Once again, we have the scalpel vs. sledgehammer problem. I am a huge supporter of foreign aid...but I had no idea until this administration that we were funding legal aid for trans asylum seekers in the UK. The UK! Puberty blockers in Guatemala, sundry other fringe left wing causes around the world.
It is absolutely fair, and even appropriate, to rein this in. Foreign aid clearly had become, to at least some degree, something far removed from what the American people wanted it to be (or knew it was).
But he's removing the head to cure the headache. He's sledgehammering when he should scalpel. And the world will suffer.
He's got Congress, he's got friendly courts, he's got lots of people that could look into this stuff. Definitely not something I'd prioritize but jeezus, there's proper ways to do this stuff that isn't equivalent to yanking Jenga blocks from the bottom of the tower at lightning speed.
The districts in which the cases are being filed are being filed in such districts because they are not friendly.
Where every conservative case against biden was filed in the fifth circuit, every progressive case filed against Trump is in DC the second circuit or the first circuit.
What's your point mate? You'll find most courts aren't going to oppose signed legislation or even many of these orders. He can get laws passed to do most of this stuff he just doesn't see any reason to bother with governing.
In fact, our federal judiciary spends an overwhelming amount of time determining the constitutionality of signed legislation (and executive regulatory actions and orders).
Your comment is not at all how the U.S. court system works.
As it pertains to the executive in particular, In trump's first administration he lost over 3/4ths of the cases brought against his administration
As it pertains to lower courts, Joe Biden has since appointed 235 new judges (compare to 234 for trumps prior term), so the judge pool is going to be less favorable to trump now.
There's this concept from Trump 45 called "the cruelty is the point."
I disagree with that in several ways. But it does capture one thing.
Creating the chaos is *meant* to sow distrust in the future. Oh, you think you're part of a program to save a bunch of lives? Well, it's from the US, so it might disappear at any moment. Maybe you shouldn't even bother.
Trump's one-day cancellation and then un-cancellation of all packages from China was similar. It wasn't meant to actually stop trade right now. But it's meant to make people scared about it and rethink what they're getting. A shot across the bow. That one, at least, was something that left businesses able to plan and readjust and no one died because their packages were delayed by a day.
It's a play from the playbook of someone whose only real interest is ensuring that everyone and everything is dependent on his whims, and that they understand that they are. It's how he ruined and took over the Republican party. Get a whole bunch of influential people to agree with your latest idea, rug-pull them, and punish them if they then don't change to agree with your new latest idea. They learn that doing anything but whatever it is you seem to want is bad for them, and lose their fear of looking like lickspittles who have no principles, because everyone with a backbone gets crushed or ignored until they lose office.
I don't think he's playing a masterful chess game here; he's simply what happens when you give power to someone who is both chaotic and perfectly willing to demand personal loyalty by severely punishing anyone who doesn't toe the line.
1) what Trump / DOGE are doing is more or less Sam Francis’s wishlist as described in his 1991 essay “The phrase ‘America First’” published in Chronicles magazine.
2) it is morally grotesque; I can’t agree more with Jesse here.
3) all of the arguments deployed by defenders / apologists in favor of this insanity are morally bankrupt, deeply stupid or both, but one that especially gets my goat in this regard is the perennial “the federal budget is like a household budget” canard.
3a) I love all the comments here to the effect of “but *nuance*” or “Jesse, write about *real* problems, both of which I assume reflect interests and preoccupations that the commenters discovered they had on January 20, 2025.
I think I’m like most people here: we subscribe to Singal-Minded for two reasons:
1. We are deeply interested in the topics you cover
2. We are even more interested in your deep, data-driven WAY of covering topics.
The problem I have with the Trump/Maga coverage is not that it’s a new focus for Singal-Minded but that it doesn’t have anywhere near the usual depth or data focus of the Substack.
You can mess around with point 1, but you absolutely cannot abandon the value proposition of point 2.
This. I'm not interested in the New York Times emotion/propaganda approach to covering Trump and sincerely hope Jesse can refocus and bring deep data and evidence to his coverage rather than screenshots and outrage.
I guess wonder what deep reporting there is on Elon acting like a carnival barker and making spurious claims about Social Security fraud because he does not understand how to read a table.
I *do* hope that this newsletter isn't all emotional Trump-bashing, and this article seems more thin-skinned than I'd expect out of Mr. Singal. Here are the key sentences out of the article, for me:
"I think what really gets me about the present moment, though, is the fact that the Trumpians thoroughly trounce everyone, control everything, and still are intent on breaking things rather than passing legislation. That’s partly because neither Donald Trump nor Elon Musk has the attention span to actually understand federal agencies and spending, and it’s partially because their movement is 90% animated by resentment, and resentment tends to break things rather than shrink or reform them."
Correct enough: Online people are idiots, and write things in the comments that are reflexive, extreme, and often poorly nuanced, and at this moment the Conservatives are in charge.
But the semi-random ad hominem that Trump and Musk don't have any attention span or interest how government works also seems also reflexive, extreme and poorly nuanced. Similarly that 90% (ninety percent!!!) of their motivation is "animated by resentment." Really?
Come on dude, how much evidence do you need to know that Trump doesn't have the attention span or interest in how government works? The dude tweeted the other day "He who saves his country does not violate the law" - he's not Justice Brandeis out there with some well thought out plan of the unitary executive. He's just repeating whatever the last person told him that caught his interest - something that's well documented over and over again in books by former members of his first administration.
It does not take sophisticated legal education to understand that the democratically elected executive should have power over the executive and not an unelected and largely unaccountable civil service that exists under the executive.
That isn't to defend trump's quote that you present (which i reject and do not defend). But one can have interest and attention in advancing an obvious interpretation of executive power and checks and balances, and still not accept the idea of an unaccountable and undemocratic technocracy running the executive. But we are a republic and not a democracy, so i understand that some people reflexively reject democracy as a principle.
"Unelected" is a convenient term. These are the people that actually have the expertise to run the government. This is why they have protections which Trump is ignoring.
"we are a republic and not a democracy" - sorry your comment started reasonable but you started regurgitating idiotic MAGA talking points.
This is of course nonsense, and betrays your lack of familiarity with people who work in the government. But at most evidences that you prefer technocracy and governance unaccountable to the electorate.
We are a republic. We are not a democracy. That's not a "MAGA talking point" to state that. Although, to be clear, I only included that line to jab at Tom, because it's important to remember that people defending the unelected and largely unaccountable civil service are precisely opposing democracy as a governing strategy -- and it is important to remind people of that.
US is a republic which is also a democracy. You can ask Grok if you want.
"Unaccountable" is what Musk and his goons are. You are targeting the wrong people. There are lazy people everywhere but most people, including in the government, are honestly doing their jobs.
Sorry, I was politically conscious well before the invention of Grok. And learned the differences between a democracy and a republic in high school.
