opinion: today's right wing wants the rest of us gone.

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Thinking the Unthinkable: Do Republicans Want Some of Us to Die?
We must reckon with an administration that wants some of us to go away.
James Alwine
Elizabeth Jacobs
Jul 10, 2025
Common Dreams

“Well, we all are going to die,” Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst responded to a constituent who said “people are going to die” because of the cruel provisions of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Ernst is correct, we are all going to die, but what she and the Republican Party appear to want is for specific groups to die.

That’s a shocking statement, and a hard one for us to make. But before you dismiss it, look at the evidence that’s accumulated over the years.

Republicans’ lack of concern for the lives of others appeared during the pandemic in a push to reopen businesses before vaccines and drugs were available. This would greatly increase Covid-19 transmission. Republicans railed against and dismantled every public health mitigation strategy. They knew that the deadliest toll would be on the elderly, infirm, migrants and the poor—the most vulnerable and the least welcomed by Republicans. Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick supported reopening, arguing that grandparents should willingly risk death by Covid-19 to save the country’s economy for their children and grandchildren. Arizona’s former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey also placed the economy before human lives, taking numerous steps to undermine public health strategies. In the end, the pandemic death rates were higher in Arizona than any other state.

The infamous “Big Beautiful Bill” allows Republicans to further undermine the health of those they disfavor, with its draconian funding cuts to safety-net programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The Republican plan, to let Covid-19 rip to save the economy, held an unspoken benefit for them; Covid-19 deaths would remove unwelcome people—overwhelmingly elderly, Black or brown, poor or living with disabilities—from the rolls of the social programs that Republicans dislike. A cold indifference for the lives of others was in play.

Concurrently, Republicans spread misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines and masking, with President Trump being the single largest driver of Covid-19 misinformation. This turbocharged the present-day anti-public health, anti-science, anti-vaccine sentiments that endanger the U.S., culminating in the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a non-scientist and anti-vaccine advocate, to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Kennedy and Trump have methodically weakened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Kennedy systematically removed vaccine experts, replacing them with anti-vaccine cronies. His mounting campaign to cease vaccination will allow the return of serious and deadly diseases. Once again, this will have the greatest adverse effects on groups unwelcomed by Republicans. Kennedy and Republicans have also cut funding for HIV vaccine research and suicide hotlines for LGBTQ+ youths, and are doing all they can to ban gender-affirming care for young people. All of this endangers the lives of groups that Republicans scorn.

The infamous “Big Beautiful Bill” allows Republicans to further undermine the health of those they disfavor, with its draconian funding cuts to safety-net programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These programs serve the most vulnerable U.S. residents—those with disabilities or who experience poverty and already struggle for adequate healthcare and nutrition. Ultimately, the bill would end access to healthcare and adequate nutrition for 14 million of the most vulnerable people in the U.S., intentionally endangering their lives.

And let’s not forget Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, the Republicans’ detention center for migrants. The design and location of the center is not conducive to sustaining health or life. The cruelty of the place delights Republicans.

It doesn’t stop with the unwelcome in America. The Trump administration’s closing of USAID removed U.S. humanitarian and development assistance worldwide to people in the worst situations. USAID provided food, clean water, lifesaving medicines, and assistance for farmers; kept women and girls safe; and promoted peace. Due to Trump’s cruel closure of USAID, as many as 95 million people will be denied basic healthcare and nutrition, potentially leading to more than 3 million preventable deaths per year. The halting of funding for USAID, as well as the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), could cause an additional 4-11 million new HIV infections and up to 2.9 million HIV-related deaths between 2025 and 2030. Further, Kennedy has pulled out of the vaccine alliance Gavi, an organization that has paid for more than 1 billion children to be vaccinated worldwide.

These cruel decisions endanger the most vulnerable around the world. But Republicans will never care about these Black and brown people who come from “s**thole” countries, according to Trump. In their eyes, they are among the unwanted.

Some may see the Republicans’ plans as 21st-century eugenics to improve the white race by diminishing everyone who is not white, straight, nondisabled, Republican, and Christian. Many are reluctant to talk about this because it seems so unthinkable, but we must reckon with the strong possibility that this administration actively wants some of us to go away. Look at what is happening, and remember that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.

I think a lot of people feel others should not get assistance. I believe they think nature should take its course and it's ok if people perish.

<astronaut pointing a gun meme>

Always have.

All because protecting the sexual purity of white women is their only priority.

I dont want yall gone.

I dont want yall gone and I am a Libertarian/Republican

Would it help if I moved back to Hawaii?
It is one of the best states for playing golf all year in nice weather.
Our family owns two houses in Hawaii, one for each sibling.

We can appreciate that.

This isn't a problem that extends to the very individual level, but it's a problem that exists on an institutional level.

Enough of the right with any amount of political power (politicians, people who work in think tanks, PACs, etc, pundits) support social darwinism and will openly embrace the idea that those policies are beneficial to them in terms of demographic impact, as well as being morally acceptable due to <insert social darwinist logic here>.

This has made those views increasingly normalized within all sorts of spheres that might have rejected those ideas in the past.

A lot of the right (especially the populist right and far-right) were skeptical of extreme forms of economic liberalism. Corporatism, or at least distrust of laissez-fair was common among the right. A lot of the Old Right/anti-New Deal figures were classical liberals and weren't initially seen as part of the right.

As paternal conservatism and corporatist conservatism seem to be far less popular these days, it's made it easier for libertarian ideas to take over, but there's still plenty of people who largely view politics as a tool by which to hurt their opponents, and view various vulnerable peoples as among their enemies because those people vote against them, threatening their ability to carry out their agenda. It's easier to justify hurting those people under an individualistic and social darwinist understanding of conservatism than under a more collectivist understanding of conservatism.

One of the main drivers of ideological splits within liberalism seems to be foreseeing an an-cap hellscape as the logical conclusion and noping out.

The big split between social liberals and economic/classical liberals is over whether the state should intervene in the economy.

The issue that seems to keep conservatives from fully embracing an-cap style libertarianism is their unwillingness to reject collectivism and state intervention when it suits their ideological needs. They still believe society exists on some level, they still believe a nation exists on some level, they still believe the state has some purpose within that society, etc.

That seems to leave us in a kinda ironic state where on some level, libertarian ideas are more popular than ever on the right, but at the same time, it's largely the most mean-spirited aspects and the non-coercive aspects are largely ignored because the people embracing it aren't interested in being non-coercive.

I believe that might lead to a split between the factions that make up the current right, because at some point the traditionalists/reactionaries will recognize that the society that they wish to save can't be reconciled with the vision that the technocrats and an-caps have of the future. Of course, they might compromise with libertarianism for the rich, authoritarianism for everyone else.

Mind you, the end result might be politics settling around three poles again for awhile, with socialists/labour, traditionalists and libertarian types emerging as the three poles. That might undo some of the polarization that's occurred, because in a two party system that results in both parties having to come up with platforms that can appeal to a mix of voters.

Regarding corporatism:


TL;DR: The contemporary right has embraced both the authoritarian tendencies of the traditional far-right and the social darwinian traits of extreme liberalism, leading to an increasing rejection of pro-social traits like empathy and compassion. The end result being that even if individual right-wingers are decent people, they're connected to a movement that's increasingly open about their desire for cruelty.