http://newiprogressive.com/images/stories/laura/wake-up-2025-s440.pngWake up, America. Before there’s nothing left to bounce back to.

LAKE GENEVA, WI - You know what’s heartbreaking?

Watching good people—decent, hardworking people—cling to the lie that “everything’s gonna bounce back.” That all we have to do is just hang on a little longer, trust in Trump’s plan (whatever that is this week), and America will come roaring back to life. Like one of those cheesy underdog sports movies where the team pulls off a win in the final five seconds.

But this isn’t a movie. And this isn’t some routine surgery.
This is a terminal diagnosis, and they’re pretending it's just a mild infection.

Trump and his sidekick J.D. Vance have been peddling this idea that the economy is just “under the weather.” That sometimes people get sick, need an operation, and then they’re good as new. They’ve been tossing that analogy around like it’s gospel. But here’s what they don’t say out loud:

Sometimes the surgery doesn’t work. Sometimes people don’t get better. Sometimes they die.

And right now, the middle class is on life support. Small towns are dying. Wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living in decades. People are maxing out credit cards just to afford groceries. Parents are skipping meals so their kids can eat. Seniors are splitting their prescriptions in half to make them last.

But the Trump crowd? They’ve been told that this is normal. That all of this is just part of a cycle. A temporary dip. Just a little economic turbulence before we soar again.

It’s a lie. A cruel one.

And what’s sad—truly sad—is that millions of Americans believe it. They believe that if they just vote the “right way,” if they show loyalty, if they keep holding on, then things will go back to how they used to be. As if we can rewind the clock to a time when life felt more affordable, more stable, more American.

But that time is gone. And Trump’s not bringing it back—he’s part of why it’s gone in the first place.

Remember when he promised jobs would return, that coal would come back, that we’d be winning so much we’d get tired of it? Remember how none of that happened?

Instead, billionaires got tax cuts, the national debt exploded, and ordinary people were left to figure it out alone. And now those same people are being told, once again, to just hold on.

I look around and see exhausted people still believing that someone who wouldn’t cross the street to help them up is somehow their savior. And it breaks my heart. Because these are folks who deserve better. Who have worked hard their entire lives. Who need real help—not hollow analogies and empty slogans.

This isn’t about politics anymore. It’s about people. And we are watching a slow, painful unraveling while too many are still sitting in the waiting room, trusting the surgeon who already left the building.