Photo by Sophia Simoes on Unsplash
Fresh news keeps blasting out from Washington at a fast and furious clip. Liberals are wringing their hands, conservatives are clapping theirs, and I have been doing my best not to get overstimulated or provoked by every daily shockwave. I tell myself that if I am patient enough, the barrage of everything-all-at-once bulletins from the Administration will cohere and assemble themselves into a recognizable pattern.
My patience has been rewarded. This week, a grand pattern emerged, clear as bottled water. Perhaps you are also seeking coherence, so let me lay it out for you, piece by piece.
First, we had Elon Musk call Social Security a Ponzi scheme, an attempt to suggest that the system is fraudulent. This was followed shortly after by an announcement that the Social Security Administration plans to lay off 7,000 staff and close regional offices, reducing the level of customer service from unsatisfactory to dysfunctional. Benefit checks haven’t been disrupted yet, but it’s well known that benefits will have to be reduced by 2034 if Congress doesn’t do something to put more Money into the system. So there’s that.
Then the Administration abolished the Administration for Community Living (ACL), the agency that coordinates most federal programs for older adults and for young people with disabilities who live at home. Half the staff were fired. ACL distributes funds to local Aging services that deliver meals, provide transportation, and provide in-home assistance with bathing and dressing.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are firming up their budget blueprint, which includes deep cuts to Medicaid, which covers long-term care for seniors.
Over at the Department of Agriculture, officials have canceled food deliveries to food banks. Major cuts have been proposed to SNAP (formerly food stamps) and Meals on Wheels.
When you put them all together, the result – intentional or coincidental – is to threaten the ability of older adults to receive Social Security benefits, services to age in place, Nursing home care, or food. Which doesn’t make any sense – or at least, it didn’t until I finally connected the two missing pieces.
The first was extradition. The Administration recently swept up foreign nationals, including college students, and dumped them in El Salvador. No one stopped them. The Supreme Court gave its approval. That was proof of concept.
And the final piece? Greenland!
Why does Donald Trump want to acquire Greenland? Is it for the valuable minerals under the ice? Is it for its strategic military value? Is it because he wants to build a luxury resort and golf course there?
No. The clue to the real reason can be found by looking at Eskimo culture. When old persons in some Eskimo communities could no longer hunt, fish, or contribute, they were abandoned on ice floes.
If you, like some in the Administration, are concerned about efficiency, and if you believe, as some have suggested, that older adults are unproductive once they stop working, this Eskimo custom has considerable appeal. What a pity that suitable ice floes are in short supply these days because of a warming climate that is in no way the result of human activity. Plus, we’re talking about millions of old people. The demand for ice floes clearly exceeds the supply.
But Greenland! Why, it’s just one giant ice floe measuring 836,300 square miles! And with only 57.000 permanent residents, it has more than enough room to handle millions of our least productive citizens. Maybe enough for thousands of undesirable immigrants as well.
No one wants to see millions of old people starve or get sick. Extradition to Greenland solves that problem neatly. No one will see us.
There’s also a tremendous cost savings in not providing extradited old people with food or shelter. There’s no point if they’re going to die anyway. There’s also no need to create a special government agency to handle this project. The agency already exists, and it’s no coincidence that it’s known as ICE.
The one wrinkle in the plan is that Greenland is not currently under U.S. protection. Actually, it belongs to Denmark. But that is a minor, temporary inconvenience. Seriously, who is afraid of the Danish Navy?
Once all the unproductive old people are removed from the U.S., the savings really begin. Without old people to serve, there is absolutely no justification for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Meals on Wheels, or any other federal programs for older Americans.
Thus, all the pieces really do fit together, in a brilliant plan to streamline government while thinning the herd.
Those of us who are older and no longer productive need to accept that we are net takers and a tremendous burden on younger, more vibrant sectors of the population. We should do our patriotic duty and cooperate with this final solution.
I look forward to seeing you all in Greenland.
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