Donald
Trump said he'd speak for the people, but it’s billionaires and bigots who are
getting heard.
By LeeAnn Hall
One
of Trump’s first priorities is to repeal one of the only federal laws standing between us and Wall Street.
That law created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal office
created to look after consumers’ interests.
Since
its founding, the bureau has returned $11.8 billion that big banks essentially
stole from 27 million of their customers. The agency recently uncovered rampant
fraud at Wells Fargo and hit the bank with a $100 million fine. It also acted
to rein in the predatory payday lending industry, which catches 12 million
people in its debt trap each year.
Our
president-elect now wants to eliminate that agency, and the Republicans running
Congress will be all too happy to accommodate him. Like the Republicans’ 2012
presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, they’ve always been in the pocket of the
big banks.
Without
the consumer protection agency, you’ll be absolutely on your own. The big banks
can run roughshod over you, and there won’t be a single federal agency whose
sole job it is to defend you from them.
Trump
also says he’ll repeal Obamacare right away. There’s a lot that isn’t working
in the health care law. But Trump doesn’t have any plan to fix those things, or
to lower premiums and get rid of deductibles.
Instead, he’ll throw out the health care plans an estimated 20 million people received through the Affordable Care Act — many for the first time in their lives. There will be no one there for them but the insurance corporations, and we know how that goes. And House Speaker Paul Ryan is talking about turning Medicare over to the insurance corporations, too.
On
top of that, Trump’s going to toss the Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon
emissions. He’s pledged to put a climate change denier at the head of the EPA and to
undermine the key laws that protect our air and water. The corporations that
dump poisonous waste into our drinking water and asthma-inducing pollutants
into our air are thrilled.
He’s
also vowing to deport millions of our friends, neighbors, and family members. The
futures of millions of young people hang in the balance. And he’d shred the
Constitution to ban Muslims, destroying a nearly 300-year tradition of
religious liberty.
I
sincerely hope that’s not our voice.
But
we’ll have to prove it’s not by standing up for each other — for the immigrants
in our communities, Muslims, African Americans, and everyone who’s now under
attack. The man who claims to speak for us has stoked a wave of alleged attacksagainst marginalized communities by
his supporters.
There
are reports of high school students calling out “heil Hitler” and using
slurs against African American and gay students, handing out “deportation” letters to classmates, and
harassing Muslim students. A church just outside the nation’s capital found its
banner advertising a Spanish-language service vandalized with the inscription, “Trump Nation. Whites
Only.”
The
Ku Klux Klan says Donald Trump speaks for them, and they’re planning to celebrate by marching in North Carolina. Does he
speak for the rest of us, too?
Now
the choice is ours. No matter how we voted, we have to show who we really are.
Forget about anybody speaking for us. It’s time for us all to speak up for
ourselves and our neighbors, and to pledge to defend everyone in our
communities — from billionaires and bigots alike.
LeeAnn
Hall is the co-director of People’s Action (PeoplesAction.org), a national
organization engaging in research and advocacy for economic, racial, gender,
and climate justice. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