Edit: To scream into the void for a moment (of the flavor of Jesse's specific Substack post here). How am I ever to believe this is not a #resistance outlet when clearly transparent misinformation/lies that the U.S. is not a republic gets massively upvoted by people who are clearly #resistance reflexive people? The U.S. is a democratic republic. But it is not a democracy -- it is at bottom a republic. The people's 50.1% voice does not determine our laws. Rather we democratically elect representatives (or in the case of the executive, semi-democratically via the electoral college), who may or may not follow democratic (popular) will. And if ever we have seen a few political cycles in a row where the popular will lost repeatedly in the laws and policies we passed, it was the last ~10 years. We are not a democracy in the true sense. We do not pass off all decision-making to the 50.1% -- perhaps smartly. But we are absolutely a republic.
People who don't understand this, who are upvoting obviously false information here, share much with the same people who are mad Trump wasn't removed from the ballot "to protect our democracy" -- the republic set the non-democractic rules for such removal, but it clearly had nothing to do with democracy. A democracy would let the people choose the presidency. Instead, we obviously live in a republic. This is an unassailable truth -- regardless of peoples' personal attachments to the word "democracy"
And as republicanism has long been understood to mean "no more kings" even that doesn't apply here.
"L'État, c'est moi"
It's the same smug, disingenuous bullshit that got us "In Defense of Looting" but with even more dire consequences and the coercive power of the state baked in.
Yeah, I hear you and agree with almost everything you just said and the "undemocratic technocracy" has been a disaster. I wrote about an insane waste of federal money in a story the other day, where Dept of Energy was just cutting checks left and right in the name of equity with no oversight or reporting guidelines:
It got out of control during the Biden years for a lot of reasons but having the executive literally be asleep at the wheel doesn't help.
But it's just like, there needs to be a balance between unitary executive king and congressionally funded and authorized-by-statute civil services. I think this is why checks and balances are so important right now.
I agree with this. Thank you. And I do think this is a space where Congress 100% needs to act. And I hope this puts pressure on Congress to act and resolve issues -- although I am skeptical that if Congress does in this current political environment that it will be a good solution instead of just the preferred Trump model.
Since I'd prefer to not get the "preferred Trump model" out of Congress, I'm really hoping we can coalesce around a middle ground rather than forcing the hand with a Senate that confirmed RFK Jr. purely out of Trump's wishes.
Well, the bureaucracy was created by democratic laws legally passed by Congress and signed by presidents past, and now instead all seems to be not so much under the elected president as under a new bureaucrat who holds no real office and was assigned to his task by the fiat of the president. And who is also the richest man on Earth and now apparently wants to be able to look at everyone's tax forms. Maybe not an improvement.
Congress (somewhat) frequently passes unconstitutional laws that are affirmed/signed into law by the executive in office at that time. Does not make it constitutional to remove executive oversight from the executive branch because such laws were previously passed by an executive and by a Congress.
By way of example, if Trump -- in this Republican dominated Congress -- signed a law giving him utmost power over all levers of government for a bill passed by the House and the Senate, it does not mean it is not unconstitutional just because the Congress and the Executive signed it into law.
The "checks" either imposed or presumed that give an unelected and (largely) unaccountable civil service effective veto power over the government's policy is not constitutional. Regardless of whether a prior congress and prior president passed such law.
This is not the get-out-of-jail-free card you want it to be unless you forever revoke all arguments that unconstitutional bills passed by the current Congress and signed into law by Trump are forever and totally always good law that must forever be followed and the judiciary can do nothing to rebut it.
His party controls Congress and seems largely subservient to his will. Good opportunity to repeal bad laws and pass good ones by the proper channels, I would think.
I simply meant to say that the single election of 2024 was no more or less democratic than any of the ones that came before, and the actions being done by his non-elected right-hand man cannot claim any unique mantle of democratic legitimacy.
(And your later comments seem to be correctly saying that we are not a pure democracy anyway, so now I am slightly confused as to what your original point was.)
My point to you had nothing to do with whether or not we are a "pure democracy" -- we are obviously not. You will note my comment said nothing about democracy to you, but you're trying to piece together distinct arguments from other comments.
To address what I did not raise with you, the clear response is we don't live in a democracy. The winners of elections do not get to run rampant. There are checks and balances, generally outlined by the constitution. However some people also want to presume there are checks and balances outlined by an unelected and (largely) unaccountable civil service technocracy that exists within the executive, imposed upon the elected executive. (Although I'll note, everyone in this thread who agrees the unelected civil service should serve as a check upon the presidency should, of course, at least agree we live in a republic on that basis, but seem to disagree because they're attached to the word "democracy" -- but misapply it aggressively)
All that said, Trump cannot just do whatever he wants if a bill crosses his desk for signature that gives him what he wants. He is still constrained by the constitution, enforced by the judiciary.
This was true for every prior president. And unconstitional measures passed by such prior presidents, and congresses, regardless of whether they were democratically elected, are held to the same standard. Usurping executive power over the executive, regardless of the laws on the books, is almost certainly unconstitutional.
But Trump ran on the promise of DOGE? While I don’t agree with thoughtless changes, I very much *did* vote for the government to be audited and reduced in size
The bureaucracy owes it's 'birth' in large part to the Administrative Procedures Act, whereby Congress decided to vest the Executive Branch of government with quasi-legislative (Code of Federal Regulations) and quasi-judicial (administrative hearing officers/administrative law judges) power. I've long felt this was a violation of the separation of powers but, unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), the Supreme Court does not listen to me.
As time has passed, Congress has, it seems to me, increasingly 'punted' its power to the Executive Branch. by vesting a great deal of discretion in the federal administrative agencies. It's much more fun to go on MSNBC (or Fox News) than it is to actually, you know, do the legislative heavy lifting.
I don't have much sympathy for those congresspeople now whining that the executive is using that discretion (that THEY gave him) in ways they don't like.
Jesse has not done well the last month. I hope he realizes at some point that most of his twitter is just reflexive opposition. It is #resistance.
He never defends underlying issues. He either (1) rejects that it is true, because musk is not scrupulous and an online troll and therefore it is false because musk has no credibility, (2) challenges that the evidence presented is insufficient to prove the point (notwithstanding less than a month to do anything, and courts blocking efforts at obtaining detailed information) or (3) moralizes the great tragedy of the most sympathetic cases in his mind and calls his opposition evil.
I understand these positions. But I can get them from literally 90% of the people I socialize with, with no more nuance than Jesse presents. Literally all my group chats are catastrophizing in the same way. I understand he is angry and upset.
But it ends at that. I come to Jesse for nuance, but I fear he is unable to bring that in the current political environment. Which is fine, and fair. But ultimately is not brings me to hear his positions and thoughts.
Nary a word of concern for all the people whose lives could have been 'saved,' but weren't because funding transgender operas and Serbian diversity officers took priority. But that's ok.
And as far as the sledghammer, the American people have been promised the scalpel for decades. At some point, the pendulum swings. If this is ugly, economic collapse or violent civil war is uglier.
