America Becomes TrumpWorld in 39 Days. Get Ready!

Perhaps we can look at what he’s done and said in the past, and what his minions are saying, to give us a leg up on the next four years. Or maybe not.

Yup, he’s pointing at you, and yours

There’s just 39 days left before Donald Trump is sworn in as president on Jan. 20, which means now may be a good time to start preparing for the weird new world – TrumpWorld! -- we’ll all be living in.

It isn’t a comfortable thought for the half Americans still stunned that the other half put Trump, a convicted criminal, serial liar and sex abuser, back in the Oval Office. While Trump’s win was historically small in raw votes and percentages — not the “mandate” he and his supporters brag about — it’s reality, and we all have to consider our options moving forward.

Honestly, with Trump, it’s pretty much a crapshoot. But let’s consider what he’s said and done in the past, what his minions in Congress have said or done, what his Cabinet picks have said or done, and what MAGA’s Project 2025 suggests to make some guesses.

How will our lives be changed? Is there anything we can do to prepare for those changes?

It might be time, for instance, for parents to start attending meetings of their local school boards. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, with Trump’s support, are preparing plans to cut the government budget by $2 trillion, or around 30%, and elimination of the U.S. Education Department has been a key target identified by both Trump and Musk. What would that mean?

This department now sends public schools nationally around $120 billion a year, representing about 8% of their overall funding. Other federal agencies also contribute with the Agriculture Dept. funding the School Lunch program, and Health and Human Services funding the Head Start program. How will all that funding be replaced if Musk and Trump or, heaven help us, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cut the departments handing it out or the programs themselves?

My guess: Higher local or state taxes for some districts while others simply lower what funding and resources go to their schools. This suggests, of course, that children in lower-income school districts may well get poorer education and, thus, less opportunity to move into higher income brackets.

Trump’s actions in the past have shown a ready willingness to keep the poor poor and to make the rich even more so, have they not?

Meanwhile, the religious right that supports Trump will be pushing him to insert their idea of religion into the everyday lives of your children in our schools, no matter what religion your family belongs to, or whether you even have a religion. Local school boards have a lot of power over such things and, increasingly, the hard-right is pushing to control them to pull America in their direction.

And while we’re discussing education, it may be time to talk to your college-aged kids about avoiding street protests, no matter how much they care about an issue.

In the past, Trump’s called for the military to respond to large protests, and even suggested at one point that protestors be shot in the legs to make them cease and desist. Who will be there to stop him now? Not his Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. He’ll take another bourbon, please.

How about that nice lawn of yours? Maybe you need to buy your own lawnmower, just in case, and start figuring how to make the time you’ll need to replace the guys who come every week to cut your grass, trim your bushes and trees. That includes the guy who comes weekly to take care of the pool at a pretty low price, if you’re lucky enough to have one.

And even if you have no lawn, how many farm workers who till, plant, harvest, and process our food will need to be replaced, by whom and at what cost to consumers? Is it time to start your own garden somewhere? Luckily, we already have one.

The odds are that at least some of the folks may not be legally here, and Trump has promised to chase down each and every one and send them back to where they came from, even though they’re hard workers, including some of whom have started their own businesses, and pay taxes.

Okay, let’s move on. You might want to adjust your thinking about when to retire with MAGA folk in Congress already talking about shrinking the retirement window. Now, you can start receiving Social Security retirement benefits as early as age 62, but your benefit amount is reduced if you start before your “full” retirement age.

The full retirement age has been gradually increasing, from 66 and 6 months for those born in 1957 to 67 for those born in 1960 or later. Some MAGA lawmakers, though, are pushing a plan to raise it for everyone to 70, which means that workers and retirees would have to work an additional 3 to 4 years to receive their full benefit.

Meanwhile, Trump’s budgets the last time he was in office included proposals to cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance. While these changes were framed in Trump’s “newspeak” as targeting inefficiencies, it was pretty clear the goal was to reduce benefits or access for lower- and middle-income retirees.

