We Will Not Fund Our Own Erasure

Christine Merser, May 22, 2025

Last night, while we were all sleeping, in secrecy, MAGA started the hearings for the bill—the Death of America Bill—which will likely pass. It will kill Medicaid and decimate Medicare, along with so many other things I can’t even stomach listing. I am on Medicare, as are many of my friends. I’m financially fine—or I was—but I no longer have the resources for concierge medical care, though I used to.

Back in the ’80s, you could pay a $25,000 “donation” to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City each year, and you’d bypass the emergency room entirely. We had a card with the phone number of the hospital president, who would personally call whomever was needed for our issue and—voilà—we were in like Flynn. Our entire family. And we never mentioned it to anyone. Not that we were told not to. We just didn’t. Interesting now, as I look back.

Those days are over for me, which is fine. But what I realized, in the quiet hours of last night, is that these new cuts will kill people. Millions of people. Poor children, for example. Older people in elder care, whose families won’t be able to afford the support that Medicaid once covered. These older humans—these Americans—once served our lives. Military veterans. People who worked mid-level jobs. Not poor, but certainly not wealthy. Certainly not in possession of a Lenox Hill top-floor membership card. (As an aside, that top floor is lovely—beautifully appointed, fabulous food, wonderful service. But that’s not the point.)

The point is, in the dead of night, I realized this works for them. The people making these decisions want this. The people who will die—and they will die—are of no use to them. They cost money. They offer no benefit. They don’t donate. They don’t matter to them.

It’s not just the Republicans. There’s people like Booker. Who voted for the crypto bill. Who voted for Jared Kushner’s father to be Ambassador to France. Why? Did you know that Jared and Ivanka did a fundraiser for him? Guess they’re still in touch.

You want more?

The industry-backed Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act passed a cloture vote, with support from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the original co-sponsor of the bill, Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.).

Back in February, a coalition of consumer groups and watchdogs warned that the bill would accelerate the “convergence of Big Tech and Big Finance” and is “a necessary prerequisite for future giveaways to the crypto industry.”

Cory Booker, take your narcissistic antics—your 24-hour floor speech about your own life story—and go look in the mirror. Ask yourself who you really are behind the facade of the good guy, which I believe you believe. Because I don’t buy it.

The Dems are not going to save us. They’re talking today about reforming the way they do their primaries. Seriously? That’s like, in the last hour before the Titanic sinks, the crew is standing on deck discussing how to change the watchtower protocol for spotting icebergs.

There’s a character in Yellowstone, the series about billionaires out west, who is a brilliant, defiant Native American woman who finally leaves the reservation and agrees to teach at a college. This is her first few minutes on the job. Watch it. And if you don’t have time, read the dialogue I put beneath it. But watching it is a different experience altogether. It will change the way you see all this.

… She tells a student who was insulting to her that she has the power…

When Christopher Columbus first came in contact with Native Americans, it was the Arawak people in the Bahamas. I'll read to you from Columbus's journal.

‘They willingly traded us everything they owned. They do not bear arms and do not know them. For I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They will make fine slaves. With 50 men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.’

You ever feel like that, Trent? You ever feel like making someone do what you want, whether they want to or not? It's a very European mentality, stemming from the oppressive political and religious structures of the Renaissance.

Kings and priests with absolute power ruling masses who have none. That was the mentality of the men who discovered America. And it's the mentality our society struggles with today.

So here’s the thing, MAGA people. My neighbors and friends. My message to myself.

We are now what Columbus saw. In their eyes. That’s who we are. They think we will keep spending our money on their future, not ours. They think we will keep taking their broken promises and death to our elderly, ripping our neighbors and those who help us in our homes and harvest our food, from their homes and families, without standing up and saying, no.

The sword Columbus spoke of? How they cut themselves on them because they were ignorant? Do you not think it’s interesting that Jobs and Zuckerberg’s children were not allowed to use social media or even have Apple phones? Hello? That people in technology do not allow their children to use what they sell us to use and buy with pride for our children should have been a message to us all?

No wonder Trump wants to bring back Christopher Columbus Day.

That is the way Trump and those around him see us; stupid, expendable slaves to his vision of grandeur. Booker is more afraid of them than his constituency. Why?

If any human votes yes on this bill, they should be taunted every single day until they stop it, through other legislation, through action, through regret. Until they put in jail these felons, one at a time if necessary.

Tell them. This is not a time for nice phone calls, saying ‘please don’t vote for this.’ This is not a time for measured tones and polite disapproval. This is a time to tell them to be afraid. Be very afraid.

Not afraid for your physical safety. That is not who I am. Who we are. But for your peace. Your yacht in our harbors? Your quiet dinner in our towns? Not so much. We will take away your daily peace. We will stop spending our money to fill your treasure.

Bit by bit.

Every single day.

I promise you.

And, PS. If any of the media call it the name they gave it, call them out on it because words matter, and believe it or not, your brain will take the words in as they are written not as the ironic lies they are. It is the Death to America Bill.