Parasite

  It's a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese

At 8:07 p.m. tonight, the President of the United States shared his first and only social media post of the entire day. Coming from a man who routinely posts dozens, sometimes well over a hundred times a day, often through the middle of the night, the silence was unexpected. After traveling back to America under what is now being reported as an extreme threat to his safety, Donald Trump has spent the day locked away from the public eye, choosing the safety of the White House gates during this uncertain time.

In that one and only post was something so important to him, so urgent in his mind, that it became the only thing he wanted to tell the American people all day. It had absolutely nothing to do with the duties of the presidency, the NATO summit, or the threats against him. It was about himself. It was about renaming an airport in his name. This is what he wanted the American people to read tonight.
“A very big day in Palm Beach, Florida, where it was my Great Honor to have the Palm Beach International Airport be renamed, by a spectacular vote, The President Donald J. Trump International Airport. The Area is HOT, the Location is GREAT, and the Renovation will be SPECTACULAR. Thank you to all in Palm Beach for your Vote and your Confidence. This will soon be one of the Greatest and Most Spectacular Airports anywhere in the World! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

That is what mattered to him today, out of everything happening in this country and across the world. And if the post itself were the whole story, it would be troubling and embarrassing enough. But it is not even close to the whole story. Because what happened today in Palm Beach was not just a president forcing his name and likeness on as many things as possible. It was a business deal that will benefit the president and his family for years to come.

To celebrate Trump’s big day, his son Eric landed at 5:01 this morning on a plane the family calls “Trump Force One,” racing to beat a UPS cargo plane so that the first aircraft to touch down under the new name would carry the Trump brand. On Fox and Friends, Eric called the renaming only “slightly controversial.” He credited his father with putting the region on the map. He said nothing about the lawsuits, the complaints, opposition, corruption, or moral failures that led to this moment. But they all happened too.

The FAA didn’t just change the name or the airport; they changed the airport code too, from PBI to DJT. The cost of the rebrand is estimated at $5.5 million, with the state of Florida covering roughly half.

Beyond that is a 35-page licensing agreement, approved 4-3 by the Palm Beach County commission, that tells us everything we need to know about what this renaming is actually for. The Trump Organization filed three trademark applications months before the name change took effect. The agreement gives the Trump Organization control over which vendors can manufacture and sell merchandise at the airport. It gives Trump veto power over any biographical material displayed inside the building. A non-disparagement clause bars the airport from publishing anything that could tarnish his reputation. His own staff writes the version of his story that travelers see. And the trademark applications cover watches, jewelry, collectible coins, cuff links, purses, backpacks, suitcases, umbrellas, tote bags, clothing, robes, neckties, belts, and plastic slippers designed for going through the security line. They trademarked slippers at a public airport.

The agreement says Trump cannot receive royalties from merchandise sold at the airport. But his company controls which vendors are approved to manufacture and supply that merchandise, and there is nothing preventing one of Trump’s own businesses, or a company connected to his family or inner circle, from being on that approved list. The airport would not be paying him a royalty. It would be paying his company for the product. The money flows to the same place. It is just called something different on the receipt. And outside the airport walls, there are no restrictions at all. The Trump Organization can license the same branded products to anyone, sell them anywhere, and keep every dollar.

Florida State University law professor Jake Linford also pointed out that the merchandise clause restricts royalties on goods but says nothing about services, which means that if someone wanted to open a branded Trump airport lounge or any other branded service inside the building, licensing fees flowing back to the Trump Organization would not be covered by the restriction at all. The deal is written so that on paper, it looks like no one is profiting. But with Trump, nothing is ever as simple as it appears, and nearly everything he touches he profits from one way or another.

And this is not just about putting his name on things. It is about erasing what was there before. Palm Beach International Airport served that community for nearly half a century. That name, that identity, that history is gone now. Replaced by three letters. His. The old signs are coming down. The highway markers have already been changed. The code that airlines and travelers used for decades has been overwritten. And in its place, a name that cannot be criticized, biographical material that cannot be unflattering, and a legal framework that ensures the only version of this president that exists inside that building is the one his own people approved.

Since he took office, his name has been stamped on a planned class of Navy warships, a visa program for wealthy foreigners, a government prescription drug website, and federal savings accounts opened for newborn children. Passports, his signature on money. His face on government buildings; the list goes on and on. And now his name is the three-letter code you type when you book a flight. Everywhere you turn in this country, his name, his face, his brand, has taken over so much that belongs to “we the people.”