The odds are that anti-vaxxer, tooth decay champion and junk science devotee RFK Jr., a man who says a worm ate part of his brain (I can’t repeat that phrase enough), will be approved by the MAGA Senate as the next head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And Trump has said Kennedy will be allowed “go wild on health.”

To prepare yourself, you might want to see your health-care providers soonish for checkups or outstanding medical needs. Who knows what will be available as Kennedy starts winnowing the U.S. health card, as he’s promised.

He’s not a doctor nor a scientist, but he’s promised to gut the 18,000-employee FDA, which works to protect Americans from unsafe food, drugs and medical devices. He’s also said he plans to replace hundreds of employees at the National Institutes of Health, stripping away years of scientific and medical expertise in the process.

And he wants to impose more testing on already existing vaccines, potentially slowing vaccinations for kids.

You know what happened the last time Kennedy pushed a country to stop vaccinating kids? In Samoa in June 2019, two nurses mistakenly mixed the MMR vaccine with a muscle relaxant, killing two children. Kennedy and other anti-vaxxers in a group he was a member of took advantage of that accident by speculating loudly and publicly in Samoa that the MMR vaccine itself was unsafe, causing top politicians there to end its use.

The real world result: A deadly measles outbreak that infected around 5,700 citizens and claimed the lives of 83, most of whom were children. He has said since being nominated that he won’t block vaccines already in use. But can you trust the studies he’ll be control of? I’m skeptical.

You may also want to start planning soon to buy your next car, and hold off on the electric ones, no matter much you like them.

Trump has pledged to “save” the U.S. auto industry by rescinding new fuel economy standards after weakening them the first time he was in office. Lowered standards, or maybe no standards at all in TrumpWorld, means less of a leash on how often you fill up your SUV.

At the same time, you can expect the cost of electric cars to skyrocket since Trump has vowed to pull the plug on the $7,500 tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles.

If you don't have a passport, it’s been suggested that it may be time to get one. If yours is expiring, renew it. This is a step that’s less about the ability to travel (though that's also handy) than it is about having accurate identification and avoiding hassles that may arise come January.

For instance, for trans or nonbinary people, getting a passport that reflects your gender is particularly crucial. Trump has signaled that his administration will not be particularly friendly to trans people, so many are updating their identity documents now, in case the new Trump administration eliminates that option.

The rising cost of groceries and other goods has long worried Americans. What happens if Trump places 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, as he’s threatened? Trump’s budget will gain and he’ll be able to brag about how much money the government is making. But our costs will likely rise since it’s the importers that pay tariffs, and you can bet they’ll pass on the extra costs to consumers,

The U.S. now imports approximately 60% of its fresh fruit and 40% of its fresh vegetables, with Mexico — the leading foreign supplier of tomatoes, avocados, raspberries, bell peppers and strawberries — the biggest contributor. Like I said, starting thinking about where to put the garden. And, by the way, don’t even ask about the price of Tequila.

I could go on forever listing the problems associated with a Trump presidency for middle- and lower-middle class Americans. But honestly, it’s going to take a while for many of the most dangerous aspects of Trump’s presidency to become clear.

So while we’re just 39 days away from Trump’s stomach-turning inauguration speech, we have some time before they start kicking into place. But preparation can’t hurt.

And remember, we’ll get a second chance at undercutting his power in 2026, when the mid-terms roll around. And unless he finds a way to get around the Constitution, he’s gone in 2028 and there’s not yet a significant MAGA minion around to replace him, though J.D. Vance — his wonky vice-presidential choice — is obviously lusting for the chance.

I know our time is limited by jobs, kids and a hundred other things. And, maybe soon, by having to mow our own damn lawns. But it’s time to spend. moment or two about how you can support, or even direct, the opposition against some of these screwball changes as we move forward.

It might be by kicking in a few dollars in contributions, or spending some time working for a certain politician, or even by pointing out Trump’s failures to friends and relatives. But the time to start is now.

In just 39 days, we enter TrumpWorld, and we could face a lot of change over the next four years. What do you think?