MAGA nurse I work with and "professional nurses"

[AllyCat]

Yesterday, I made a quip at work about management's efforts to reduce our pay/overtime while still getting us to do the work (for less money). MAGA RN had just finished a double shift, because there was no one to replace her after her first shift ended. She asked me for union help to negotiate the way management was trying to claim she couldn't get overtime for her double shift.

When we were done with strategizing, I made the comment "well, now that we aren't 'professionals' anymore, I suspect we will see more of this from management".

Here's how her mental gymnastics worked to defend the DoE decision to downgrade RNs from professional status:

MAGA RN: This is only to make it so universities can't gouge students trying to get Masters and Doctorate degrees in nursing.
AllyCat: So, why wouldn't the DoE have made it so ALL graduate programs less expensive? Why just nurses and teachers? (yes, I know it's more than those 2 groups)

MR: Well, it only affects graduate-degree nurses, not us (Bachelors).
AC: It is interesting these are both professions with largely female workers.

MR: This is how the DoE is recognizing that women have lower earning power and this helps women in the long run be able to afford school.
AC: (walks away shaking head)

This is how they are rationalizing this. I only had 20 seconds and would love to have launched into "Why downgrade nurses at any level?" and any number of other arguments, but MAGA is telling women this is good for them and helps them.

[FarPoint]

1. As an RN, I often say, "Nurses eat their own....."

This MAGA RN is why we remain marginalized and constantly discounted ....

[Irish_Dem]

2. Who does she think runs the undergrad nursing programs?

The faculty, researchers, clinical practicum supervisors, etc are all masters and PhD prepared.

If these nurses are wiped out who will teach the undergrad nurses?

[AllyCat]

3. Would love to have had the time to get into that part of it.

Yet another reason that hurting any part of nursing (or teaching, or therapists, or any other profession) is bad for the WHOLE profession. But I feel that is a hallmark of conservatism. "If it doesn't affect me personally, it doesn't affect anyone else".

[Attilatheblond]

8. Maybe GOP long term plan to cut medical care costs? Just get rid of the real care-providers and let people die

See, problem solved via billionaire greed and brain dead MAGA thinking

[Irish_Dem]

12. Yes the rich do not want money going to the sick for healthcare.

The rich believe all the money in the world belongs to them.
They don't want to share.

With AI and robots, they do not need worker bees anymore.
Time to cull the herd.

[Attilatheblond]

23. Or letting people of different ethnic groups even stay in the US unless they are VERY rich and will pay up

Trump Privately Stated Stephen Miller Wanted “Only 100 Million Americans Who Look Like Him”

https://centeredamerica.substack.com/p/news-trump-privately-stated-stephen]

Centered America
Centered America
NEWS: Trump Privately Stated Stephen Miller Wanted “Only 100 Million Americans Who Look Like Him”
Centered America
Jun 21, 2025

According to the Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump once joked in a closed-door meeting that “if it were up to [Stephen] Miller, there’d only be 100 million people in this country, and they’d all look like Miller.”

The comment, made last year, is now taking on darker meaning as Miller’s vision becomes law.

Miller is now widely considered the chief architect of Trump’s second-term agenda. The Journal reports that he has drafted or influenced every executive order since the inauguration, particularly those related to immigration, deportation, and federal authority.

....

The very VERY rich only want enough people to serve the needs of the very VERY rich, and it seems policy is set to make sure no poors or persons of a color beyond pale ivory will be here soon if these current assholes stay in power.

[Irish_Dem]

29. Women who are not totally subservient must go as well.

[Attilatheblond]

31. Any thinking female not replaced by a Stepford bot is gonna have to fight.

Just listened to Stephen Miller's wife on You Tube. Wow, is that woman ever shrill and pissed off. Too bad she can't think critically and notice the true causes of her hurt and anger. She certainly does project a lot and fails to do logic when searching for cause/effect.

[travelingthrulife]

41. One hospital I worked at stopped identifying our role on our nametags so the

patients would not know who was a professional. They were legally forced to stop.

They want to flood nursing with incompetent people. They tried this before by importing Philippine trained RNs thinking they could pay them lower wages and thus bring all wages down. Turns out people from the Philippines well know the value of a dollar. We got a bunch of excellent nurses and our pay held.

[mgardener]

4. NY state in 1976

Said 'Registered Professional Nurse' when I got my 1st license.

License says the same thing today for any nurse with a NY state nursing license

[AllyCat]

5. And they/we definitely ARE professional. However,

the DoE disagrees. This new designation at the federal level of not being "professional" limits loans that can be taken out for graduate programs in nursing as well as affects some loan forgiveness programs.