Frankly, it all sucks. What is happening today sucks, and business as usual from six months ago sucks. Most of us are just trying to make a buck, feed our families, and get back in bed relatively safe and sound every night.
The craziest thing to me has been observing how insular the blowback here has been.
You either run in circles where everyone is terrified and worried or you don't. And the people who run in those circles have been very insulated from how everyone else has lived. With jobs constantly coming and going. And a constant need to justify one's productivity and existence as an employee.
Doesn't help that the government is run horribly, and most people's touch points dealing with the bureaucracy have been "jesus christ if this wasn't the government that person would have been fired yesterday".
Government needs to do better and hold itself in plausible accountability to the populace. And yet it has refused to do so, and the moment there is pullback from funding pet political and social projects of the educated elite (for which there is no broad consensus), hysterical screaming mutes any stories of justified pain by real people feeling the blowback of policy shifts. The umpteenth story of federal workers whining about having to go into an office (where they work 25 hours weeks and have the best benefits/retirement available on the planet) blunts true stories of actual harm and tragedy of people who are being forcibly relocated from geographies all across the world that they may have moved to as a sacrifice for the broader cause of benefitting the planet.
And yet everyone that runs in those circles had ignored the disdain they've accumulated from regular people. There's an obvious story to be told about republicans becoming the political party of the working class. But democrats still are unwilling to hear it.
The point is that people who work in federal government, in particular, have become accustomed to the idea of a job for life -- with no real metrics or accountability (so long as they aren't high enough to be in the public sphere).
In contrast, people who work in the private sector do not have such protections and expectations. And are befuddled when government workers complain of returning to the office, hiring freezes and generous severance packages in lieu of outright termination.
It is tone deaf. And a reason why Trump still remains generally popular in approval ratings (and at a minimum a full state change from Biden).
Yeah I get that you people hate government workers. But they also get paid less than equivalent private sector jobs. Government work is very different from private business work too, there are way more jobs that need to be done that no one else will do and hence they are essential.
Also I would be onboard with a government employment reform, but this is not what DOGE is doing. They are not finding inefficient employees and introducing performance management, they are just cutting what they don't like and what MAGA people hate.
You're 100% right: "the American people have been promised the scalpel for decades."
I'm a conservative. If you told me I get to vote on $10,000 from the government to help my neighbor fight his cancer I'd very likely vote yes.
If you told me to vote on $100,000 from the government to help the people in Albuquerque fight cancer I'd probably vote yes, but less quickly.
If you told me to vote on $1,000,000 from the government to help the people in New York fight patients with cancer I'd probably vote yes, but would think a little harder about all these things--not because I want people in New York with cancer to die... but I think it's our natural proclivity to want to help those closest to home first.
If we had all our US-based problems solved, then let's talk about spending the "extra" money on other countries' problems. We're global citizens, and have an interest (and the power) to be able to do that. It's a good, nice, right thing to do.
The question is one of degree. Government has crept, slowly crept, into all sorts of nice, good, helpful things in the world. Good for us.
Some of them are wonderful, some less so. Some are effective and efficient, some less so.
The shock and awe effort we're seeing is... shocking and awe-inspiring and awe-ful. But nothing else has been as effective at pointing out (and perhaps actually changing) the status quo.
It's a little funny to see the Left defend the status quo (being "progessives," and all), but I welcome them to the party and the challenge we on the right have with defending what is. It's also a good exercise for us on the right to dismantle and "deconstruct" things.
Republicans haven't shown any willingness to solve US problems. They forgot all about natural disasters now that they are in power.
> But nothing else has been as effective at pointing out
Yeah they will soon point out how incompetent they are and how good americans had it before. Hopefully it will happen soon and they will get booted out. Americans don't need fascists in power.
You don't have to apologize for "angry moralizing" when you've savaged something that is morally grotesque and deserves to be savaged. I hope you keep doing it.
With respect Jesse, I have been following you for years now and I just have to point something out. You pride yourself on trying to see the facts and be objective. I appreciate that, but as a person who lives outside the liberal, Ivy-educated, content creator, non-profit Brooklyn bubble, I have to say that every one of your opinions seems influenced by your milieu. Sometimes it is obvious that the common sense part of you wants to just say what you think, but you are a single man in your insane world and you can't afford to be any more of a pariah. So, you call the Zizians "she", you laughed at the fact that Jews are indigenous to Israel on your show, which seems to be a joke to you because you don't know much about Jewish history and you have to be pro-Palestinian narrative in your world. That is mandatory. And now you are hysterical about saving your friends' jobs at their NGOs. You are really out of touch. Americans don't care. We have actual real problems. Our own kids can't read or do math. I teach in a trailer. My teacher's salary doesn't keep up with inflation. I am afraid for my Jewish son. My students openly hate Jews and nothing is done about it. I think you would be a better journalist if you got out more.
I don't care and most other people don't care. You think I'm stupid because I don't share your exact views. I know that foreign aid isn't significant. I. do. not. care. It annoys me that overeducated douchebags earn 3 times what I do to propagate gender ideology in Zambia or whatever and I am pleased to see them lose their jobs and be publicly shamed. That's not policy, it's entertainment. The difference between me and you and me and Jesse is cultural, not political. I have friends who are in literal tears because their cousin at the IRS or the EPA is worried about their jobs. "Good", I think. I'll tell you something else. I have been a public school teacher for 11 years and it has really opened my eyes. I used to be pretty far to the Left politically. Now I see the total corruption, wasted money, and strong-arming coercive practices against staff and families that happen in government schools. So, when people tell me that this is a feature of all of government, I am much more sympathetic to this view. At this point, I am happy to see government defunded by half and I think it would only improve our lives. So any attempt to eviscerate our bloated, obscene government programs is totally welcome for me. And before you call me a hypocrite because I am a public employee, know that I am now an advocate for school choice and families keeping the money that would go to public schools to spend on educating their kids as they wish.
They are free to spend as much as they like on these causes. Vance had it right when he called BS on the idea that people should care about starving children in Africa anywhere near as much as they care about their family and immediate community. We all choose, every day, to prioritize frivolous desires over saving the life of a starving child in Africa. You could live securely on a shoestring budget in order to feed a dozen needy kids. That's not going to happen. There are more desperately poor people in Africa today than there were 20 years ago. African nations must develop the instutions and cultural norms that are required for a healthy society. Progressives will blame the ills of Africa on colonialism or racism and continue with their feel good policies that enrich NGOs and corrupt officials.
Right. Why is cutting funding resulting in babies dying within days? First, I call bullshit on that. But, if true, why aren't these countries forcing their billionaire elites to pick up the tab?
This is my chief complaint. I respect differences of opinion about foreign aid. What I'm having a hard time with right now is the suddeness of the withdrawal of aid, with no opportunity for the recipients to replace it with aid from the UN or NGOs or other countries. Life-saving aid is just suddenly gone. Choosing to go about it in this way, versus a phased withdrawal, strikes me as unnecessarily callous.
