Ask Bucko

It is still difficult to actually get our heads around, and searching for ideological reasons for Trump’s behaviour is pointless. He has no ideology that can be categorised, or even trusted from one day to the next.

As I cycle through my theories, none holds up. Of course revenge appears to be his main motivating factor, but even then it is not really individuals he wants to punish, it is more a list of humanistic ideas he dislikes, or maybe the fact that certain areas of interest do not specifically benefit him personally. It seems as if he studied some Age of Enlightenment document, and then decided to undo all the advances made in human societies, over the last couple of hundred years. One by one.

Health is obviously a target

As we all get older, health takes on a greater importance in our lives; certainly of more importance than when we were younger. So now that he has installed RFK Jnr as the health supremo, and tasked Elon Musk with decimating the Health Department’s workforce, the Trump administration is ready to ‘re-work’ America’s health system.

That would be the system which has led the world in scientific research for eighty years. The system which virtually eradicated polio. Remember polio – every parent’s nightmare until 1988, since when there has been a 99% reduction in cases worldwide. DUE TO VACCINATION!

The World Health Organisation commissioned The Lancet journal to investigate what vaccinations had achieved during the years the U.S. drove their expanded availability from 1974 to last year (2024).

“The study found that vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives in the past 50 years from 14 different diseases. Most of these have been children under five, and around two-thirds of the children under one year old.

For every death averted, 66 years of full health were gained on average, translating to 10·2 billion years of full health gained. We estimate that vaccination has accounted for 40% of the observed decline in global infant mortality, 52% in the African region. In 2024, a child younger than 10 years is 40% more likely to survive to their next birthday relative to a hypothetical scenario of no historical vaccination. Increased survival probability is observed even well into late adulthood.”

So when RFK Jnr is working diligently away in the background, undermining public trust and spreading worthless lies about vaccines, whom is he punishing, and why?

Trump is a man who fully understands the concept of withholding treatment. Let us re-visit his appalling mis-treatment of his great nephew. President Donald Trump once cut off family payments for the medical care of his nephew, who had cerebral palsy, during a dispute over their inheritances. He was also quoted as saying, to the boy’s father, “I don’t know, he doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”

So that might explain his ‘big ugly bill’ cutting Medicaid to 17 million American citizens. What about food stamps? The closing of hundreds of hospitals can’t be good for the country either, especially his MAGA base, who populate much of rural America, and whose demographic needs more medical care to be provided than their urban counterparts. They are getting older, and now with RFK Jnr in charge of their health, they are in real danger.

Additionally, does it explain the lives lost when he allowed Elon Musk to eviscerate U.S.A.I.D.? Researchers estimate that, if the funding cuts are maintained until 2030, USAID cuts may lead to more than 14 million deaths globally, including 4.5 million children under 5.

So we are looking at what seems to be pathological behaviour, on an industrial scale, led by Trump, assisted by people so unqualified that their appointment appears to be a prank, a practical joke, but one which has already caused millions of deaths, and will cause many more.

If we count the deaths caused by Trump’s negligent mishandling of the Covid 19 pandemic, we are looking at a person who has done so much damage to the United States that it beggars belief.

As Trump cements his hold over the entire country, we can see his face has changed. He now wears a permanent sneer. He must have spent hours inspecting the expressions of past dictators, because his sneer has an incomplete sense to it. It is as if he has learnt the early phase of a dictatorial sneer, but forgotten to learn part 2, where the dictator occasionally smiles, and shows his appreciation of some flattery, or extravagant display of servility.

This will end badly for us all.