Without graduate prepared nurses, rural communities with little access to healthcare have even less access when there are fewer NPs because competent candidates cannot afford graduate school. Same with who teaches the classes. These are graduate prepared nurses educating the next generation of nurses. The best and brightest may not be there if they can't afford graduate school.

Nurses are mandatory reporters of abuse...fewer nurses means fewer reports.

[yardwork]

7. Rural people elected Trump and he is literally killing them.

[BaronChocula]

15. They're killing themselves

as well as all the correct-minded rural people who didn't vote for this BS. I have rural maga voter grave markers ready with the inscription "I owned the libs."

[popsdenver]

16. Amazing, isn't it......

The Republicans are starting to even fuck over THEIR MAGAot voters.........I figure the only reason is, that they don't need them any longer, and have the Election Process so rigged that they no longer need the voters to guarantee the outcome in their favor.........
They screwed the farmers the first time around with Soybean Farmers getting obliterated, they still voted for him two more times, and the Farmers are getting screwed again, but now joined by the Ranchers/Cattle people getting screwed also, along with Rural voters getting hammered with the continuing decline in numbers of health care professionals, and the TONs of small Rural hospitals shutting down permanently...

People have joked, for as long as I can remember, (1960's Forward) about the Republican Adage:

"IF YOU GET SICK, DIE"

BTW, we need to start saying Republicans, and not use the word Trump. Because it TRULY is the Republican House, Republican Senators, and the Republican Supreme Court that have promoted him and kept him in power. Trump wouldn't have lasted the first week of his first term if it weren't for all of them. At some point, Trump will croak, or the Republicans will get tired of his antics, and they will present to the voters that THEY recognized the problem, THEY took care of it, and now they are all squared away, and voters can now feel safe going for a Miller/Vought ticket....

[Irish_Dem]

30. They voted for a Jim Jones death cult.

[yardwork]

33. They really did.

We traveled in a rural area last October, a few weeks before the election. We saw barns painted with huge signs "Trump: Hold on I'm coming!" and other nonsense.

We stopped at a Subway for lunch and saw an older couple wearing Farmers for Trump t-shirts. They were unfriendly.

They convinced themselves that Trump would fix every problem in their lives.

[Irish_Dem]

34. They are doing a Darwin, making themselves extinct.

[yardwork]

6. I've found it's impossible to use logic to reach MAGATs, especially the conservative Christians.

They will move the goalposts as often as necessary and make up rationalizations for every evil action.

They believe they are correct, just as they believe in the type of God they've been trained to believe in. Logic, reason, science - to them these are all ploys by the devil to trick them. They believe that Trump has been sanctified by their God as a righteous man who is here to help us and nothing anyone says will change their minds (until one day their pastor says that they have to believe in a whole new set of heroes and then they'll unapologetically switch immediately. It feels like they're gaslighting us but they're the ones who are lost. I've come to view these people as extraordinarily dangerous and I avoid them.)

[markodochartaigh]

40. From Professor Altemeyer:

"Compared to most people, studies have shown that authoritarian followers get their beliefs and opinions from the authorities in their lives, and hardly at all by making up their own minds. They memorize rather than reason. "

https://theauthoritarians.org/48-2/

https://theauthoritarians.org/

[FakeNoose]

9. Many nurses and medical technicians are also foreign-born as well as female

Hence the Chump administration is attacking one of the few avenues to well-paid professional careers that these American and foreign-born women have open to them. I think it's despicable, but that's the main reason for this attack.

[NewEnglandAutumn]

10. You can't fix stupid

[popsdenver]

14. LOL NEA

I dug a coat button out of my old, old, old, stuff left over from the 60's and once again have started wearing it on my coat when I go out:

IGNORANCE SHOULD BE PAINFUL

[OhioBack2Blue]

11. Headline should read:

Mental gymnast masquerading as RN whines about not getting overtime from greedy corporate bosses.

[AllyCat]

13. And it's a shame because she is an excellent nurse. Welcome to DU!

[Irish_Dem]

32. Anyone who has to do so many mental gymnastics to avoid reality may not be a good nurse.

She is not someone to be trusted in an emergency.

[Trueblue Texan]

17. Tell her lower pay and benefits are also good for women...

...and that those will soon follow. It'd be interesting to see how she rationalizes that.