First, everyone else's billionaire elites usually live in the US or Europe anyway. Second if they have significant resources in a given country where the local government wants to repurpose them, that country tends to get blockaded, sanctioned, and/or invaded.
And yes, under conditions of severe famine, malnutrition can kill a child in days.
"Vance had it right when he called BS on the idea that people should care about starving children in Africa anywhere near as much as they care about their family and immediate community"
He had it so right the Pope felt compelled to step in and tell him his religious justification was wrong.
As you point out, we already don't care about starving African children as much as our immediate community. By proportion of the federal budget, we care about starving African children about 100x less than our community. The point is that our level of care about starving African children isn't, and shouldn't be, zero.
Taxing Americans to give money to other countries does not make it acceptable because it is « only » 1% of the budget. Think about all the value that 1% could create for Americans.
It is creating value for Americans. We benefit greatly from a stable world that aligns with American interests. We want people to like America so they buy our stuff. If other countries are healthier, they'll have more money to buy our stuff. If other countries like us, they'll side with us on global issues.
Also, helping people where they live means fewer people trying to get in to the US. If you think immigration is bad now, think of how bad it will be when there's more war/famine/disease people are trying to escape.
I feel like you are talking out of a time capsule from 50 years ago. The idiots in charge of these programs think Amerikkka is the evil empire. They don't want to spread the values that would benefit us and the rest of the world. I think a good argument is being made that this absurd cultural imperialism whereby we are spreading extreme gender ideology (for one example) is only going to harm our reputation in developing countries. In fact, I support real public health initiatives and other examples of reasonable soft power, but, like everything else in our government, our schools, and universities, everyone has lost their minds and just cutting it all seems reasonable.
There have been several videos posted online by people from countries receiving aid (I recall a very cogent woman from Ghana) making exactly this point. And she also pointed out the leaders just steal all the money anyway.
And don't worry, this is my swan song. I unsubscribed a little while ago. The problem with Jesse is that he is a Brooklyn hipster and the only time his views deviated from that world view was SLIGHTLY with youth gender medicine
That's why I paid to read his sub stack. But if I want to hear the opinions of child-free hipsters whose chief value is apologizing for their unearned privilege, I can take the train to downtown Portland. And then I would have the benefit of inhaling second hand fentanyl.
I think Jesse tried to touch on this when he mentioned "obvious potential positive externalities of the U.S. engaging in health and development services in other countries", but even if you care only about Americans and not at all about other people, spending 1% of the budget on foreign aid might be a very good deal, because of the benefits of the soft power it gives us. For example, our access to markets and our ability to build military bases in strategically important areas are influenced by our soft power.
Do americans not care about farmer subsidies? I live in rural America, trying desperately to get land for a farm. Im watching programs set up to help farmers have ecological sound, long standing farms get slashed and leaving those farmers holding the bag. Farmers are getting older and older, the average one pushing 60. How do we feed people if we don't get in younger farmers? DEI programs for farmers were set up to bring in young blood, and now that's gone. You care about feeding your kids? Care about supporting farmers. Otherwise, all of our food comes from abroad with high teriffs and a solid mark up on that, God forbid transportation of that food goes down, because then you don't have food at all.
Americans don't care because they dont know the ramifications. And that's fine, they shouldn't need to. But in 3 years when american family farms can't make it anymore, when the farmers retire and the young people can't afford to take on the land and crops (something that has been coming to a head for a decade and made worse by these policies) Americans will start noticing as food becomes more expensive. As your kid goes hungrier at night. And then they'll wonder why this is happening. Thank God they slashed USAID funding, it didn't go to you. It didn't go to your neighbors. It didn't go to farmers feeding you, in fact, it came from them. And then you, your family, your neighbors, the average American, is going to have to pay for it.
And its a celebration for those who don't know now. But for those of us aware of the ramifications are going to be, it's terrifying. Sometimes specialists are important. Sometimes it matters. But its not just brooklynites who can see the problems occuring. It's farmers, too. It's rural communities, too.
But I do think it depends on your situation. He is college at a school that is one of the schools that has been singled out by the govt for extreme antisemitism. I am worried when he goes to Jewish spaces, like Hillel or Chabad.
He feels the same, luckily. And I don't talk about poliyeith him, much, or my fears. But I am afraid for him and I know many mothers who feel the same.
It's not quite eggs vs. omelets, but you're lamenting a governance reality: there is no politically sensitive way to make big changes. It's nice to think there is some simultaneously-politically-viable-while-also-practicable way to change course, but there simply isn't. The last time the governing party had this kind of mandate was 2009 - Arlen Specter changed parties! - and we couldn't even get the public option.
There are always going to be dead babies. When, where, who, and how are a matter of policy-making and prioritization. It sucks. I hate it. But it is the human condition.
If all things continue along trendlines, there will be war with China and/or a catastrophic fallout from U.S. financial mismanagement. It seems the only path to avoid confrontation will require massive sacrifice in degrees not displayed since WWII. We might well win a conflict with our near-peer adversary. I of course hope for this outcome. But even this hypothesized victory would be ruinous and Pyrrhic.
It is tragic that Trump's methodology is resulting in these specific harms. However, I think the fundamental choice is this: endure short-term tragedy on the gamble that future catastrophe can be mitigated or avoided by strengthening America's position; or spend the handful of politically useful months he has expending capital on comparatively obscure goals.
I see this as the most important element in the USAID debacle. The US has been able to exercise extraordinary international leadership for 80 years because it adopted a guiding policy of using a small portion of its enormous wealth to provide global aid that would earn enormous goodwill. Our power rested on economic clout and nukes, but equally on the moral profile first adopted as a bipartisan decision with the Marshall Plan. The power of our influence was built on this approach, and it has yielded uncountable benefits for Americans, both economic and political, far beyond the dollars spent. There is no more powerful combination than strength and kindness.
The new administration is not just giving up the advantages of soft power, it is no longer interested in global influence that is not the direct result of hard power transactionally applied. We will no longer be a global leader, only a global threat of increasingly small size. We'll seize what we can by strength (Greenland, Panama, whatever), and then we'll be Fortress USA, making China's belt-and-road type strategy appear generous by contrast. Musk, Hegseth, Vance, are all sending this message to our former allies unambiguously: your welfare is no longer our business; if you want our business, pay what we ask up front. No more Mr. Nice-Guy.
No one could possibly think the woodchips of USAID's budget are savings on the scale of what we are giving up. The issue isn't money: it's blindness to the practical strategic value of kindness.
USAID has been an arm of the CIA and US Empire for many years. Color revolutions R US. Who do you think pays for the demonstrations in the streets of Tblisi. And Kiev in 2014. Who do you think pays for so-called independent media in Ukraine. Oh and we feed some Somalian refugees and tell the gullible folks in the US that we're mainly an international aid agency. Trump has ripped off the blinders and yet so many people continue to buy into the propaganda.
