The Orangey Man in the Little Van Will Blow Your Mind
If we poor fallible human beings are capable of doing anything Christlike, it is feeding the hungry, tending the sick, comforting the lonely, and educating the unschooled. A multitude of Americans are involved in just those activities, both paid professionals and dedicated volunteers, harking to the best impulses of humanity: deep empathy for those less fortunate than ourselves. While this army of charitable workers provides the time, effort, sacrifice, and discipline for little or no money, federal funding widely amplifies the reach of their work, for which we are all grateful.
Yet, surprise of surprises, President Donald Trump told us on Monday, January 27, that we do not benefit from those programs, that they are a waste of federal dollars, that they do not fulfill his policies, which alone express the will of the American people.1 Considering that we are the American people, it was the more strange that his statement took us by complete surprise and caused widespread dismay. The ripest of Trump’s policies are at most two weeks old. Apparently, the U.S. population, along with the rest of the world, has been wrong about charitable works since about forever.
We had good reason to be so mistaken. The United States Congress itself misled us. Those august officials were the ones who put legislation in place allocating funds for charitable and social programs they felt deserved federal, that is to say, public support. As a result of their deliberations, programs such as Head Start, Tax Counseling for the Elderly, and Global AIDs received taxpayer dollars.2
The purpose of one such program, Meals-on-Wheels, is to bring shut-ins a hot meal and a cold supper for the day. But that is by no means all those shut-ins receive. Besides the food, Meals-on-Wheels workers provide company — someone like my mother — who visits with those folks, chats, listens, and forwards any special worries or ailments they might mention to someone qualified to address that concern. Yes, a pair of older ladies — Alice the visitor and Lois the driver — transformed the lives of countless elderly citizens from a dim, featureless, fearful, and lonely stretch of time into a life animated by daily visits from people who brought them food and — yes — cared about them.
Trump’s order was meant to blight charity in root and stem.
Alice and Lois devoted two days a week year in and year out to ministering to the shut-ins on their route. The thought of receiving a penny for their efforts would have deeply shamed them. Their motives were not transactional. Volunteers are not transactional. They are selfless. Helping others is their incentive and their reward.
Although Meals-on-Wheels is run on a shoestring, based on local efforts, and funded primarily by local donations, Trump felt the program was wasteful. In freezing whatever federal funding it received — along with the funding of countless other charitable programs — his order was meant to blight charity in root and stem. Besides cutting off care to needy recipients, it axed funds for the hundreds of thousands of staff, contractors, and small businesses who provide that care. One government website warned healthcare and early childhood education providers: “Executive Orders regarding potentially unallowable grant payments . . . will result in delays and/or rejections of payments.” Sound familiar? It should. It’s the delay-and-deny tactic commonly used by our major healthcare insurers to increase their profits.
By quashing programs that minister to the elderly, the underprivileged, the disabled, and our veterans, Trump tells us he is enacting our will.3 Charitable programs are woke, woke is Marxist,4 and deep-state Marxists have been helping Joe Biden expropriate federal funds for years to make everyone transgender.5 Acting OMB director Matthew J Vaeth concurred,6 declaring that federal financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Trump’s priorities to end “wokeness,” DEI initiatives, and the careers of judges, attorneys, and FBI agents who ever touched a Trump prosecution.
In these past painful two weeks, we’ve been forced to notice that Trump seems to think the government and all its revenues are his and to be used solely as he sees fit.
In the face of national outcry and multiple lawsuits, Trump rescinded his freeze within days. But his clumsy misstep exposed something we must reflect on. In these past painful two weeks, we’ve been forced to notice that Trump seems to think the government and all its revenues are his and to be used solely as he sees fit.7 On January 27, he let us know that he is loathe to share any of his appropriated wealth with the less fortunate of our population. In his abrupt maneuver to cut them off, he scooted out his little van a little prematurely. It’s since been tucked back into its hiding place, waiting for a better moment, but its brief appearance exposed something hideous, but faintly familiar. We balk to recall those mobile gas vans Nazi Germany benevolently employed to relieve the mentally ill, the disabled, and the elderly of their lives. But Trump’s rash foray this past week recalled just that.
Americans are the body and soul of a system of robust capitalism that is, for better or worse, the envy of the world. But we must not, in our boundless charity, humor a president who would abandon the less fortunate among us to their fates. We have noticed that Trump scorns the lower echelons, but once he has eliminated the sick and needy, the ignorant and the elderly, who will be that lower echelon but Alice and Lois and we ourselves, ripe for stripping of federal dollars that Trump has decided to spend on something else?
If Trump goes after the wax, the wick, and the flame, this candle will go out. Trump either doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or is unaware of how that might affect him.
- https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25506361-omb-memo-on-federal-aid-freeze/ ↩︎
- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/28/upshot/federal-programs-funding-trump-omb.html ↩︎
- An Israeli-style “Iron Dome” missile defense system for the North American continent, on the other hand, Trump considers a stellar use of American taxpayer dollars. ↩︎
- Anyone in the United States who might point out that Karl Marx was a prodigious scholar who had written impeccable, highly readable economic analyses would risk being drawn and quartered. ↩︎
- When you think about it, if we made everyone transgender, we’d be back where we started from. ↩︎
- Vaeth is also an author of Project 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/29/trump-federal-funding-freeze?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ↩︎
- We all know that Trump changed rules to entitle himself to appropriate from the Republican National Committee coffers whatever money he required. He got first dip and second dip and triple dip if need be. After siphoning off what he wanted, Trump kind of liked watching down-ticket candidates scrap over what was left. ↩︎