[sakabatou]

18. You can't argue with MAGA, because they use the same tactics as apologetics

[bayberry]

19. Still professional with state license

From Newsweek it affects the following groups:
..,nursing, physician assistants, physical therapists and audiologists, architects, accountants, educators, and social workers, engineering, a business master's, counseling or therapy, and speech pathology

Most (maybe all?) of these occupations require professional licensing by state boards / not regulated by Feds, and some of the fields listed are male dominated. Everyone is still a professional who carries a professional state license.

[AllyCat]

22. How does one become a nurse or an educator or a physical therapist

When the loans needed to afford the program are no longer allowed because you aren’t a professional by DoE decree?

We already have shortages in all of these fields. Who will educate the next generation of nurses or teachers? Graduate preparation is REQUIRED for these positions.

[Just Jerome]

20. I worked with

many magat nurses before retiring. Great nurses, but....well, magats. I gave up sense in conversation and focused on the patients, otherwise just marking time until retirement.

[Lemon Lyman]

21. Jesus

They'll never stop twisting themselves into pretzels to defend whatever tangeranus does. You see posts on social media or wherever, "What will it take for those voters to turn...to admit they made a mistake? " They'll never do it. They'll do complete 180's every day if that's what's required of them.

"No wars!"
"Oh, Venezuela is pouring drugs into the US. We HAVE to go to war with them"

"Great economy!"
"Well, to fix all of the problems others left behind we're going to have to feel pain for a while"

[Pas-de-Calais]

24. I've dated 5 nurses in my lifetime,

4 of the 5 had similar logic

[AllyCat]

26. 😢

[Martin68]

25. MAGA proponents have well and truly brainwashed the MAGA-verse. They have a bullshit answer for every dubious move

the WH makes.

[hadEnuf]

36. It is indeed brainwashing.

I don't think that the left/center has fully understood the power of the propaganda that is out there. Saturation of right wing talk radio, unabashed, falsehood-spewing news channels on the TV and now limitless internet to spread their insane rantings. All relentlessly available 24/7/365. We now have a segment of America walking around in completely different realities from what is actually going on. The right now in the process of taking over the alphabet networks, too.

With some exceptions we have basically sat, being dumped on with the hope that some "journalist" will start a wave of honest reporting. It's not happening. They just get rid of anyone who strays from the script or publicly destroy them.

A lot saw this coming decades ago, but we still are in the same place.

[markodochartaigh]

39. Absolutely.

Between the churches, the media, social groups, work hierarchy, even schools, the reich-wing bubble is all-encompassing for much of the country.
And sadly much of the left, voters and leadership, are just now beginning to wake up to how much of the country's zeitgeist has been poisoned.

[hadEnuf]

43. Frankly, I don't see how it could have been missed.

I think it was ignored instead, counting on some sort of imaginary cavalry to come and make it right. The Fairness Doctrine enabled in the 1950's at the advent of home television made it clear what could happen if corporations got a grip of news organizations.

It could be countered somewhat now perhaps, but it is going to take a lot of money and work to do that. The news is no longer impartial and riding the glimmers of hope that it still is, is a waste of time. We need news that is from our point of view, namely facts and debunking the other guy's lies.

Like I said, a lot of money and a lot of work.

[mgardener]

27. Is she smart enought to work as a nurse?

Her 'logic' does not makes any sense.
At all.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

28. That she acknowledges that women have lower earning power put her at 9dds with maga

MR: This is how the DoE is recognizing that women have lower earning power

Rightwing men argue that women earn less because they are women, not due to outside factors.

[wolfie001]

35. The pretzel logic used by MAGA is both daunting and disgusting

To justify women dying in parking lots from ectopic pregnancies and other forms of denying women their health care. Bastards

[LilElf70]

37. What an idiot!!

They're everywhere.

[markodochartaigh]

38. The very large public hospital in

Texas for which I worked for thirty years suddenly classified all registered nurses as management. This was about 1990. They did it retroactively. Our paychecks were short and when we asked why they told us that we were now management. Also the first hour over our shift we were paid nothing. And in a large teaching hospital virtually all nurses stayed over at least 15-30 minutes every day. These policies lasted more than a decade. The hospital board and ceo were incredibly well-connected politically, and no help was forthcoming from the labor board or courts

When I would mention to US born nurses that the hospital was stealing from us on every paycheck and that if we had a union this theft would stop, the nurses would look at me like I was either crazy or possessed by the devil. They would usually proclaim their hate for unions.

[ToxMarz]

42. I think "Well, it only affects graduate-degree nurses, not us" says a lot of it

It doesn't affect her, she's got her education and loans. Fuck everybody else and pull up the ladder. I've got a Magat neice who just got her graduate degree and loans and is a Nurse Practitioner or something now. She couldn't care less, because she got hers. Less competition going forward.