Reid, I anticipated that my comment might receive this kind of response, and also a response noting how many times the US has been called out by those in other countries for its failures to live up to the ideals it professes.
To your point, I don't believe that by labeling something "empire" you make it one. The US has used its leverage as a hegemonic power to ends both bad and good, and the bad is a national shame -- though I suspect you and I might sometimes differ on which uses fell on which side of that line. My own lens for these issues is an attempt to weigh individual cases on the particulars, rather than to presume that US intervention is necessarily evil, which I think has become as much at matter of faith in some circles on the Left as the opposite has been in some circles on the Right.
What has distinguished the US from other powers who exercise hegemonic leverage is that other nations see this as a lapse and try to shame us, and that we are sometimes ashamed. This dynamic did not hold for the USSR and doesn't hold for Russia and the PRC. The fact that we fall short and are taken to task is a function of the increased leverage that initiatives like the Marshall Plan and later USAID provided. The underlying question should not be whether the US global presence has been for the good on the whole, but whether its withdrawal will be for the good on the whole. I suspect you and I would not agree.
To the other objection I anticipated, pointing to the anger that the US has provoked by failing to meet its ideals, I'd reply to by noting that the US has been unusual in inspiring ethical expectations that it could fail, and that inspiration has clearly been of value well beyond the price paid for the many cases where it has failed to meet those expectations.
As for your comment about Bill Kristol et al., below: the DOGE acolytes are dismayed that USAID supported causes on the Left and progressives are dismayed that it supported causes on the Right. They are reaching into the pot and pulling out individual items they think will enrage the people on their side. This is the politics that has brought us to this pass, and I think those on the Left should realize that the outcome of this game is asymmetrical: it is a tsunami from the Right. We are already drowning in it.
Weakening America's international influence is probably the only net-positive that's going to come out of this madness. But we're also weakening our domestic effectiveness, and are dying and more are going to die. Trumpism is the violent convulsion of a declining empire.
Several years ago I watched a video of an art class provided to Afghan women by the USA. Efforts to improve their lot are commendable. This particular class session was on the art of urinals. The expression on their faces as they were shown various urinals was WTF. I hope no husbands were informed.
It is an assumption, without evidence, that broadly this money is being productively spent. In the above case I would say it's counter-productive. The USAID bucket has money to combat HIV combined with irrigation in Afghanistan that doubled poppy production. Grants can be cherry-picked to support USAID good or USAID bad. Fixing this could start by having with each grant the name of the advocate who decided that expenditure was useful. This would give a source to query on why do it and also visibility on conflicts of interest.
"Fixing this could start by having with each grant the name of the advocate who decided that expenditure was useful."
I like this idea. In the name of congressional oversight, I'd even say that if you want your USAID grant approved you need someone in congress to vouch for it.
I don't know? Maybe make changes in 6 months instead of 1 week, after literally asking anyone that is knowledgeable about any these topics what all these programs do? Maybe put someone in charge that has enough good, adult sense that he isn't getting emotionally hung up and lying about having highly ranked video game characters?
I am so, so tired of false dichotomies. Of course there are a million shades between the current state and whatever Musk is doing.
And by all means - there is absolutely no reason to be mean about dead babies. Cut the funds, I guess, but the eyeroll attached to it? The smug social media updates? That's cruel. Saying that he's going to turn Gaza into a hotel strip? Inhumane. At least I'm smart enough to know that if I see someone treat someone else badly, I expect that is also exactly how they will treat me when it suits them. I have always, always considered that everyone who watches poor character and bad treatment of other people and is - shocked! - when it is turned on them the most pathetic and deluded of fools.
And that is the meanest thing I've written on the internet in a long, long time.
There was no good reason to make huge and disruptive changes to the government. What we needed was permitting reform and civil service reform, not this shit.
I think our economic trajectory is not sustainable. I think that however it is resolved will be to the detriment of millions of people. This could take a bunch of different forms, ranging from my children experiencing American civil service in full dilapidation to world war because of irreconcilable differences.
Think of just the 2008 crash or COVID: comparatively mild, short-term disruptions that wreaked havoc on certain demographics.
I do not defend the cuts to USAID, but I understand them. Stories like those Jesse highlighted are heartbreaking; any major policy shift will result in similar stories. The status quo will result in similar stories.
Trump and company likely perceive a limited window of maximum effectiveness. Resistance will gel. They will get bogged down.
I'm not convinced that destroying USAID is helping to "change course", and I think getting rid of it is in fact a "comparatively obscure goal". It is not a large amount of money, compared to the overall size of Federal spending. While I think it's crucial to do something about bureaucratic rot, I don't see how USAID is contributing much to the inefficiency of the government overall. I won't pretend to know the effect this has on international politics, but I would think it is to US detriment (and China's benefit), insofar as it harms US soft power.
I've visited some 40 countries and lived in a handful. The only U.S. foreign policy I've ever heard discussed was 1) defense: 2) Israel/mideast; 3) sports/culture/business; and 4) esoteric current events unique to the person's country. I cannot recall a single conversation about mosquito nets or condoms or anything else of the nature. USAID might make for a nice executive talking point, but it surely is not beautifying agent people seem to think it is.
Thank you for writing this. One of the reasons I'm a big fan of free speech is that I like to know who the sociopaths in the room are, and if there is a high amount of censorship those people can fly under the radar. Your articles and posts on Twitter/X perform a valuable public service in goading sociopaths into flying their true colors. Same goes for the dark triad cultists who are functionally illiterate on all things statistics, government, economics, international relations, how soft-power works, and so on.
I do find the one-sided calls for evidence of the obvious harms the sledgehammer approach is causing (documented by dozens of news-outlets) amusing given the complete silence in demanding that God Emperor Musk provides real evidence of fraud and abuse (something his team found mind you, not something that was brought to light years ago by journalists and/or Inspector Generals) and/or treating all his tweets as gospel.
Musk tweets something completely insane to justify the ax: sounds reasonable.
Jesse suggests that such an action is likely to have severe negative consequences based on logic and already established reporting: HOW DARE YOU BE EMOTIONAL!? HOW DO YOU KNOW?! HAVE YOU TRAVELED THERE YOURSELF??!! WHAT EVIDENCE DO YOU HAVE... AND RELATEDLY WHAT ARE HYPERLINKS????
Also, either the cultists in the comments didn't read the title of this post (which would've immediately let them know that this wasn't going to be a deep-data dive), or they decided to rage-read from the outset (or not read at all and just publicly seethe).
