I imagine the strongest temptations among Democrats are either to respond to every outrageous move, or wait for Trumpism to hurt the economy and public health and safety so they can win in 2026 and 2028. Both would be a mistake. They’ll need their own, politically appealing plans to address Americans’ worries about disorder, broken government, an unfair economy, etc., in tandem with shining lights on the damage Trump is doing.
I am not aware of *any* coherent defense of shutting down USAID that points to specific programs and explains why they should have been shut down. In an ideal world, they would explain why those specific programs justify shutting down the whole organization by pointing out how they are fraudulent, or are unusually bad in comparison to other government programs. That is, the explanation would not just be: "I don't like these programs."
Every time I've seen someone defend the shutting down of USAID they resort to conclusory statements that are ungrounded in evidence.
Generalizations and innuendo are unavoidable in conversations on social media. But usually someone can find an article somewhere that is tightly argued and refers to specific, empirical facts that justifies, in some sense, the generalizations asserted by others. In this particular case, I haven't been able to find it.
I'm not a defender of government censorship. I've written several posts on my Substack, Metaconcepts, problematizing "misinformation" and its use by some institutions to bludgeon people.
I would be happy to read a strong argument for the closing of USAID, even if I ultimately disagreed with it. I change my mind often.
But it's more than strange to hear people justify its closing because they are mad about Fauci and covid censorship. It's also strange that they think USAID-style programs in foreign governments are somehow "autocratic" but Trump's bald threats are not. That "soft power" based in persuasion and gifts is somehow "sinister" but Trump's whims are not.
The reasoning on the right more and more *does* seem to follow guilt-by-association logic. Precisely the thing they complained about during peak "wokeness" with its threats of cancellation. A pessimist would say they are all totally deranged.
I did read it. He mentions literacy programs and tries to link them somehow to censorship (here in the US??) before ranting about various other vague programs not connected to USAID. Then he and Joe bond over how people had social media posts about ivermectin taken down by Facebook.
Look, this response is characteristic: “of course there’s evidence, here’s a link to two people talking for hours, I am sure there’s an example in there.”
It’s the second time you linked that, but the only specific example you linked me looks like a bog standard program about promoting media literacy. Not very scary, I’m sorry to say, no matter what you think about it. It just doesn’t support any overarching theory about how USAID is anti-democratic or working against the American people, or even especially wasteful.
But please, if you want to link an actual argument go ahead.
Nah, you didn't read it. Look, for instance, at the 54 minute mark, where they discuss USAID funding censorship in Brazil against Bolsonaro. Or the USAID doc I linked to previously advocating governance through manipulation of information. These aren't democratic initiatives; they're authoritarian.
Wow, look at that, a specific example, like I asked for originally. Like I said before, the previous USAID doc you linked looks like a bog standard American propaganda campaign. Standard soft power stuff.
In any case, Rogan dropped a new interview with Benz the day after our initial conversation where he spends 3 hours mostly talking about USAID. He points to some interesting examples, like ZunZuneo in Cuba (although this was set up during the Obama administration, several years ago).
The interview is cluttered with bad thinking and exaggerations, not to mention Joe's credulous reactions, but it at least offers some substance that helps me understand why at least some people wanted to shut it down, even though most Americans had probably never heard of USAID before this past month.
The most interesting thing to me is how close most of Benz's arguments are to those being made by self-avowed communists for decades now: how the CIA is an arm of American imperial dominance, thwarting the proletariat around the world. I guess now right-wingers view the hoi polloi as their base. It's kind of funny.
This diatribe might have a clearer ring to it if it also castigated Maxine Waters for being the deplorable bigot that she is. But she can't hold a candle the Wicked Witch of the West, Nancy Pelosi. And don't forget Hilary Clinton, who insists that anyone who doesn't recognize that Trump stole the 2016 election from her is deplorable.
That's the short list. It goes on and on. Like for instance, weaponizing both the FBI AND and DOJ to do things to Trump and his supporters that should land Biden, Comey and Garland in prison. That may still happen. At least, I hope so.
I suppose progressives need to find some way to make their hatred, intolerance and bigotry into Trump's fault. But no, it's progressive's fault. Just once, OWN IT!
Didn't your mother tell you that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? You're shattering your own structure, folks. It's crumbling down around you, yet you keep throwing the stones. And Trump is perfectly willing to let you keep throwing them. After all, it was YOU who got HIM elected. Way to go!
