OPINION: A U.S. Golden Age? Don’t Hold Your Breath

Donald Trump keeps saying he’s led our country into a golden age. Many Americans beg to differ, although even begging to differ is risky these days, given what he and his Project 2025ers are doing to stifle dissent.

They’ve caused so much alarm this year that it’s sometimes hard to remember what life was like before his second term began.

And it’s just as hard to believe that it’s gotten better for anyone. Even corporate overlords, high-priced lawyers, heads of prestigious universities, GOP members of Congress and the Supreme Court are quaking in their designer footwear as they try to stay on the White House’s good side.

The rich and powerful voted for Trump because they expected him to further enrich and empower them through tax breaks and deregulation, and his administration delivered both.

But most voters were smarting from inflation, which spiked during the Biden administration as the world recovered from the pandemic. Too many believed Trump when he said he’d immediately make the economy better for them, and most probably paid little attention to his plans for tariffs.

Now even the yes men and women he picked as advisers realize that the public isn’t buying his claim that this economy is the best we’ve ever had. Yes, he said that on Thursday. 

Polls taken in the last month show his disapproval ratings on the economy at 53% to 60% and on inflation at 59% to 71%. As a result, his gang now suggests that he shift from self-praise to a promise of better times next year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

So far, he hasn’t done that. And there’s certainly reason to doubt 2026 will be any more golden than 2025, given his purges of government workers and his haphazard tariffs.

(That 50% levy on Brazil is particularly absurd. What does the nation’s successful prosecution of former President/insurrectionist Jair Bolsonaro have to do with the price of coffee and other products that it exports to us?)

Trump’s war on solar and wind power does nothing to lower energy prices. They’re already projected to spike with the proliferation of data centers, which consume breath-taking amounts of electricity.

And the cost of health insurance that people buy on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace will jump next year unless the GOP Congress restores subsidies that it eliminated with Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill for billionaires.

(We all know his congressional marionettes would do that if he tells them to — and the government shutdown would be over.)

Speaking of health care, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.’s embrace of conspiracy theories and disdain of scientific evidence are endangering public health and undermining our preparedness for another pandemic.

We’re less safe in other ways. Former Pennsylvania Congressman and Vice Admiral Joe Sestak warned in a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed that China’s formidable cyber warfare capabilities pose the greatest threat to the U.S. 

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is working feverishly to eliminate diversity and inclusion from the military, while Trump is turning it on “the enemy from within” (anyone who doesn’t kneel before him). 

The White House is also undermining our ability to tackle climate change, which Trump deems a hoax in spite of scientists’ findings that it’s caused all sorts of weather disasters.

As for how the American people cope with such disasters, he’s playing political games with federal aid. Just days ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom – a Democrat — said the state is still waiting for nearly $40 billion it requested for the Los Angeles area after the deadly Palisades wildfire in January.

The conditions Trump laid out included a stricter voter ID law. An ID is required to register to vote in California but most people don’t have to show it at the polls.

Democrats aren’t the only people his retribution rampage will hurt. Republicans and independents also live in blue strongholds where he’s sending troops and freezing funding.

The administration’s  malicious and poorly thought-out moves have made this a golden age for the precious metal itself.

Since Inauguration Day, its price has risen about 46% to record highs. Investors are buying up gold, which is considered a safe place to park money when signs of trouble appear. 

Lisa Von Ahn is an experienced columnist previously published in the Pottsville Republican Herald newspaper.

Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.

Want to be a columnist with Coal Region Canary? Contact us at newscanary@gmail.com.

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