By Tom H. Hastings
“This war is a true investment in your children’s and your grandchildren’s future.” –Donald Trump, as public support for his war of choice fails to materialize.
Yeah. An unprovoked war against Iran is an investment:
- More Islamic terrorists will be created out of the natural human desire for revenge.
- Global pollution from war is enormous, adding to toxic and hazardous materials in air, water, and soil—and thus in what future generations breathe, drink, and eat.
- US national deficit and debt rise, imperiling US economy for decades.
Since Trump claims to care about investing for the benefit of your children and grandchildren, what else is he up to along those lines?
- Trump’s EPA is lifting environmental regulations on many industries, which will be an investment that will pay off in more cancers, more lung disease, and generally poor health for your children and grandchildren.
- Clean energy projects—wind, solar, geothermal, low-head hydro—are losing federal funding and permits in states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. This is a triple investment in future generations, right? Higher energy bills, more pollution and climate chaos, and an unprecedented erosion of decent democracy norms and practices.
- Trump is pushing hard to disenfranchise millions of Americans via his attack on vote-by-mail. It is received wisdom amongst Republicans that higher rates of voting favor Democrats. This investment favors rule by rich elite and damage to the very fabric of democracy.
There is so much more. It is stunning that the very people who voted him into power are taking body blows right now from his actions.
- How are truckers feeling about the price of diesel fuel hitting and exceeding all-time highs?
- How are farmers relating to tariffs that jack up their costs and diminish their markets? How are they handling the hits to eliminating the US government purchasing massive amounts of their crops to use as foreign aid?
- How are rural and small-town voters processing Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that is causing shutdowns of their hospitals?
- I wonder how hurting working people who work hard but make low wages are considering the many reductions in SNAP?
- Can middle-class voters be happy about many of their insurance policies literally tripling as a direct result of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill?
Of course the punishing costs to those who didn’t tend to vote for Trump are often apparently some relief to his MAGA base. When ICE causes a great deal of suffering amongst people of color who are here legally, who work hard, and who pay taxes, perhaps that is greatly satisfying to a MAGA true believer. Perhaps they see all their sacrifices as worth it to inflict pain on brown people from other countries. I can’t read their minds but we can all speculate.
Trump and his cronies in the Senate and House and in his purged institutions such as the Department of Justice have made a sincere attempt to erode our freedoms, rob us of our votes and voices, and dumb down our education. Their idea of investments benefit them as one-percenters, but corrupt our very best qualities as a people.
This is not to claim any lock on “the answers.” Honest minds can differ on many sensitive issues and respect for those honest minds shows the best of who we are. Can we work our way back to that?
Examples are many.
- I am a strong believer in vaccines and have dear friends and relatives who absolutely oppose them. We don’t dehumanize each other over the issue.
- I stand up for trans people, literally serving with nonviolent uniformed peacekeepers at many events that honor them, yet I am personally ambivalent about male-to-female trans participating in female divisions of sports. Wiser people than I can work through this in a collaborative dialogic process.
- I am always in favor of nonviolent approaches, even when they seem hopeless, yet I refuse to morally judge those who have been hurt so badly—especially those whose children have been harmed—that they resort to violence. I can disagree with them on a strategic level without casting them as immoral or unethical.
Investing in our children’s and grandchildren’s future will make sense if we start with tolerance and dialog rather than hate, pollution, war, and culture wars.
Dr. Tom H. Hastings is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs at Portland State University. His views, however, are not those of any institution.