What has Merrick Garland done that should land him in prison? And if it’s on par with whatever Trump did (as you suggest) then why shouldn’t Trump be in prison to?
This is certainly a take but it feels like a knee-jerk and unreflective defense of the status quo. I would encourage the author to make a noble attempt at understanding the rationale behind this flurry of executive orders. On the confusingly named USAID--which isn't an aid organization--I'd recommend any of the long interviews with Mike Benz. He did a good one on (*gasp*) Rogan a few months ago.
Might some people die when aid is cut? Yes. But this ignores the opportunity cost of this aid. IOW, there are good things we could do with federal money that we currently aren't because we're sending it elsewhere. You can't condemn cutting aid without considering the alternatives. "But what could be better than saving babies' lives?" Ask yourself the same question about the $6.7 trillion currently not being spent on saving babies' lives. This shows that you too accept that the US gov is not an international humanitarian organization. The question is just where to draw the line.
I'm not going to reflectively defend USAID, though I do think it does a lot of good. But I think Chesterton's fence is in order here: why do we have it and what would happen if we just cut things off abruptly?
The US government isn't a humanitarian agency, but it does believe in projecting soft power that might help other nations decide to support us. Abandoning them could mean that nations might turn to the "benevolent" arms of China or Russia.
As a Cold War agency maybe those functions can be administered through the State Department. I think we can talk about that. But the way that DOGE is doing this by just stopping an agency without warning, forcing programs around the world to stop their work, is reckless at best and cruel at worst. I am enough of a Reaganite to argue for a smaller government; what I'm not willing to defend is gleefully kicking people out of their jobs because people perceive them as not being on the MAGA team.
Dennis has saved me from having to write out my answer— thanks.
Also: “Might some people die when aid is cut? Yes.” I marvel (negative) at your dismissiveness!
My reading of the emotion animating your comment might be wrong, but the normalization of that callousness is part of the cultural shift I worry about.
Few if any of the nations have complained about the cuts, and in fact they often complain about the "aid" being given in the first place. Why? Because it's often tied to the US meddling in their politics. Also, there are numerous dedicated intl. humanitarian orgs given billions who can step into any immediate needs. If you can show evidence that anyone has died due to these cuts, it would be good to see that. But in general it is misleading in the extreme to see USAID as an unalloyed humanitarian org. By *far* the biggest recipient of USAID funds of late has been Ukraine, where we're helping with wounds we're in some sense responsible for by funding a proxy war against Russia on their soil. We give them weapons and funds to hurt themselves, then give them money to tend their wounds. At every level, these initiatives are soft power plays wrapped in aid packages. This isn't callousness; it's recognition of often anti-democratic manipulation.
I can see the wisdom of greater caution here. That said, the outcry against the cuts seldom seems to reckon with the rationale behind them. The agencies have acted more or less with impunity for years now, and we may be facing a bigger problem than losing strategic positioning internationally. Specifically, people increasingly don't believe the govt is acting in the interests of the people--the agencies and by extension the govt is losing legitimacy. This is a very big deal, but one that defenders of the status quo seem unaware of.
As I said above, the public health interventions that take up most of USAID spending are some of the most studied public health policies in history. We know for a fact that the freeze and dismantling will kill hundreds of thousands, maybe millions over time, of people a year, mostly destitute children in Africa.
If you "know for a fact," then don't hide your light under a bushel; give us some links. But even so, the prior question is to what extent the US govt ought to be in the humanitarian aid business. Couldn't another $50 billion/year save a lot more people?
Off the top of my head I won't come up with better lit reviews than Givewell's blog posts, so I'd check there. USAID of course does other stuff than humanitarian aid which I know less about and won't make any claims about. But for that part of it, the short answer to your question about saving more lives is no. The EAs have spent a ton of time trying to quantify lives saved per dollar and the highest return stuff they advocate overlaps very strongly with what USAID does on the humanitarian side (well in terms of dollars per life acute crisis resonse tends not to score as highly and I'm not sure how much USAID money goes to that, but I know many billions are spent on the you can't save more lives with this money stuff. Trump is literally trying to directly kill millions of destitute children over his coming term for savings of 0.3% of the federal budget)
I’m totally fine having $3 a year in taxes go towards saving babies lives. That is a fair trade off, and one that the richest country in the history of the world should be happy to make.
