They are using American power and American money to hurt Americans and help the people who are trying to dismantle America.
Let’s stop pretending this is a disagreement over “small government” versus “big government.”
If you look at what Republicans are actually doing with power—who they starve, who they save, who they protect, and who they sacrifice—you don’t get “patriots who just see things differently.”
You get something much uglier and much simpler:
Republicans objectively hate America.
Not the flag. Not the anthem. Not the vibes.
They hate Americans—especially the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the vulnerable. They hate the idea of a country where government serves ordinary people instead of billionaires and foreign strongmen.
And we can prove it.
Three stories, all happening right now, make the case beyond any reasonable doubt:
The longest shutdown in U.S. history, where Republicans deliberately pitted the hungry against the sick to shield the rich.
A $40 billion bailout for a far-right president in Argentina—Trump’s ideological twin—while Americans go hungry at home.
A brutal immigration crackdown, much of it targeting perfectly legal immigrants, that trashes the American story and weaponizes our health and safety systems against the very people who are America.
Add them up and the pattern is obvious:
They are using American power and American money to hurt Americans and help the people who are trying to dismantle America.
1. Starving the Hungry, Punishing the Sick, Rewarding the Rich
Start with the shutdown.
On November 12, 2025, the president finally signed a funding bill to end what anti-hunger advocates called the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) warned that millions of people had been left in limbo about whether they would get food assistance through SNAP—the program that literally keeps groceries on the table for low-income families.
This wasn’t abstract. It was “Do I feed my kids next week, or not?”
In Georgia, the state government announced that because of the federal shutdown, SNAP benefits would not be available beginning November 1, cutting off lifeline food assistance for hundreds of thousands of people.
Disability advocates noted that millions of people with disabilities were facing delays or loss of SNAP and WIC benefits if the shutdown continued.
The Washington Post reported that funding for WIC—the nutrition program for women, infants, and children—was projected to run out in a matter of weeks, threatening food access for more than 6 million low-income mothers and kids.
Business Insider documented states warning that November SNAP benefits might be halted altogether if funding wasn’t restored, placing roughly 42 million people at risk.
That’s what Republican brinksmanship looks like in real life:
babies losing formula, disabled people losing food, families standing in food-bank lines because Congress wants a hostage.
Now look at what those same Republicans were fighting for.
Before and during this shutdown, the Republican-controlled Congress passed and advanced budget laws that:
Slash Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars, largely by imposing harsh work requirements expected to push 9.9–14.9 million people off coverage.
Cut Medicaid by a projected $880 billion over ten years to help finance the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefit the richest households.
Gut SNAP and other food assistance programs, while shifting resources toward tax breaks for high-income Americans.
Extend and expand what even the House Budget Committee’s Democratic analysis calls a law that “gives the ultra-rich a historic tax break and makes working people worse off,” adding more than $4 trillion to the national debt in the process.
There is no way to square that with “We love America.”
If you love your country, you don’t:
Cut health care for millions of low-income Americans
Threaten to cut off food aid for tens of millions
Use the government shutdown as leverage
All so you can shovel more money to millionaires and billionaires
That is not “limited government.” It is using the government as a weapon against your own people.
Republicans made a choice:
Let kids go hungry, let cancer patients lose coverage, let disabled people scramble for food, so the rich can keep their tax cuts.
That’s not patriotism.
That’s hate.
2. Trump’s $40 Billion Love Letter to Argentina’s Far Right
While Americans worried about whether they could buy groceries, the Trump administration was busy taking a very different kind of “bold action” with your money.
Not to save American families.
To save Javier Milei, the far-right president of Argentina—and the billionaire investors tied to him.
In October 2025, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed a massive “economic stabilization” deal with Argentina: a $20 billion currency swap to prop up the peso ahead of that country’s midterm elections. Reuters later reported that U.S. officials boasted that Washington had actually “made money” on the swap, but only because the U.S. was willing to take the risk of bailing out Argentina’s central bank.
And that was just phase one.
According to the Associated Press and the Washington Post, the Trump administration was working to double total support to as much as $40 billion by combining the federal swap line with an additional $20 billion in financing from sovereign wealth funds and private lenders—backed by U.S. political and financial muscle. Analysts at AEI openly discussed how this $40 billion could be used to “dollarize” Argentina’s economy in line with Milei’s ideological agenda.
