David Colburn

I can hear subscribers’ jaws hitting the floor right now, shattering copious amounts of investments in dental care, at seeing such a headline from a Timberjay columnist, but please, read on before picking up the phone in disgust and canceling your subscription. It’s just the newspaper version of clickbait.
I have by no means sold out to Darth Trump and Darth Musk and an evil empire that makes Star Wars look like Luke and Leia’s Disneyland vacation. I abhor the administration’s completely nonsensical approach to slashing the budget, as time and again they’ve had to reverse today what maniacal things they did yesterday. Who in their right mind would look at a job title like “doctor for Indian Health Service” or “specialist for the National Nuclear Security Administration” and glibly fire someone just because they’re on probation without considering what critical function that person provides? The mad scramble to rehire those people, some within hours of being terminated, is clear evidence that DOGE and Trump don’t care one whit for the citizens government is trying to serve. It’s nothing but a misguided, cynical attempt to cut dollars to fund further income tax cuts for the rich and collect blood money to send to Americans as bribes/rebates to believe in the path to ruination.
And I’m sure as heck mad as hell that last Tuesday Trump assured us all that “Social Security won’t be touched – it’s going to be strengthened but won’t be touched – Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched” and in less than 24 hours he blasts out his full endorsement for a House Republican budget plan that would savagely slash Medicaid, likely leaving at least thousands of low-income Americans without vital health care.
If Joe Biden had done even half of what Trump and Musk have done, Republicans would be screaming at the top of their lungs that it was evidence that Biden was a total mental incompetent. But as for Trump, the president who hasn’t spoken a coherent unscripted paragraph in all his years in office, well, he’s hailed as a brilliant businessman and the savior of democracy as House lackeys scramble to put his likeness on Mt. Rushmore or rename Reagan National Airport after him.
My form of embracing the mantra of “Make America Great Again” isn’t at all a nod to Trump, but rather embracing all of that which makes us a great nation that he seeks to destroy.
So let’s call Trump’s MAGA for what it’s really become, starting with “Make Amnesia Great Again,” a clear nod to how Trump and Musk have blindly ignored their promises from the campaign trail. Notably, Musk declared that DOGE would be “fully transparent,” yet he disdainfully denies the access afforded by the rest of government to its plans, actions, and budget, and allows Trump to place a shield of “presidential immunity” around their work to keep it from the public. “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” declares the Washington Post, and there’s nowhere darker in America right now than inside the Beltway. As for Trump? “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he said. Walk past the egg cooler in the market and judge for yourself how that’s going. Take another shopping trip after Trump imposes his tariffs.
Or how about “Macho Arrogance Governing America?” This is an administration that claims to have all the answers, that will admit no wrongdoing even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary. Trump proclaims everything they do to be “perfect.” Musk and Trump continually threaten government workers and longtime international partners in ways no CEO concerned about making his or her brand “great” would ever dream about. For Trump and Musk, there’s only “my way or the highway,” period. We abhor bullies in school — why should we as Americans be forced to accept bullies as leaders?
Perhaps you’d like this one: “Morons Aggressively Gaslighting America.” Trump is nothing if not a masterful manipulator of the truth to achieve his own ends. Once called a “firehose of falsehoods,” one accounting calculated that he told over 30,000 lies in his first term, 21 lies PER DAY. This time around he appears hell bent on breaking that record, lying about everything from Ukraine to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. He does it because it’s been a successful control tactic for him, and he’ll continue to lie to shape the narrative to drive whatever change he wants. How do you know when Trump is lying? When he’s moving his mouth or posting to social media. And he’s got Musk along for the ride with his clearly deceptive reporting about DOGE’s claimed savings.
I’m quickly becoming convinced that Trump has abandoned MAGA altogether and has secretly replaced it with RAFT: “Restructuring America For Trump.” What else are we to think about a man whose White House shares a picture of himself wearing a crown with the caption “Long Live the King,” a man who muses openly about being president for life as a bill to eliminate term limits is introduced in the House? A white man who seeks to obliterate any mention of the very diversity that made America great? A “Christian” man who seeks to infuse government with only Christian nationalism in a country with constitutionally protected freedom of religion for all its citizens? A man with spiteful disdain for the constitutionally protected freedom of the press, who rails against the freedom of speech when it doesn’t mirror his warped beliefs? I’m certain you can add to this list, so suffice it to say that Trump’s idea of greatness is what will make the former TV host and failed businessman great again. The America he wants to make great again is America in the image of Trump, not OUR America. Trump’s MAGA has become the perfect acronym for “Manufacturing America’s Grim Apocalypse.”
Believe me when I say that after just one month of Trump’s second term, I fully embrace the phrase Make America Great Again. The problem is, I have zero faith that Donald Trump has the slightest shred of comprehension of what that phrase truly represents. And with nearly four years left in his term, that’s a scary belief to hold.