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Trump is gutting Medicaid—but rural America still won’t wake up



President Donald Trump’s budget is gutting Medicaid—and rural America is on
the front lines of the damage. And big shocker: Most of Trump’s fervent
supporters refuse to accept reality.

A health clinic in McCook, Nebraska, which has a population of 7,446, recently
made national headlines after announcing that it’s shutting its doors, unable
to survive the massive GOP Medicaid cuts.

“Anyone who’s saying that Medicaid cuts is why they’re closing is a liar,” a
resident of nearby Curtis, which has a population of 806, told the Washington
Post.

Another resident brushed it off as people just “trying to blame everything on
Trump,” calling it “horse feathers.” Must be a Nebraska thing.

And the town’s mayor, who proudly displays an Obama punching bag labeled
“Obama stress reliever” on his desk, insisted, “I don’t think the signing of
the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ had one thing to do with the closure of this clinic.”

Okay then.




 



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For years, Trump and the Republican Party have sold rural white voters a
story: that the real problem with government isn’t that it fails people like
them—it’s that it helps the wrong people. Benefits aren’t going to “deserving”
Americans like them but to immigrants, big cities, Black and brown people, and
coastal elites. It’s a lie, but a potent one. And it still works.

Right-wing message boards are full of people claiming that the only health
care being cut is for “illegals” or freeloaders. So when the cuts hit them
instead—the “hard-working, God-fearing patriots”—they short circuit. The media
must be lying. There has to be another explanation. It can’t be Trump.

And, yes, most of those voters are gone. We’re not getting them back. Their
political identity is built around the idea that Trump is their champion, even
when it’s crystal clear that he’s the one twisting the knife.

But not all of them are unreachable.



Take Brenda Wheeler, a 61-year-old Republican from Curtis. She voted for Trump
in 2016 but then soured on him and sat out of the 2024 election. When the
clinic closure hit home, she told the Post, “I’m not in agreement with this
bill.”

“When we talked about making America great again, I don’t think this is what
we all had in mind,” said Wheeler, who is even considering switching her voter
registration to independent.

People like her are the opening.




 



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Not all of them will defect. In fact, most won’t. But we don’t need most. If
just 5-10% of Republicans peel off—or if a few million nonvoters finally show
up—the math shifts toward Democrats. Our fragile 49-48 Democratic national edge
becomes a robust 55-45 majority. That’s not just a win; it’s a buffer. It’s how
we build a durable progressive coalition that can weather any right-wing wave.

We’re not going to deprogram the cult, but we don’t have to. What we can do
is reach the people asking why their mom’s Medicaid got slashed, why their
insulin suddenly costs more, or why their town’s only clinic just shuttered.

That’s the silver lining of our current dystopian nightmare: there’s no one
else to blame. Republicans control everything. They own it.

The first step is making that reality stick. The second is flipping at least
one congressional chamber in 2026 to stop Trump’s agenda and launch real
investigations into the corruption unfolding. And the third is offering
something better—visible, tangible, immediate help that voters can actually
feel. Or, as I’ve been arguing, cut out the buzzwords and promise to directly
and immediately make voters’ lives better.

That’s how we win not just in 2026, but for the long haul.



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