And if you don’t think that trade off is fair, if you do think it’s justifiable to provide that aid, then close down these programs on a reasonable timeframe. Give the people working them a chance to continue that care while offloading onto somebody else. Btw, the people working those programs are good people, despite what you’ve been propagandized to believe. (Nah uhh they a bAll of WOrmS!!)
In the meantime, I would encourage you to make a ‘noble’ attempt at understanding the rationale for people’s outrage. Lay off the podcast slop (Mike Benz is a self aggrandizing liar) and engage with something that challenges your priors.
What, in your mind, are the top two or three most egregious USAID programs spending American money?
Even among the commentators here defending the Trump admin I don’t see people pointing to anything specific. You listened to Benz talk for hours on Rogan so presumably you can point us to a handful of specific programs.
It appears that USAID has functioned as a sort of shell organization for IC operations designed to promote a certain vision of US interests abroad. The trouble with this sort of surreptitious enterprise is that is has led to agencies believing that they are above democratic principles and even seeing elections as enemies of democracy. For many reasons, public trust in these agencies is very low, and the current administration is acting in accord with these perceptions.
1) I take it that you don’t object to any particular program then?
2) Can you point to a specific program, action, memorandum, or something else that indicates USAID or its leaders think they are “above democratic principles”?
I see a lot of conclusory statements, here and elsewhere, and practically nothing specific.
Based on my skim of the Rogan transcript, it seems that Benz is accusing USAID of being a wing of the CIA because it funds things like “literacy” in other countries. Can you explain why this is anti-democratic rather than democratic? Maybe “democracy” is the wrong word here? It seems like there’s some conceptual confusion, making it hard to understand what, specifically, is being asserted.
Take this bit for instance:
[00:59:56]
“So we can't be seen to look like the autocracies we're trying to overthrow. We want the autocratic outcome, but we can't be seen to use the autocratic process. So they came up with a really.”
So we are trying to *overthrow* autocracies but we “want the autocratic outcome.”
I suppose the assertion is that the US wants democracy elsewhere as long as it gets the democratic outcome it wants? Cue Shadi.
My point isn't to push for my specific views. It's to show how far even a little bit of an effort to understand the motivations for these EOs can take us. That said, I think it's reasonable to object to *every* USAID program given the way it's been operating: without much oversight and autocratically meddling in democratic processes both at home and abroad.
But here's something specific that I find sinister in the extreme:
Anytime an organization arrogates to itself the prerogative to label and censor mis/disinformation, this is epistocracy and is antithetical to democracy. We can't have govt agencies deciding what is appropriate for people to see at this level.
This looks like an information campaign, aimed at persuasion, not direct censorship of speech.
I didn't realize that shutting down USAID was really about anger at Fauci and covid-era censorship of social media posts related to vaccination. But I guess I should have known, since Benz in that Rogan interview mostly talks about covid and media censorship. Censorship that, as far as I can tell, is totally unrelated to most of what USAID actually does.
This isn't a "guilt by association" thing: just search the transcript to the Benz interview for 'usaid'. Lots of examples there unrelated to covid. But yeah most of what USAID does is attempt to manipulate people to achieve the ends of state...as they understand them.
They have and are making exemptions for aid such as HIV children. I could not disagree with you more. Someone needs to get rid of this ridiculous waste & who cares if it is the 1%. That is only the start. If the grown ass men and women had done what they should have then the young nerds would not need to. It takes what it takes. Why are you not discussing the immense waste of taxpayer money instead of this fear porn?
Why are you not talking about the incredible waste? No process is perfect. Any business has to do an audit and cut waste. It is never fun and very painful. It is time for it. The majority of the American people are for this.
And just how many businesses stop their operations to do an audit?
I hold out hope that "the majority of the American people" are not for starving and denying medical care to children just because they don't live in the US.
By the way, do you consider yourself a right to lifer?
The public health interventions that take up a lot of USAID spending are some of the most studied public health policies in history. We know for a fact that the freeze and dismantling will kill hundreds of thousands of people a year, mostly destitute children in Africa. Of course, apartheid nostalgia is kinda the point, so...
Absolutely not. Get out of your echo chamber. Millions for sex changes in South American and an antisemitic Palestinian rapper? What is the hell is wrong with cutting that fat off? The USAID has been a slush fund for decades to coerce elections in other countries and hid money from Congress. Look it up!