Trump himself bragged that the United States had given Milei “a lot of help,” including the $20 billion swap and more planned financing, as part of what he described as a strategic project to boost Argentina’s radical reforms.
Meanwhile, back home:
SNAP benefits were being delayed or halted in multiple states because of the shutdown. ⁵
WIC funding was on the verge of collapse. ⁴
Medicaid and other safety-net programs were under sustained attack by the same Republicans orchestrating this bailout. ⁶
House Oversight Ranking Member Jamie Raskin explicitly raised the alarm that Trump was “bailing out a billionaire insider’s Argentina investments while refusing to release funds to feed hungry Americans”—connecting the dots between hedge-fund interests, Milei’s austerity project, and Trump’s priorities.
Let’s sit with that for a second:
Republicans claim we “can’t afford” Medicaid, SNAP, or WIC.
They are fine letting millions of Americans sweat over whether they’ll eat or see a doctor.
But they can suddenly find $40 billion of political, financial, and diplomatic capital to rescue a foreign far-right government and reassure bond markets.
If you love America, Americans come first.
You don’t hold food aid and health care for your own citizens hostage while you bend over backwards to stabilize a foreign strongman’s government and the portfolios of U.S. hedge funds.
That is not “America First.”
It is billionaires first, foreign ideologues second, actual Americans last.
And when you consistently put foreign strongmen and wealthy investors above the basic survival of your own people, “we just have different priorities” stops being a serious defense.
At that point, you are broadcasting your hatred for the idea that American government exists to serve American lives.
3. The Immigration Crackdown: Burning the American Story to the Ground
America’s story—at least the one we’re taught to recite—is the story of people who show up here with nothing but courage and hope and build something better.
That story has always been incomplete and hypocritical. But even with all its flaws, it’s still the closest thing we have to a moral North Star: we are a nation of immigrants, and we are better when we welcome people who want to join us.
Republicans are spending enormous political effort and real money to destroy that story.
Not just by targeting undocumented people.
Not just by “securing the border.”
But by waging war on legal immigration and weaponizing health care and public benefits against immigrant families—including U.S. citizens.
Criminalizing care
In 2025, the Trump administration rescinded “protected areas” policies that had limited immigration enforcement in hospitals, schools, and other sensitive locations. Legal and health-policy experts now warn that immigration agents are allowed to operate “in or near” hospitals and clinics, creating fear and chaos in medical settings.
Reporters in California have documented immigration agents raiding or appearing at health facilities, prompting health workers to scramble to protect patients while immigrant families grow too afraid to seek care. Axios describes hospitals nationwide sounding alarms as the rollback of restrictions on enforcement in medical facilities “sparks fear and confusion in exam rooms and emergency departments.”
KFF found that about one-third of immigrants say they’ve experienced negative health effects because of worries about their own or a family member’s immigration status; many report avoiding health care or public programs out of fear and confusion.
That’s not “enforcing the law.” That’s using the threat of deportation to drive people away from doctors’ offices and emergency rooms.
And we all pay for that—financially and morally—when treatable conditions become crises because people were too scared to seek help.
Punishing legal immigrants and their families
At the same time, Republicans have revived and expanded the notorious “public charge” framework, which allows the government to label immigrants a burden if they use public benefits they’re legally entitled to.
A Washington Post report describes how the Trump administration is now letting visa officers deny visas based on chronic conditions like obesity, cancer, or diabetes, framing them as potential “burdens” on the health-care system. The American Immigration Council and other experts have documented how these changes and related rules are explicitly intended to restrict legal immigration pathways, including family-based visas, humanitarian protections, and work visas.
Research from the Migration Policy Institute, KFF, and others shows what this does in practice: huge “chilling effects” where immigrant families—including those with green cards or citizen children—avoid Medicaid, SNAP, and other safety-net programs out of fear that using them will jeopardize their immigration status.
In 2025, Georgetown’s Beeck Center noted that immigrants with legal status face “renewed and increased threats” to their access to public benefits, as new policies and bureaucratic hurdles push them out of programs designed to keep families healthy and stable.
So let’s be clear about what Republicans have built here:
A health-care landscape where immigrant families, including U.S. citizen children, are afraid to see a doctor.
A benefits system where lawful immigrants are pushed away from food and health assistance under threat that they’ll be punished later if they dare to use it.²³
Visa rules that treat basic human conditions—like having diabetes or being overweight—as sufficient reason to keep people out.²¹
New fees and restrictions that make many legal immigration routes financially impossible.
Meanwhile, Pew Research reminds us what the American immigration story has actually been for decades: since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, the U.S. has deliberately opened its doors to immigrants from more countries, welcoming large, diverse waves that have reshaped and enriched the country.
Republicans are spending political capital and your money to slam those doors shut again—and to terrorize the people who already walked through them.
That’s not “law and order.”
That’s a direct attack on the core American idea that this country is a place you can come to and build a life.
If you hate that idea, you hate America.
(The rest of the article follows below.)
If pulling together the receipts on shutdowns, foreign bailouts, and immigrant scapegoating helps you see the pattern more clearly, then help us turn that clarity into power. The American Manifesto isn’t just commentary—it’s a war room for exposing how the GOP weaponizes government against its own people.
Every subscription lets us dig deeper into the budgets, memos, and backroom deals that starve Americans while showering billionaires and foreign strongmen with cash—and then turn that research into sharp, shareable narratives our side can actually use. Support this work, and help build a pro-democracy movement that hits back as hard as they hit us.
Name it. Prove it. Beat it. The country is on the line.
So Yes—They Hate America
We’re told we have to respect “differences of opinion.” We’re told we should assume good faith. We’re told that calling this what it is—hatred of America—is “too extreme.”
But look at the record:
Republicans engineered a shutdown that yanked away food and health security from millions of Americans—WIC, SNAP, and disability-related food support all thrown into chaos—while pushing laws that slash Medicaid and food aid to fund tax cuts for the rich.
Trump is steering an up-to-$40 billion bailout to Argentina’s far-right government, backed by U.S. political risk and financial power, even as Republicans balk at spending far less to ensure Americans can eat and see a doctor.
The immigration crackdown is deliberately making immigrants—many of them legal residents and citizens’ family members—too afraid to use doctors, hospitals, or safety-net programs, while shredding the legal pathways that define America as a nation of immigrants.
You don’t get to do all that and still claim you “love America” because you wear a flag pin and shout the anthem louder than everyone else.
Love is about what you’re willing to protect, nurture, and prioritize.
Republicans are not protecting Americans.
They are not nurturing American lives.
They are not prioritizing American families.
They are:
Starving the hungry
Punishing the sick
Terrorizing immigrants
And sending our money and power abroad to prop up far-right allies and billionaire interests
That’s not policy disagreement.
That’s not “just politics.”
That is hatred of the America where government helps people live, eat, heal, and belong.
And until we are willing to say that out loud—again, and again, and again—they will keep getting away with it.
Because the truth is simple:
If you systematically harm Americans to protect billionaires and foreign strongmen, you don’t love America.
You hate it.
And our job is to make sure every voter in this country understands exactly that.
Your Move — Let’s Turn This Into Power
Calling this what it is—that today’s GOP is using American power against Americans—only matters if we turn that insight into pressure, organizing, and votes. I need your eyes and your experience to sharpen this story and spread it. Jump into the comments and help with:
Does the pattern in this piece—starving people at home, bailing out far-right allies abroad, and terrorizing immigrants—match what you’re seeing in your state or community? What’s the hardest part of getting friends and family to see it as one connected strategy instead of “separate issues”?
Which example in this article hits hardest for you—the shutdown, the $40 billion Milei bailout, or the health-care/immigration crackdown—and why? How would you explain that example in a sentence or two to someone who doesn’t follow politics closely?
Are you or people you know directly affected by SNAP/WIC cuts, Medicaid attacks, student visa changes, or immigration enforcement in hospitals? What stories should we be lifting up to make this real for people who still think it’s all “just politics”?
Beyond sharing this article, what’s the most effective next step where you live—talking points for canvassing, social graphics, local op-eds, organizing at clinics or food banks, something else? What tools do you need from The American Manifesto to make those actions easier?
What did I miss? Are there other concrete examples of Republicans using public power to hurt ordinary people that we should investigate and document next?
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