You know, I've always felt the Great Replacement Theory was grotesque racism by those peddling the conspiracy (because it objectively is). Now however, after wading through the rage directed at Jesse over him mildly calling out the insanity and pure evil of what Trump is doing, I'm becoming a fan. Not of the racists, but of actually replacing them. I'd much rather be neighbors with someone who trekked a thousand plus miles to get here to seek a better life - regardless of how they entered the country - than those who look at children dying in Sudan and say "I don't care." Cultists can still make the idiotic argument that this country is "full." I'll gladly facilitate one to one swaps. Import people who want to be here desperately, export the cultists to somewhere like Yemen or Somalia. No taxes or real government structure there. No taxpayer dollars going to liberal causes like stopping children from starving to death in foreign countries. Conservative moral values applied to everyone who isn't male and part of the dominant religion. Lots of guns. They'll love it. Everyone wins. Let's make the Great Replacement happen y'all.
I jest, kind of. The plan would never work. After all the 14th Amendment provides birthright citizenship, and it would be illegal to deport citizens. Thankfully, nobody out there is trying to get rid of birthright citizenship through blatantly illegal actions...
Devin,how much money have you donated this week to Sudan to make up for what you perceive as the losses they are suffering because USAID has been cut? Didn't think so. But your willingness to deport every American who disagrees with you (?!) speaks volumes. Actually, it is textbook post 2010 Democrats. I have heard (and said!) the same myself. I found that the more involved I got in my actual community, the less posturing I needed to do online. In my experience, nearly everything coming out of Washington is shit. If you want to demonstrate your compassion, step out into the world and do it with your time and money like the rest of us sociopaths.
Ooooh, you got me. I haven't donated anything this week. Does this make me a hypocrite? Or, perhaps slightly more likely, is it that getting aid to Sudan is an incredibly complex logistical feat that USAID had accomplished with my well spent tax dollars, and now that it has been "fed into the woodchipper" it is going to be hard to replicate/replace, and is a task I a mere mortal cannot accomplish on my own (which is why strong organizations are important)?
See, despite what those who are incapable of thinking beyond their own personal experience might state, USAID did a lot of good, and saved a lot of lives. Its existence meant I could focus on helping people in my core competencies. This is why I donate a majority of my time and personal resources to trying to alleviate gun violence. It's why my family and I have sponsored refugees from Ukraine and interpreters and their families from Afghanistan. Where the US Government was dropping the ball for whatever reason (and even the nonprofit sector overall), I could focus on that niche. But now that dark triad personalities are ascendent along with their cults, everything is in flux.
I can't save everyone in the world. No one can. But if a child is drowning in pond next to me, it is my moral obligation to at least try to save that child. And in a world with near infinite ponds, I have to pick where I can be most helpful, in areas that are overlooked by those far more powerful and wealthier than I. And yet in this world of ponds and drowning, MAGA and Muskovite cultists have decided to actively throw even more children into those pools to drown, and then gleeful demonstrate their sociopathy on comment threads such as this.
Do I want to deport everyone that disagrees with me? Obviously not. Deport those who are cheerleading the deaths of thousands across the world due to the insanely idiotic and cruel actions of God Emperor Dr. Strangelove? I'd much rather deport them than those coming here for a better life.
Was my initial comment (and this one) posturing? Absolutely. I needed an outlet to vent, and this was an excellent avenue. Stuff like this helps me overcome writer's block. Am I a particularly good person? No. But as bad as my mental health makes me think about myself, those who decide to posture online about their utter lack of compassion ironically provide glimmers of hope. As bad as I may be, there are apparently a bunch of people out there who are much worse. And at least I'm trying to be better. And with ever more people flying their true colors, it provides even more motivation to help those truly in need. So thank you for the esteem and confidence boosts, I needed them.
As I suspected while some of the claims about stopped trials are repugnant, they are also overblown. The statement about rings ‘stuck inside people’ immediately stood out as a gross exaggeration. See link below which refers to the device as ‘user controlled’ bc of course no medical intervention that involves vaginal surgery was going to be effective in rural African medicine.
The Timea article does some other BS too - talking about how now participants wont get the adverse event monitoring - well they also aren’t getting the medicine either so the likelihood of AEs is small. Yes, I understand Rx half-life and their good be emerging symptoms from suddenly stopping a medicine … which should have been identified in Ph1 healthy volunteers!
Totally willing to admit Elon’s pell mell cost cutting has consequences. Said to see Jesse abandon his normally rigorous reporting to swallow every anecdote hook line and sinker.
"The statement about rings ‘stuck inside people’ immediately stood out as a gross exaggeration"
Singal didn't say anything about "rings", and there's a part of that Times article that mentions this:
"A clinical trial run by the development organization FHI 360, which implemented many U.S.A.I.D.-funded health programs and studies, was testing a biodegradable hormonal implant to prevent pregnancy. Women in the Dominican Republic had the devices in their bodies when U.S.A.I.D. funding was cut off."
Since those implants are experimental, just leaving them in patients without medical oversight is asinine.
This is also shockingly cavalier: "The Timea [sic] article does some other BS too - talking about how now participants wont get the adverse event monitoring - well they also aren’t getting the medicine either so the likelihood of AEs is small. Yes, I understand Rx half-life and their [sic] good [sic] be emerging symptoms from suddenly stopping a medicine … which should have been identified in Ph1 healthy volunteers!"
It doesn't seem to have occurred to you that testing in "Ph1 healthy volunteers" won't necessarily identify all the problems from "suddenly stopping a medicine", especially if those problems come from can come from interactions between the medicine and the disease that it's supposed to treat -- disease which the "healthy volunteers" wouldn't have.
Finally, did you notice my first statement was that some of this is repugnant, and one of my last was the pell mell approach has real human costs? Bc I think you just saw parts you didn’t like and labeled it as hateful when I’m just asking for honest and accurate reporting. Things are bad enough without scare tactics and obvious manipulation a La the deadly medical devices trapped inside women.
My point about the rings is that they can be taken out. The framing makes it seem like it required medical intervention to do so. Anyone vaguely familiar with contraception options would realize this was, as I said, an exaggeration of the problem. Described as hauling women into the clinic bc funding was cut or else they would face some medical calamity.
Appreciate the correction I was piecing together the Times article from behind the paywall looks like I made inaccurate assumptions. If you see this and can be bothered please send me the link to the device / trial.
It’s not shockingly cavalier - it’s how careful science progresses to prevent harm to vulnerable people. Dose escalating studies exist for a reason. If a discontinuation AE jumps out in efficacy trials it’s likely and indictment of lack of rigor in earlier trials.
What's cavalier is waving off the risk of adverse effects as small and assuming that earlier rigorous tests on healthy individuals would be enough to make that risk small.
You're basically handwaving away potentially deadly risks with an, "Oh, it's probably fine."
I'm not clear what you're saying. Participants in phase 2 and 3 trials discontinue for AEs all the time....in fact I can't recall a study where no one discontinued due to an AE. But I think I'm misinterpreting, can you clarify?
I meant AEs caused by discontinuation itself. Like suddenly stopping SSRIs can have severe sequelae. These are what we would be worried about if a trial was stopped prematurely and participants weren’t given a chance to titrate off Tx.