This is what authoritarian regimes do. They do not just hold power. They make you see it everywhere you look, until the idea of pushing back feels impossible because the regime feels permanent, everywhere and ever powerful. And he is getting away with it. The lawsuits did not stop it, nor did people flooding the comment sections of the airport websites. It happened anyway. People in power continue to allow all of this to happen. It is as if they have looked at the direction this country is heading and decided that if they just take his side, if they just go along, when his worst ideas come to pass, they will somehow be untouched. That is what so many of his supporters believe. That compliance will protect them. It never has. And it will not this time either.

Because while the President of the United States spent his only words of the day on an airport with his name on it, our country is reeling from not having the resources to properly track a parasite that is now making thousands of Americans sick. They had the time and money for the airport, but not enough to keep CDC staff that would help with this latest outbreak.

The infection is called cyclosporiasis, caused by a microscopic parasite that spreads through contaminated food and water. As of today, more than two thousand cases have been confirmed across at least eighteen states, and health officials say the true number is almost certainly much higher because many people recover without ever being tested. Michigan has been hit hardest, approaching twelve hundred cases in roughly two weeks, a figure roughly twenty times the state’s typical annual caseload. Cases have been confirmed in people as young as five and as old as eighty-six. More than three dozen have been hospitalized in Michigan alone.

Most people who contract it will recover, and some will have symptoms mild enough that they never seek medical care. But for the very young, the very old, and anyone with a weakened immune system, weeks of severe diarrhea can lead to dangerous dehydration if left untreated. The good news is that medication works, and there are steps people can take to lower their risk. Experts recommend cooking fresh produce whenever possible, since heat kills the parasite, and anyone experiencing prolonged watery diarrhea, cramping, bloating, nausea, or fatigue should contact a healthcare provider rather than waiting it out.

And even for those who recover, the cost is real. Think about what two weeks of this illness means for a family. A parent who cannot go to work because their child is sick. An hourly worker who does not get paid when they stay home. A small business that loses staff it cannot replace. A restaurant that has to pull ingredients off the menu and absorb the lost revenue. In an economy where people are already stretched to the breaking point, two weeks of lost wages from an illness we could mitigate with a proper health department can be the difference between making rent and falling behind.

And nobody knows where it is coming from. No specific food, grower, or distributor has been identified. The CDC’s working hypothesis is contaminated produce, but they have not determined which produce, how long it has been on shelves, or where it has been distributed. The investigation depends on what epidemiologists call shoe-leather detective work: calling sick people one by one, asking what they ate, reviewing grocery receipts and credit card records, trying to trace a microscopic organism backward through the food supply to the source. That kind of work takes people, time, and money. And this administration has taken all three. Meanwhile, people on social media are building their own databases, pooling information, trying to do what they can to connect the dots and pinpoint the source. Ordinary Americans, doing the tracking work because the system that is supposed to do it has been gutted.

Today, Taco Bell locations in Metro Detroit posted signs on their doors telling customers that they are currently unable to sell lettuce, cilantro, onion, pico de gallo, and guacamole due to a nationwide recall. A fast food chain is doing more to protect its customers right now than the federal government of the United States.

And to the people still inside the CDC, the career scientists and epidemiologists and field investigators, still trying to hold the line for all of us with fewer colleagues and fewer resources than they have ever had, do not get enough credit for the hard work they are doing under an unimaginable situation.

Because here is what they did to the agency that is supposed to protect us. The CDC has lost more than a quarter of its workforce since January 2025. And perhaps the most damning detail of all: as of July 2025, the CDC made tracking this exact parasite optional. It was removed from the required surveillance list as part of the scaling back of the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network. So right now, as cyclosporiasis spreads and case counts are doubling in a matter of days, the CDC’s official national count still shows 145 cases through mid-June. The states are reporting more than two thousand. The federal count is nearly a month behind. The system that was supposed to catch this was deliberately weakened, and now we are paying the price of their incompetence.

And as bad as this seems now, it is only going to get worse unless we change course. We have intentionally left ourselves less prepared for the next public health emergency at the very moment millions of Americans are already barely holding on. The reality is that the people at the top of our government do not care enough about the American people to do the job they were elected to do. They spent millions putting his name on an airport. And they took away money to track a parasite. That is looting.

But it will not last. Ordinary people are already taking matters into their own hands. The tide is turning from waiting for elected officials to save us to neighbors, workers, scientists, healthcare professionals, and everyday Americans doing what has to be done. That is the America we believe in. The one where we carry each other through difficult times and refuse to let cruelty become normal. The one where we remember that public institutions exist to serve people, not presidents. That’s who Americans really are. And more of them are remembering that every single day. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather