafts, most of which came from lower income and ALICE (Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed) families trying to stretch the dollars through the month.
• USDA food payments are being curtailed.
• In order to pay for the taxes there is now discussion between HUD and the White House of scrapping the section 8 housing program which subsidizes rent for millions of families and became in many cities the alternative to the dismantling of public housing.
• The deportation push claims to be about protecting jobs for American workers, but mainly seems to be focused on either political retribution, pushing out thousands who have been in the US on temporary protection visas because of problems in their home countries, or are lower waged workers who are the backbone of many farms and manufacturing plants.
• Cutbacks by the Environmental Protection Agency to achieve environmental justice that was focused on low income and minority communities.
• The dismantling of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau hurts all consumers, but especially lower income families.

The list seems endless, but the point is unavoidable.  Attacks on universities and law firms are big news, but both have the resources to fight back, if they are willing.  Attacks against the poor are deliberate because they are more defenseless.

How can we accept trading the heart and soul of America in caring for all of our people in exchange for fattening the wallets of the rich and powerful?