I'd rather these measures be debated in Congress, but alas, that's not how things work anymore. That said, we're in a fiscal doom loop, and we need to start somewhere, and fraud and non-essential spending seems like a good place to start. As to employees, downsizing hurts, but voluntary packages followed by hiring freezes and downsizing through attrition are SOP to soften the blow. But we have to reduce spending, that's a fact. The federal simply cannot solve every problem in the world.
- That kid said those things anonymously, correct? *That’s* what the pushback is about. I don’t like what he said, either, but outing him was a political project, not a moral one. In fact, since he’s a govt employee he should have First Amendment protection on comments outside of the workplace, should he not? And if the argument then turns towards “but once it’s confirmed he said these things his presence makes it impossible for the office to continue to function”, I return to the “political, not moral” configuration above (not to mention that in his particular office it doesn’t seem to change anything about how his office functions)
- Doesn’t PEPFAR demand that fund recipients only do abstinence training? If so, kind of darkly funny that it’s being reified by Resistance 1.1 (we’re not even close to whatever the next true iteration of resistance will be): If you believe Trump is an avatar of Dominionist impulses, on this one you’re losing no matter what.
Mr. Trump's perceived lack of logic and his apparent irrationality are just that. Perceptions. Perceptions held by those opposed to his quest for personal power. Viewed in the framework of an obsession with personal power, his actions make perfect sense and are indeed, logical. Trump has used storytelling, spectacle and chaos as entertainment to win the culture wars. And what is the best story? The one that you want to hear. The one that makes you feel good. The one that is told again and again in your information silo. Fact and truth do not matter but good storytelling does. Progressives played identity politics for decades in order to gain political leverage and power. Identity, unfairness and grievance. Trump pulled the same levers but did it more effectively and won. Horseshoe politics and Flood the Zone combine to steer society in a new direction.
I imagine the strongest temptations among Democrats are either to respond to every outrageous move, or wait for Trumpism to hurt the economy and public health and safety so they can win in 2026 and 2028. Both would be a mistake. They’ll need their own, politically appealing plans to address Americans’ worries about disorder, broken government, an unfair economy, etc., in tandem with shining lights on the damage Trump is doing.
I am not aware of *any* coherent defense of shutting down USAID that points to specific programs and explains why they should have been shut down. In an ideal world, they would explain why those specific programs justify shutting down the whole organization by pointing out how they are fraudulent, or are unusually bad in comparison to other government programs. That is, the explanation would not just be: "I don't like these programs."
Every time I've seen someone defend the shutting down of USAID they resort to conclusory statements that are ungrounded in evidence.
Generalizations and innuendo are unavoidable in conversations on social media. But usually someone can find an article somewhere that is tightly argued and refers to specific, empirical facts that justifies, in some sense, the generalizations asserted by others. In this particular case, I haven't been able to find it.
I'm not a defender of government censorship. I've written several posts on my Substack, Metaconcepts, problematizing "misinformation" and its use by some institutions to bludgeon people.
I would be happy to read a strong argument for the closing of USAID, even if I ultimately disagreed with it. I change my mind often.
But it's more than strange to hear people justify its closing because they are mad about Fauci and covid censorship. It's also strange that they think USAID-style programs in foreign governments are somehow "autocratic" but Trump's bald threats are not. That "soft power" based in persuasion and gifts is somehow "sinister" but Trump's whims are not.
The reasoning on the right more and more *does* seem to follow guilt-by-association logic. Precisely the thing they complained about during peak "wokeness" with its threats of cancellation. A pessimist would say they are all totally deranged.
You say "I haven't been able to find it" but I think you mean "I haven't been willing to read it." Plenty of specific examples:
https://www.happyscribe.com/public/the-joe-rogan-experience/2237-mike-benz
I did read it. He mentions literacy programs and tries to link them somehow to censorship (here in the US??) before ranting about various other vague programs not connected to USAID. Then he and Joe bond over how people had social media posts about ivermectin taken down by Facebook.
Look, this response is characteristic: “of course there’s evidence, here’s a link to two people talking for hours, I am sure there’s an example in there.”
It’s the second time you linked that, but the only specific example you linked me looks like a bog standard program about promoting media literacy. Not very scary, I’m sorry to say, no matter what you think about it. It just doesn’t support any overarching theory about how USAID is anti-democratic or working against the American people, or even especially wasteful.
But please, if you want to link an actual argument go ahead.
Nah, you didn't read it. Look, for instance, at the 54 minute mark, where they discuss USAID funding censorship in Brazil against Bolsonaro. Or the USAID doc I linked to previously advocating governance through manipulation of information. These aren't democratic initiatives; they're authoritarian.
