We're All Just Cattle Now

Americans are milked for profit

Americans have a lot in common with these cattle. Photo by Oriol Pascual on Unsplash

Imagine you’re a cattle farmer. When you wake up, you don’t ask yourself, “What can I do to make my cows happier?” You ask, “How can I maximize profit from my herd?”

Everything our government does makes perfect sense as soon as you realize we’re all just a bunch of cows to them

This should have been obvious all along. Under Trump, it’s an inescapable conclusion.

Otherwise, why don’t we make decisions based on the well-being of our people instead of just how much money we can squeeze from them? The poor and middle classes serve as a resource for the wealthy.

Take student loans. Wouldn’t it make sense to do whatever we can to provide every young person with the education and/or job training they need to take their place in society? Aren’t we all better off when we have an educated populace?

Instead, we see students as a profit center, and investors are making a killing on them.

American Exceptionalism is a joke

As an American citizen married to a European, I’m immune to it.

During my first visit to The Netherlands to visit my now-husband, one thought kept repeating: “We could have this too — if Republicans allowed it and if the Democrats fought harder for it.”

This is why we cannot have nice things. Things like universal healthcare. Work-life balance. High-quality food. Decent maternal and paternal leave and affordable childcare. Good public transportation. Free or affordable college. Those kinds of things. The things that build a strong society. The things that so many other countries offer as a matter of course.

A lot of Americans have no idea how bad we have it here

We think it’s normal to get one week of vacation to start and to perhaps someday earn up to three. Europeans are aghast to learn we don’t start with four or five.

In Bulgaria, moms get 90 percent of their pay for 410 days of maternity leave. In the U.S.? Zero paid days unless you’re lucky.

Dutch mothers get 16 weeks of paid leave just before and after the birth. Most European countries offer similar deals.

European parents usually get some kind of subsidy to help with the costs of raising their children. Most European countries provide in-home help after childbirth. My husband was amazed to learn the government doesn’t send nurses to assist parents and teach infant care during the newborn period.

Americans pay the most expensive college tuition in the world

In plenty of countries, college is free, sometimes even to international students. Sometimes students even get a stipend to help cover their living expenses. (And yes, I do know people planning to send their children overseas to college. I wish I’d known about this option.)

Since most Americans can’t out-right pay tens of thousands of dollars in college tuition, we have to borrow it and some haven’t finished paying their own loans by the time their children are ready for college. Some are still plugging away when they would otherwise be ready to retire.

I could go on and on about the differences, but one thing is very clear: While many governments try to do everything possible to nurture their citizens, the present U.S. leadership sees our population as a herd of cattle they can milk for money and power.

The pandemic proved we could cut child poverty if we wanted to

We just don’t want to. We had record-low child poverty thanks to pandemic relief programs. We could have kept those in place but we did not.

So the next time you see a headline about a program we “can’t afford,” remember: It’s not about affordability. It’s about priorities.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. I also have a new Substack aimed at authors who want to self-publish books, called The Indie Author. My most recent book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules. If you prefer to give a one-time tip, I accept Ko-fi.

All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park

For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.

Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.

When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.

Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.

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