Generally, this risk should be low once we are in Ph2/3. Of course I now have to make the tiresome response that low is not no, and also this isn’t the right approach to clinical study - which I began and ended my op with in the hopes someone might give me a modicum of credit that I’m not lauding this approach and in fact see real costs and harms from it.
My problem is with the reporting which I wished showed more credulity.
Thank you … even as I read the end of my last comment and recognize at least a teensy bit overreaction on my own part given this is my own clarifying comment part 13/15
First of all, Jesse did provide some evidence. Second, it's on Elon to prove that his actions are in fact improving efficiency and not causing undue harm. Our country has been degraded so far in just a few weeks that it doesn't even occur to people to demand accountability for actions that are so broad-based and destructive. Ask Elon for evidence.
That would be great and I would wade through that evidence if it were forthcoming, but it seems very hard to come by, in great part because of the wild, fast, and seemingly uninformed methods that are being used to identify and exult in these cuts. Watching it from afar, it is really easy to believe that unnecessary harms are probably coming out of this process. There is nothing in the behavior that inspires any confidence.
I don't want someone making cuts to vital services who has 12 children with four different mothers, and who doesn't have time to coach one of them every week in soccer. Much less coach all of them.
Am I part of the problem if I ask to see some actual evidence of these horror stories? Should I just accept these allegations as true? Aren't journalists who want to be taken seriously responsible for citing sources for their claims.
Taking an ax to USAID may be a very bad thing but if you are to oppose it successfully Jesse, you need evidence. You're a great journalist but here is a situation in which you need to do better.
Are there evidence sources? If you know of them I would love the links. In the meantime, my question is - do you trust the process? Are you confident in the methods, in the intent? Are you comfortable with what you are seeing? I would love to sit back and say, I'm sure it's all fine, everything that they are doing is surely well thought through, safe, measured. But that is just not what it looks and sounds like. (I would sleep better if I concluded that I am wrong.)
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Christina. However, I feel constrained to point out that the burden of proof is upon the person making a contention. All I'm asking Jesse to do here is do what journalists always did before they became partisan polemiscists: offer evidence. Since I am making no contention here, I have no obligation to offer evidence.
Actually, the burden of proof is on the person making the policy change. Elon is engaging in what any reasonable person would say looks like destruction for the sake of destruction. He is the one obligated to provide the proof that the things he is doing will result in improved efficiency and not great harm.
No doubt you're on point re: Musk et al offering justification for the acts they take. But that's just not the point I'm making. Jesse has made claims of extreme harm from the cuts to USAID. Those claims require factual support if they are to be considered anything other than sheer show biz. The point you are making is valid. It's just not part of this exchange.
I also think that part of the conflict in myself and other newly displaced democrats who are (dispositionally?) inclined to be horrified by aid being cut to innocent, needy individuals is that we have been so lied to, which now makes us doubt the horror stories. With the manipulative tactics of "Trans people are being genocided," "Would you rather have a live trans son or a dead daughter," "Puberty blockers are reversible and harmless," "Minors don't have their breasts/penises amputated" that especially we parents of ROGD youth can see through, we have lost our trust in other horrors being reported accurately.
You caricatured our universally cherished and near-miraculous medical care into something that's a "horror" to yourself - so that you could ignore the horrors and abuses and deaths you're seeing happen in front of you right now? And then you say that everyone else has failed to prove ourselves as trustworthy, to you? Everything you've admitted about yourself as a person makes you the untrustworthy one.
I did not say that I'm "ignoring" the horrors, abuses, and deaths I'm "seeing," but that knowing how irresponsibly and falsely "gender medicine" has been reported on has made me question the accuracy of other claims. How do you describe a "bodily transition" in a minor as "successful" in light of detransitioners who are suing practitioners because of insufficient diagnosis, lack of true informed consent, and regret for lost bodily functions as well as medical damage?
In Lisa's defense, it is not an obviously incorrect position to regard the removal of a minor child's penis or breasts as a "horror." I can say that: I don't think minors should undergo surgery to alter their sex. I don't think I'm in a small minority, either.
No person reading this is going to see it as understandable when Lisa describes their successful bodily transition as a "horror", and you don't need to defend her when she unnecessarily chooses to publicly describe another person's body in that way.
very compelling. The only thing I question is whether the motivation is more resentment or z power grab. But I suppose that doesn't really matter very much when people are needlessly dying because of sociopathic behavior.
The demolition of USAID and other executive agencies isn’t to cut spending – next to no one on the dissident right is saying that or ever did. The whole endeavor is motivated by a desire to deprive leftist NGOs of their patronage by the state.
You can still think it’s a horrible thing to do regardless of their motives, but I’m surprised that you didn’t reference their actual motives in their taking a sledgehammer to federal agencies. The dissident right aren’t shy about their belief in patron/client politics.
Once again, we have the scalpel vs. sledgehammer problem. I am a huge supporter of foreign aid...but I had no idea until this administration that we were funding legal aid for trans asylum seekers in the UK. The UK! Puberty blockers in Guatemala, sundry other fringe left wing causes around the world.
It is absolutely fair, and even appropriate, to rein this in. Foreign aid clearly had become, to at least some degree, something far removed from what the American people wanted it to be (or knew it was).
But he's removing the head to cure the headache. He's sledgehammering when he should scalpel. And the world will suffer.
He's got Congress, he's got friendly courts, he's got lots of people that could look into this stuff. Definitely not something I'd prioritize but jeezus, there's proper ways to do this stuff that isn't equivalent to yanking Jenga blocks from the bottom of the tower at lightning speed.
Chesterton's Fence applies here in spades.
The districts in which the cases are being filed are being filed in such districts because they are not friendly.
Where every conservative case against biden was filed in the fifth circuit, every progressive case filed against Trump is in DC the second circuit or the first circuit.
What's your point mate? You'll find most courts aren't going to oppose signed legislation or even many of these orders. He can get laws passed to do most of this stuff he just doesn't see any reason to bother with governing.
In fact, our federal judiciary spends an overwhelming amount of time determining the constitutionality of signed legislation (and executive regulatory actions and orders).
Your comment is not at all how the U.S. court system works.
As it pertains to the executive in particular, In trump's first administration he lost over 3/4ths of the cases brought against his administration
https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup
And trump was overwhelmingly less successful than other president's
https://policyintegrity.org/tracking-major-rules/presidential-win-rates
As it pertains to lower courts, Joe Biden has since appointed 235 new judges (compare to 234 for trumps prior term), so the judge pool is going to be less favorable to trump now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_judicial_appointments
There's this concept from Trump 45 called "the cruelty is the point."
I disagree with that in several ways. But it does capture one thing.
Creating the chaos is *meant* to sow distrust in the future. Oh, you think you're part of a program to save a bunch of lives? Well, it's from the US, so it might disappear at any moment. Maybe you shouldn't even bother.
Trump's one-day cancellation and then un-cancellation of all packages from China was similar. It wasn't meant to actually stop trade right now. But it's meant to make people scared about it and rethink what they're getting. A shot across the bow. That one, at least, was something that left businesses able to plan and readjust and no one died because their packages were delayed by a day.