Wow, look at that, a specific example, like I asked for originally. Like I said before, the previous USAID doc you linked looks like a bog standard American propaganda campaign. Standard soft power stuff.
In any case, Rogan dropped a new interview with Benz the day after our initial conversation where he spends 3 hours mostly talking about USAID. He points to some interesting examples, like ZunZuneo in Cuba (although this was set up during the Obama administration, several years ago).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZunZuneo
The interview is cluttered with bad thinking and exaggerations, not to mention Joe's credulous reactions, but it at least offers some substance that helps me understand why at least some people wanted to shut it down, even though most Americans had probably never heard of USAID before this past month.
The most interesting thing to me is how close most of Benz's arguments are to those being made by self-avowed communists for decades now: how the CIA is an arm of American imperial dominance, thwarting the proletariat around the world. I guess now right-wingers view the hoi polloi as their base. It's kind of funny.
I've been interested to see if Christine will join the podcast soon to share her reflections. I would love to hear the interplay among all of you.
I’ll be on soon!
Liberalism is failing because it succeeded
This diatribe might have a clearer ring to it if it also castigated Maxine Waters for being the deplorable bigot that she is. But she can't hold a candle the Wicked Witch of the West, Nancy Pelosi. And don't forget Hilary Clinton, who insists that anyone who doesn't recognize that Trump stole the 2016 election from her is deplorable.
That's the short list. It goes on and on. Like for instance, weaponizing both the FBI AND and DOJ to do things to Trump and his supporters that should land Biden, Comey and Garland in prison. That may still happen. At least, I hope so.
I suppose progressives need to find some way to make their hatred, intolerance and bigotry into Trump's fault. But no, it's progressive's fault. Just once, OWN IT!
Didn't your mother tell you that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? You're shattering your own structure, folks. It's crumbling down around you, yet you keep throwing the stones. And Trump is perfectly willing to let you keep throwing them. After all, it was YOU who got HIM elected. Way to go!
What has Merrick Garland done that should land him in prison? And if it’s on par with whatever Trump did (as you suggest) then why shouldn’t Trump be in prison to?
This is certainly a take but it feels like a knee-jerk and unreflective defense of the status quo. I would encourage the author to make a noble attempt at understanding the rationale behind this flurry of executive orders. On the confusingly named USAID--which isn't an aid organization--I'd recommend any of the long interviews with Mike Benz. He did a good one on (*gasp*) Rogan a few months ago.
Might some people die when aid is cut? Yes. But this ignores the opportunity cost of this aid. IOW, there are good things we could do with federal money that we currently aren't because we're sending it elsewhere. You can't condemn cutting aid without considering the alternatives. "But what could be better than saving babies' lives?" Ask yourself the same question about the $6.7 trillion currently not being spent on saving babies' lives. This shows that you too accept that the US gov is not an international humanitarian organization. The question is just where to draw the line.
I'm not going to reflectively defend USAID, though I do think it does a lot of good. But I think Chesterton's fence is in order here: why do we have it and what would happen if we just cut things off abruptly?
The US government isn't a humanitarian agency, but it does believe in projecting soft power that might help other nations decide to support us. Abandoning them could mean that nations might turn to the "benevolent" arms of China or Russia.
As a Cold War agency maybe those functions can be administered through the State Department. I think we can talk about that. But the way that DOGE is doing this by just stopping an agency without warning, forcing programs around the world to stop their work, is reckless at best and cruel at worst. I am enough of a Reaganite to argue for a smaller government; what I'm not willing to defend is gleefully kicking people out of their jobs because people perceive them as not being on the MAGA team.
Dennis has saved me from having to write out my answer— thanks.
Also: “Might some people die when aid is cut? Yes.” I marvel (negative) at your dismissiveness!
My reading of the emotion animating your comment might be wrong, but the normalization of that callousness is part of the cultural shift I worry about.
Few if any of the nations have complained about the cuts, and in fact they often complain about the "aid" being given in the first place. Why? Because it's often tied to the US meddling in their politics. Also, there are numerous dedicated intl. humanitarian orgs given billions who can step into any immediate needs. If you can show evidence that anyone has died due to these cuts, it would be good to see that. But in general it is misleading in the extreme to see USAID as an unalloyed humanitarian org. By *far* the biggest recipient of USAID funds of late has been Ukraine, where we're helping with wounds we're in some sense responsible for by funding a proxy war against Russia on their soil. We give them weapons and funds to hurt themselves, then give them money to tend their wounds. At every level, these initiatives are soft power plays wrapped in aid packages. This isn't callousness; it's recognition of often anti-democratic manipulation.
