As I said in my first "MAGA makes life miserable" thread, the devil is in the details. Indiscriminate bludgeoning of federal agencies and programs has consequences for real people, including veterans of the US military, and yes, also including veterans who have seen combat and suffer from PTSD and other mental ailments. Republicans certainly pretend to care about vets, but like any creature moving on two legs that doesn't jingle with the sound of money when it walks, they don't actually give a tinker's damn about them (not even the ones who don't have the use of two legs). Their show of caring for the vulnerable, the indigent, the sick, the injured—in short, all those down on their luck whom the Jesus in their Bible says ought to be loved and cherished—is just what it seems: a show. Cynical kabuki theater.
Cue Musk with his novelty DOGE chainsaw, which probably cost thousands of dollars, gleefully playacting the severing of lifelines that human lives depend on day to day as the maddening MAGA crowd roars in approval. Doubtless there were many veterans in that crowd, totally oblivious to the mortal hurt they were soon to cause their former comrades in arms.
A picture, if you like: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/crmj284d0k8o
Fast forward a few months, and we can see what the sociopaths Musk and Trump have wrought:
https://www.propublica.org/article/veterans-affairs-mental-health-therapists-quit-trump
Veterans Who Depend on Mental Health Care Keep Losing Their Therapists Under Trump
Reporting Highlights
💔 Mental Health Staff Losses: Hundreds of mental health professionals left the Department of Veterans Affairs since President Donald Trump took office.
💔 Veterans Left Adrift: Veterans are facing an array of problems: They can’t get the VA to call them back, they see trusted therapists leave and they can wait as long as six months for therapy.
💔 Providers Feel the Strain: Mental health workers told ProPublica they left their jobs because of increased work loads, ethical concerns and new policies that they say undermined care.
The first few paragraphs of the article follow:
As Jason Beaman recounts his long slog searching for mental health therapy last year, he sounds defeated.
The first therapist assigned to him by the Department of Veterans Affairs told him at their initial meeting that she was leaving the agency. A few months later, his second therapist told him she was also leaving. An appointment with a third counselor was canceled with no explanation.
These were huge setbacks for the 54-year-old veteran of the Navy and Army Reserve. Nearly a decade ago, a spiral of depression and anxiety left him homeless and living on the streets of Spokane, Washington. A VA social worker threw him a lifeline, helping him apply for benefits, find housing and get into therapy.
He still needs mental health care, he and his physician say. But bouncing from therapist to therapist has left him exhausted.
After President Donald Trump returned to office last year, his administration announced plans to overhaul the VA, one of the largest health care systems in the country, to deliver “the highest quality care.”
“This administration is finally going to give the veterans what they want,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said last March, as the department announced tens of thousands of job cuts.
But in interview after interview, veterans across the country told ProPublica that one year into the second Trump administration it’s become more difficult to get treatment, as hundreds of therapists and social workers have left the VA. Many of them have not been replaced....