I did everything they told us to do. I voted. I worked. I raised the kids. I let them wave the flag and tell me the war would be over in weeks. Five months later the flag is still up and the gas is over four goddamn dollars a gallon and I’m watching my neighbor’s husband get a deployment call with twenty-four hours’ notice.
Let me say the quiet part out loud. They told us this war would be quick. They told us it would be ‘great.’ They told us the guy who campaigned against endless wars would never get us into one. That was the costume. The reality is four-dollar-plus gas, a Strait of Hormuz that opened and closed and opened again, food pantry lines growing because SNAP got cut, and our tax dollars — our tax dollars — going to drop ordnance on people across an ocean while our own roads go to gravel.
A 31-year-old logger up in North York, Maine, told The Guardian fuel costs are up and the price she gets for her wood is flat. That is the squeeze. That is the family wage dying in real time. A retired teacher in Georgia watched Trump’s motorcade go past his old school and called the war a dumbass idea — and even his own Trump-voting brother agreed. A window-tinter in northern Wisconsin said it ‘screwed everything up.’ They are all doing the same math: gas receipt, deployment letter, casualty count, SNAP denial. Same answer every time.
This is what we paid for. They promised America First and delivered working families last. They promised to protect us and shipped our husbands and sons overseas on a phone call. They cut food assistance for our neighbors so the planes could keep flying. The Bible-banging bootlickers in Washington found Jesus long enough to bless the bombers but not long enough to keep the pantry open.
Take the flag pin off before you rob the family, you sanctimonious fuck. Eat shit. We see you.
Source story: War’s costs ripple through American households as campaign enters sixth month.