I can see the wisdom of greater caution here. That said, the outcry against the cuts seldom seems to reckon with the rationale behind them. The agencies have acted more or less with impunity for years now, and we may be facing a bigger problem than losing strategic positioning internationally. Specifically, people increasingly don't believe the govt is acting in the interests of the people--the agencies and by extension the govt is losing legitimacy. This is a very big deal, but one that defenders of the status quo seem unaware of.
As I said above, the public health interventions that take up most of USAID spending are some of the most studied public health policies in history. We know for a fact that the freeze and dismantling will kill hundreds of thousands, maybe millions over time, of people a year, mostly destitute children in Africa.
Did you know the USIAD has refused audits from Congress and think they answer to no one not even taxpayers?
If you "know for a fact," then don't hide your light under a bushel; give us some links. But even so, the prior question is to what extent the US govt ought to be in the humanitarian aid business. Couldn't another $50 billion/year save a lot more people?
Off the top of my head I won't come up with better lit reviews than Givewell's blog posts, so I'd check there. USAID of course does other stuff than humanitarian aid which I know less about and won't make any claims about. But for that part of it, the short answer to your question about saving more lives is no. The EAs have spent a ton of time trying to quantify lives saved per dollar and the highest return stuff they advocate overlaps very strongly with what USAID does on the humanitarian side (well in terms of dollars per life acute crisis resonse tends not to score as highly and I'm not sure how much USAID money goes to that, but I know many billions are spent on the you can't save more lives with this money stuff. Trump is literally trying to directly kill millions of destitute children over his coming term for savings of 0.3% of the federal budget)
I’m totally fine having $3 a year in taxes go towards saving babies lives. That is a fair trade off, and one that the richest country in the history of the world should be happy to make.
And if you don’t think that trade off is fair, if you do think it’s justifiable to provide that aid, then close down these programs on a reasonable timeframe. Give the people working them a chance to continue that care while offloading onto somebody else. Btw, the people working those programs are good people, despite what you’ve been propagandized to believe. (Nah uhh they a bAll of WOrmS!!)
In the meantime, I would encourage you to make a ‘noble’ attempt at understanding the rationale for people’s outrage. Lay off the podcast slop (Mike Benz is a self aggrandizing liar) and engage with something that challenges your priors.
What, in your mind, are the top two or three most egregious USAID programs spending American money?
Even among the commentators here defending the Trump admin I don’t see people pointing to anything specific. You listened to Benz talk for hours on Rogan so presumably you can point us to a handful of specific programs.
It's much bigger than specific programs; it's the very objective of the agency and its activities that support that objective. (Here's the transcript for easier reference: https://www.happyscribe.com/public/the-joe-rogan-experience/2237-mike-benz )
It appears that USAID has functioned as a sort of shell organization for IC operations designed to promote a certain vision of US interests abroad. The trouble with this sort of surreptitious enterprise is that is has led to agencies believing that they are above democratic principles and even seeing elections as enemies of democracy. For many reasons, public trust in these agencies is very low, and the current administration is acting in accord with these perceptions.
1) I take it that you don’t object to any particular program then?
2) Can you point to a specific program, action, memorandum, or something else that indicates USAID or its leaders think they are “above democratic principles”?
I see a lot of conclusory statements, here and elsewhere, and practically nothing specific.
Based on my skim of the Rogan transcript, it seems that Benz is accusing USAID of being a wing of the CIA because it funds things like “literacy” in other countries. Can you explain why this is anti-democratic rather than democratic? Maybe “democracy” is the wrong word here? It seems like there’s some conceptual confusion, making it hard to understand what, specifically, is being asserted.
Take this bit for instance:
[00:59:56]
“So we can't be seen to look like the autocracies we're trying to overthrow. We want the autocratic outcome, but we can't be seen to use the autocratic process. So they came up with a really.”
So we are trying to *overthrow* autocracies but we “want the autocratic outcome.”
I suppose the assertion is that the US wants democracy elsewhere as long as it gets the democratic outcome it wants? Cue Shadi.
