Yesterday Ramon surprised me with a foot massage. He has innumerable wonderful qualities, but this has never happened before. I think he’s worried about me.
I am too. All U.S. foreign aid – a fraction of 1% of the U.S. budget – has been halted. And my projects at the moment are all on hold. I have no illusions that the Orange Menace will ever start them again – not my projects, not any projects. I believe our moronic president is trying to gut the government, in line with Project 2025.
It’s not just foreign aid – it’s all scientific and health research, and all domestic grants and loans of any type or size. He’s already sidelined hundreds of U.S. government employees all over the country and he’s gearing up to take that into the thousands – by falsely classifying employees and getting rid of them at his whim. There’s no decision-making, no prioritizing, just Shut It All Down. You can’t make this shit up. He wants to cut expenses so he can let corporations pay even less tax than they already do.
I love a foot massage. But I still felt – feel – like I’ve been run over a truck.
An “altruist” comes clean
I keep saying that I’m less worried about me than I am about all these other terrible things the new administration is doing. Our own military being used in his draconian and wasteful deportation plans. Firing watchdog inspector generals and neutral advocates. Purging whoever is not his lapdog. Declaring there are only two sexes. There’s a hell of a lot to be worried about, and he’s just getting started.
But of course I’m worried about me, too. At no time since I started this career have I been threatened with it… ending. Not even a natural ending: when people talk about retiring, I think to myself, “What? Who wants to retire?” I love what I do. I’ve always known that was a very privileged position to be in (among my other privileges like being white, middle class, educated generously). If adversity makes you stronger, I’m noticing that having had a job I love for 20+ years has left me vulnerable.
No, I’m not giving in or knuckling under. I am writing to contacts and looking for other opportunities outside of U.S. agencies. (Thought lots of those – like the United Nations bodies – depend on U.S. funding, so will also be curtailing operations. The U.S. contributes a smaller percentage of our GDP than other countries, but that is still 42% of all contributions to aid worldwide. In short, the UN is going to have to cut back too.)
I also wrote my congressperson – we in DC only have a non-voting representative, and no senator, but I’m writing anyway. If you are a citizen of a state, check here for your representatives and senators, and call them, write them, go to their constituent offices and town halls.
Whose country? America is unrecognizable
I imagine Americans who voted for Trump are pretty happy about all of this. They may not know that foreign aid is less than 1% of the federal budget (compared to Defense, at 15%, which is now run by someone who couldn’t stay upright enough to run small charity organizations.) I heard people say we should be spending foreign aid money at home, on Americans! Well, most of that money (at least 67%) actually goes to American farmers, companies, charities, and individuals. The money buys and ships American food, medicine, schoolbooks, and experts to improve outcomes for the poorest people. When we fly to those countries for work we use American airlines. So, the stop-work order hurts the U.S. and its people and its businesses, while leaving the poorest people without any support.
There is a reason why foreign aid has been something Republicans and Democrats have agreed on, since the end of World War II. Foreign aid is a tool, alongside diplomacy, economic incentives, and the military, and it is GOOD for America’s interests. There is some waste, including high-profile high-dollar spending in Afghanistan that is now worth nothing. There are unmet goals. But you can track every penny spent in USAID programs: they have very high accounting and accountability demands.
I do this for a living. I can critique USAID waaaaaaay better than 99% of Americans, including the current administration. I write another blog about how we can do better in providing aid. Nobody critiques like an evaluator!
But if I find a worm in an orange, I don’t set fire to Fresno.
Worse before it gets better
Trump continues to work as if there were no such thing as checks and balances. He is flooding the news with these pronouncements so that he can cause confusion and disarray and dismay. That way, he can get at least some of them past the courts and past Congress. Americans should be outraged; we should be in the streets, and we should be calling our representatives and senators. They, in turn, should be pushing back, hard.
This unhinged rampage is a gift to China, and a gift to Iran. The human costs are staggering in the short term, as programs struggle to keep their medicine supply chains working by hook or by crook. People will die, just because Trump’s team wants to “shock and awe” instead of the much harder work of weighing evidence, prioritizing, adjusting programs.
Instead, they’ve just crashed it all. On purpose.
We are in for a long four years. He wants to be a dictator, with his friends holding all the strings, all the power. He is already joking/not joking about changing the Constitution to allow presidents a third term.
Easy answers probably not forthcoming
No one has great answers right now. It’s painful to see people “obeying in advance” but I get that lots of people are scared. Still, we have to find ways to resist.
In a democracy, that’s through our elected officials. Call or write your senators, call or write your representatives. Share your stories and don’t accept weak responses from those who are answering the phones. Tax dollars pay for those offices to be ready to respond to constituents. Push. Insist.
And everyone has stories. Stories of what’s going on in your corner of the world, telling what the human effects of these draconian policies are. If anyone would like to share their story on this blog, please send your story to keri@kericulver.com. It’s a small platform, but use this one or whatever you have: other blogs, the press and newsletters in your countries and cities, WhatsApp, Telegram, whatever. If we can shame him, let’s do it. If we can rile up the U.S. Congress, let’s do it. If we can impel allies to complain to the administration, let’s do it.
One more thing you can do is read. Find a source or sources you trust and I’ll keep a running list here of non-firewalled reading that will keep us in the fight. Don’t read so much that you spiral – or if you do, shut off the phone and take a walk, love your family, take a kickboxing class – whatever it takes to stay sane.
I’ll put up the list of resources on my website and link to it in the next blog.
Photo credit:
From the Voice of America website, an AP-credited photo of protestors holding signs, from the day of the inauguration Chicago, IL. Photographer’s name not given.
