Opinion: Why Americans feel Trump, politicians don’t care about them

For anyone still wondering why large swaths of America have given up on the political class to solve our society’s never-ending problems centered on socio-economic inequality, go to your computer and watch the Feb. 22 episode of CBS’ "60 Minutes."

A segment of the program profiles McDowell County, West Virginia. Once the nation’s largest coal producing county, it now is a monument to the effects of deindustrialization and transition to cleaner energy. One-third of the county is on food stamps. The median annual household income is less than $30,000. These are the people President Trump and other Administrations before him pledged to help. Instead, they have been left to continue a downward spiral that seemingly has no bottom. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In the latest polling before Trump’s State of the Union Address, 68% of Americans felt Trump and his Administration were not prioritizing the country’s most important problems. I would venture to guess a polling of McDowell County residents would put that percentage at more like 99%.

With the majority of residents having no access to clean running water out of their taps due to aged pipes or contaminated water supplies from abandoned coal mine runoff, news stories of Trump giving $20 billion to his buddy Argentinian President Javier Milei and DHS buying a $70 million luxury Boeing 737 Max aircraft for Secretary Kristi Noem to fly around the country for another photo op at an immigration detention center certainly reinforce the general sense that Trump’s priorities may not be on his MAGA faithful. The additional pain about to hit these rural forgotten communities when the full impact of the Food Stamp and Medicaid cuts included in Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill become a reality in 2027, conveniently planned for after the upcoming mid-term elections, will exacerbate an already grim existence.

But it is not as if the money to help these communities isn’t there — $4 trillion tax cuts to corporations and millionaires while your political base must drive to a spring outside of town to fill water bottles is not a budget problem. It is a priority problem. Pledging $10 billion to the development of Gaza's Mediterranean coast while your base loses nutrition support and health care access is not a budget problem. It is a priority problem.

The money needed to immeasurably improve the lives of citizens in communities like McDowell County is a small fraction of what is being spent to appease the wealthy, enrich the powerful, and bribe the undecided. When I hear House Speaker Johnson talk about what our government can and cannot afford overlayed against what citizens in the richest country in the world have to endure on a daily basis, I lose any sense of confusion about why so many Americans have lost faith in our government.

Donald Trump is not the first president to make grandiose promises to voters across the country to win an election and then seemingly forget them once in office. What does set Trump apart from his recent predecessors in this century is that his abdication of his pledged commitments is totally done at his own discretion. George W. Bush was unexpectedly saddled with the tragedy of 9/11 and its aftermath. Barack Obama came to office in the turmoil of the 2007-2008 economic meltdown.

Trump’s first term was relatively benign until the COVID pandemic hit in his last year. Joe Biden was faced with navigating the pandemic and trying to rebuild a decimated economy in its aftermath. Trump came to office for his second term with an economy that was doing amazing well considering where it had been 2 years prior. Inflation was hovering about 3.0% and unemployment was just over 4%. Trump has chosen to ignore the plight of communities like McDowell County in preference to propping up his far-right compatriots around the region and the world. He has prioritized deregulation to unbridle his billionaire class while turning a blind eye to the real problems facing the citizens of this country.

It is no wonder so many people have simply given up or fallen prey to whichever snake oil salesman candidate will tell them what they want to hear. No person living in the richest country in the world should have to open their water tap to the sight of black sludge. The solution is not about money; it is about resolve. If Trumpism is about America first, it sure would be great to see Americans feeling the love.

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*Brad Gutierrez, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Air Force combat pilot, professor of Political Science, military diplomat, and senior public policy civil servant. *