My point isn't to push for my specific views. It's to show how far even a little bit of an effort to understand the motivations for these EOs can take us. That said, I think it's reasonable to object to *every* USAID program given the way it's been operating: without much oversight and autocratically meddling in democratic processes both at home and abroad.
But here's something specific that I find sinister in the extreme:
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USAIDHQ/bulletins/345e121
Anytime an organization arrogates to itself the prerogative to label and censor mis/disinformation, this is epistocracy and is antithetical to democracy. We can't have govt agencies deciding what is appropriate for people to see at this level.
This looks like an information campaign, aimed at persuasion, not direct censorship of speech.
I didn't realize that shutting down USAID was really about anger at Fauci and covid-era censorship of social media posts related to vaccination. But I guess I should have known, since Benz in that Rogan interview mostly talks about covid and media censorship. Censorship that, as far as I can tell, is totally unrelated to most of what USAID actually does.
This isn't a "guilt by association" thing: just search the transcript to the Benz interview for 'usaid'. Lots of examples there unrelated to covid. But yeah most of what USAID does is attempt to manipulate people to achieve the ends of state...as they understand them.
They have and are making exemptions for aid such as HIV children. I could not disagree with you more. Someone needs to get rid of this ridiculous waste & who cares if it is the 1%. That is only the start. If the grown ass men and women had done what they should have then the young nerds would not need to. It takes what it takes. Why are you not discussing the immense waste of taxpayer money instead of this fear porn?
There's evidence that the waivers are not really working: https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1887889498081571109
Why are you not talking about the incredible waste? No process is perfect. Any business has to do an audit and cut waste. It is never fun and very painful. It is time for it. The majority of the American people are for this.
USAID accounts for about 1% of the national budget. This isn't about waste.
And just how many businesses stop their operations to do an audit?
I hold out hope that "the majority of the American people" are not for starving and denying medical care to children just because they don't live in the US.
By the way, do you consider yourself a right to lifer?
The public health interventions that take up a lot of USAID spending are some of the most studied public health policies in history. We know for a fact that the freeze and dismantling will kill hundreds of thousands of people a year, mostly destitute children in Africa. Of course, apartheid nostalgia is kinda the point, so...
What’s the ‘waste’ Janet? Show me the ‘waste’! Is it the social security payments going to my dad?
Absolutely not. Get out of your echo chamber. Millions for sex changes in South American and an antisemitic Palestinian rapper? What is the hell is wrong with cutting that fat off? The USAID has been a slush fund for decades to coerce elections in other countries and hid money from Congress. Look it up!
I'd rather these measures be debated in Congress, but alas, that's not how things work anymore. That said, we're in a fiscal doom loop, and we need to start somewhere, and fraud and non-essential spending seems like a good place to start. As to employees, downsizing hurts, but voluntary packages followed by hiring freezes and downsizing through attrition are SOP to soften the blow. But we have to reduce spending, that's a fact. The federal simply cannot solve every problem in the world.
Two quick points of order:
- That kid said those things anonymously, correct? *That’s* what the pushback is about. I don’t like what he said, either, but outing him was a political project, not a moral one. In fact, since he’s a govt employee he should have First Amendment protection on comments outside of the workplace, should he not? And if the argument then turns towards “but once it’s confirmed he said these things his presence makes it impossible for the office to continue to function”, I return to the “political, not moral” configuration above (not to mention that in his particular office it doesn’t seem to change anything about how his office functions)
- Doesn’t PEPFAR demand that fund recipients only do abstinence training? If so, kind of darkly funny that it’s being reified by Resistance 1.1 (we’re not even close to whatever the next true iteration of resistance will be): If you believe Trump is an avatar of Dominionist impulses, on this one you’re losing no matter what.
How would you describe the difference between a political versus moral project? Don’t quite get your distinction here!
Mr. Trump's perceived lack of logic and his apparent irrationality are just that. Perceptions. Perceptions held by those opposed to his quest for personal power. Viewed in the framework of an obsession with personal power, his actions make perfect sense and are indeed, logical. Trump has used storytelling, spectacle and chaos as entertainment to win the culture wars. And what is the best story? The one that you want to hear. The one that makes you feel good. The one that is told again and again in your information silo. Fact and truth do not matter but good storytelling does. Progressives played identity politics for decades in order to gain political leverage and power. Identity, unfairness and grievance. Trump pulled the same levers but did it more effectively and won. Horseshoe politics and Flood the Zone combine to steer society in a new direction.
Yeah what direction is society going in?
That is a question of some merit.