We Have 285 Days to Stop the Greatest Robbery in US History
If you’re fed up with being robbed by Trump and the billionaire class, it’s time to do something about it.
Just last week, Donald Trump suggested that “we shouldn’t even have an election.”
No comment could better summarize what his first year back in the White House has been like – undemocratic, unconstitutional, and authoritarian. And this power grab has been about one thing and one thing only: to make another buck off of the American people who work day in and day out only to make ends meet.
Since being inaugurated one year ago, Donald Trump has seen his net worth more than double – from $2.3 billion to $6.7 billion. Last year alone, our nation’s wealthiest billionaires got $698 billion richer, and they will continue to hoard more wealth under this corrupt administration, as the rest of the American people get robbed.
Trump doesn’t want to hold a midterm election because he knows full well that his priorities are not popular with the majority of Americans, as a new poll from CNN confirms.
You don’t say!
Turns out tanking the economy, stripping away affordable healthcare, trashing the environment, weaponizing federal agents against our neighbors, bombing nations for oil, funding and committing war crimes, and shielding pedophiles from accountability – all while America’s elites see their wealth skyrocket – is not what people voted for, not even Trump’s own MAGA base.
As we mark one year of Trump’s return to the White House, let’s take a look at how he’s been making his cronies richer at your expense, from healthcare to climate and even so-called “immigration enforcement.”
Making Americans Sick Again
Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has been one Big Beautiful Success for the top 1% (and literally no one else). By cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid, Medicare, and Affordable Care Act programs – which will result in 10 million people losing health insurance – Trump has been able to give wealthy individuals and large corporations trillions in tax cuts.
In other words, he has robbed you of your healthcare so his rich supporters pay less in taxes. It’s sick. It’s cruel. These are programs that we have been paying into our entire careers.
The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan office, recently warned that Medicare will lose hundreds of billions in future funding due partly to Trump’s tax breaks for billionaires.
It’s a crisis spiraling out of control. Rural hospitals are closing, maternity care deserts are expanding, and Black women, particularly in the South, are bearing the brunt of restrictive reproductive health policies.
Now, with Trump’s unwillingness to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits and his Congress falling in line, more will suffer and die. An estimated 7.3 million people will lose subsidized ACA coverage, while 4.8 million will become uninsured, and another 24 million could see their health insurance premiums skyrocket.
In the Black community alone, more than 170,000 adults will lose health care coverage across 10 major metro areas, and more than 200 people will die unnecessarily every year because of Trump’s attacks on healthcare.
Americans are being forced to absorb the costs of an administration that prioritizes cruelty and corporate interests.
Trashing Our Air Again
As we lose our healthcare, Trump is ironically doing everything possible to make this country even more unhealthy. The AI boom has presented him with an unprecedented opportunity to rob us of our clean air, because, of course, there’s a profit to be made there as well.
Let me give you a real-world example out of Tennessee.
Elon Musk recently waltzed into a predominantly Black Memphis community and built a gargantuan supercomputer for his AI giant, xAI, which now owns X, or Twitter. He circumvented the law by installing dozens of gas-powered turbines without any sort of environmental impact review or permit. His turbines are pumping out smog-forming pollution, nitrogen oxides, and chemicals like formaldehyde (no, it’s not normal for anyone to be breathing in such harmful toxins).
The NAACP stepped in and legally threatened Elon Musk’s xAI under the Clean Air Act, because their actions continue to be in violation of federal law.
Memphis is just one small example of what is happening in communities across the country, and that’s because Trump has been aggressively fast-tracking the construction of dirty data centers. In the White House’s own words, Trump is directing the government to “streamline environmental reviews and permitting” for supercomputer infrastructure.
The result: We are all breathing in carcinogens and other toxins that can harm and even kill us.
Billionaires, though, are getting what they want – and to Trump, that’s all that matters.
Elon Musk’s net worth grew to $645 billion last year. And he’s not the only one benefiting. The top 10 tech founders and leaders in the US have all profited from the AI gold rush, reaching more than $2.5 trillion in combined wealth.
Making America 1930s Germany Again
ICE is operating like the Gestapo. It’s abhorrent and horrifying, and reminiscent of one of the worst periods in human history.
People are being murdered. Our neighbors are being rounded up. Citizens are being detained because of their skin color and accent.
If there’s anything that can make this atrocity even worse is that Trump has found a way to make billionaires rich off of it too.
Private contractors doing ICE’s disgusting bidding have already brought in more money than expected by Wall Street. Three in particular saw record profits: tech firm Palantir, and private prison and surveillance companies GEO Group and CoreCivic.
The Guardian reports that “Palantir saw 53% growth in revenue from US government contracts in the second quarter of 2025 compared with the same period the year prior and surpassed $1 billion in total quarterly revenue for the first time.”
They also added, “While Palantir is making it easier to deport immigrants, private prison corporations GEO Group and CoreCivic are bringing in more money than expected helping detain them. GEO Group reported $636.2 million in revenue this quarter … while CoreCivic announced $538.2 million in the second quarter of this year.”
From Trump, it’s about profit over people. Simple as that.
The Bottom Line
It’s hard to see this all happen to our neighbors and to our nation.
For nearly 117 years – almost half of America’s 250-year existence – the NAACP has led the charge to defend civil rights and democracy in America.
We were born amid widespread lynchings of Black people. We organized historic boycotts and marches throughout the South and beyond. We fought to end segregation in public schools by securing a historic ruling in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. And in NAACP v. Trump, in 2020, the Supreme Court sided again with the NAACP when it ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to end the DACA program was “arbitrary and capricious.”
Taking on hateful forces like the Trump administration’s policy violence is what we do.
Looking forward, how successfully we organize over the next 285 days – what’s left before the midterms – will determine whether we can put an end to the greatest robbery in American history.
It’s not the first time we’ve gone through this. During the late 1800s, the “Gilded Age,” America’s elites amassed extreme amounts of wealth through monopolies, the exploitation of working people, and corruption.
What followed was a progressive movement, which ultimately led to FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s, with programs that greatly strengthened workers’ rights, created Social Security, and further regulated big corporations, bringing white people out of poverty. And where FDR’s New Deal failed by excluding marginalized people, other movements delivered change. The civil rights movement culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
People had enough and demanded something better, something more just. And this time, I believe people are fed up and demanding something better, again. And that’s what gives me hope.
“We shouldn’t even have an election.” Those are the words of a president who knows he’s very unpopular just one year into his term and bound to lose Congress. Trump may be making the rich richer, but he’s making the rest of us a hell of a lot more determined.
If you’re fed up with being robbed by Trump and the billionaire class, make each one of these remaining days count.
285. That’s it.
Do something.
Derrick Johnson is the President and CEO of the NAACP, America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. He is based in Jackson, Mississippi.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.
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I refuse. This tawdry, vile administration cannot win.
The United States is an idea: one of equality, fairness, sustenance, progress.
Doanld Trump, miniscule vermin that he is, will not win because our firm goal is justice.
What's to do about it? With armed thugs in the streets and the threat of the Insurrection Act potentially cancelling the next elections, it seem to me the billionaires and their little dicktator have already won.