It's a play from the playbook of someone whose only real interest is ensuring that everyone and everything is dependent on his whims, and that they understand that they are. It's how he ruined and took over the Republican party. Get a whole bunch of influential people to agree with your latest idea, rug-pull them, and punish them if they then don't change to agree with your new latest idea. They learn that doing anything but whatever it is you seem to want is bad for them, and lose their fear of looking like lickspittles who have no principles, because everyone with a backbone gets crushed or ignored until they lose office.
I don't think he's playing a masterful chess game here; he's simply what happens when you give power to someone who is both chaotic and perfectly willing to demand personal loyalty by severely punishing anyone who doesn't toe the line.
Three thoughts:
1) what Trump / DOGE are doing is more or less Sam Francis’s wishlist as described in his 1991 essay “The phrase ‘America First’” published in Chronicles magazine.
2) it is morally grotesque; I can’t agree more with Jesse here.
3) all of the arguments deployed by defenders / apologists in favor of this insanity are morally bankrupt, deeply stupid or both, but one that especially gets my goat in this regard is the perennial “the federal budget is like a household budget” canard.
3a) I love all the comments here to the effect of “but *nuance*” or “Jesse, write about *real* problems, both of which I assume reflect interests and preoccupations that the commenters discovered they had on January 20, 2025.
I think I’m like most people here: we subscribe to Singal-Minded for two reasons:
1. We are deeply interested in the topics you cover
2. We are even more interested in your deep, data-driven WAY of covering topics.
The problem I have with the Trump/Maga coverage is not that it’s a new focus for Singal-Minded but that it doesn’t have anywhere near the usual depth or data focus of the Substack.
You can mess around with point 1, but you absolutely cannot abandon the value proposition of point 2.
This. I'm not interested in the New York Times emotion/propaganda approach to covering Trump and sincerely hope Jesse can refocus and bring deep data and evidence to his coverage rather than screenshots and outrage.
Amen to that. And, for an informative and non-ranty take on the same issue, listen to the most recent episode of Andy Mills's Reflector.
I guess wonder what deep reporting there is on Elon acting like a carnival barker and making spurious claims about Social Security fraud because he does not understand how to read a table.
Hey Jesse, I don't think this is too extra at all. I support you in your angry moralizing.
I *do* hope that this newsletter isn't all emotional Trump-bashing, and this article seems more thin-skinned than I'd expect out of Mr. Singal. Here are the key sentences out of the article, for me:
"I think what really gets me about the present moment, though, is the fact that the Trumpians thoroughly trounce everyone, control everything, and still are intent on breaking things rather than passing legislation. That’s partly because neither Donald Trump nor Elon Musk has the attention span to actually understand federal agencies and spending, and it’s partially because their movement is 90% animated by resentment, and resentment tends to break things rather than shrink or reform them."
Correct enough: Online people are idiots, and write things in the comments that are reflexive, extreme, and often poorly nuanced, and at this moment the Conservatives are in charge.
But the semi-random ad hominem that Trump and Musk don't have any attention span or interest how government works also seems also reflexive, extreme and poorly nuanced. Similarly that 90% (ninety percent!!!) of their motivation is "animated by resentment." Really?
C'mon Jesse.
Come on dude, how much evidence do you need to know that Trump doesn't have the attention span or interest in how government works? The dude tweeted the other day "He who saves his country does not violate the law" - he's not Justice Brandeis out there with some well thought out plan of the unitary executive. He's just repeating whatever the last person told him that caught his interest - something that's well documented over and over again in books by former members of his first administration.
It does not take sophisticated legal education to understand that the democratically elected executive should have power over the executive and not an unelected and largely unaccountable civil service that exists under the executive.
That isn't to defend trump's quote that you present (which i reject and do not defend). But one can have interest and attention in advancing an obvious interpretation of executive power and checks and balances, and still not accept the idea of an unaccountable and undemocratic technocracy running the executive. But we are a republic and not a democracy, so i understand that some people reflexively reject democracy as a principle.
"Unelected" is a convenient term. These are the people that actually have the expertise to run the government. This is why they have protections which Trump is ignoring.
"we are a republic and not a democracy" - sorry your comment started reasonable but you started regurgitating idiotic MAGA talking points.
This is of course nonsense, and betrays your lack of familiarity with people who work in the government. But at most evidences that you prefer technocracy and governance unaccountable to the electorate.
We are a republic. We are not a democracy. That's not a "MAGA talking point" to state that. Although, to be clear, I only included that line to jab at Tom, because it's important to remember that people defending the unelected and largely unaccountable civil service are precisely opposing democracy as a governing strategy -- and it is important to remind people of that.
US is a republic which is also a democracy. You can ask Grok if you want.
"Unaccountable" is what Musk and his goons are. You are targeting the wrong people. There are lazy people everywhere but most people, including in the government, are honestly doing their jobs.
Sorry, I was politically conscious well before the invention of Grok. And learned the differences between a democracy and a republic in high school.
Edit: To scream into the void for a moment (of the flavor of Jesse's specific Substack post here). How am I ever to believe this is not a #resistance outlet when clearly transparent misinformation/lies that the U.S. is not a republic gets massively upvoted by people who are clearly #resistance reflexive people? The U.S. is a democratic republic. But it is not a democracy -- it is at bottom a republic. The people's 50.1% voice does not determine our laws. Rather we democratically elect representatives (or in the case of the executive, semi-democratically via the electoral college), who may or may not follow democratic (popular) will. And if ever we have seen a few political cycles in a row where the popular will lost repeatedly in the laws and policies we passed, it was the last ~10 years. We are not a democracy in the true sense. We do not pass off all decision-making to the 50.1% -- perhaps smartly. But we are absolutely a republic.
People who don't understand this, who are upvoting obviously false information here, share much with the same people who are mad Trump wasn't removed from the ballot "to protect our democracy" -- the republic set the non-democractic rules for such removal, but it clearly had nothing to do with democracy. A democracy would let the people choose the presidency. Instead, we obviously live in a republic. This is an unassailable truth -- regardless of peoples' personal attachments to the word "democracy"
And as republicanism has long been understood to mean "no more kings" even that doesn't apply here.
"L'État, c'est moi"
It's the same smug, disingenuous bullshit that got us "In Defense of Looting" but with even more dire consequences and the coercive power of the state baked in.
Yeah, I hear you and agree with almost everything you just said and the "undemocratic technocracy" has been a disaster. I wrote about an insane waste of federal money in a story the other day, where Dept of Energy was just cutting checks left and right in the name of equity with no oversight or reporting guidelines:
https://www.foiagras.com/p/the-curious-case-of-the-missing-333000
It got out of control during the Biden years for a lot of reasons but having the executive literally be asleep at the wheel doesn't help.
But it's just like, there needs to be a balance between unitary executive king and congressionally funded and authorized-by-statute civil services. I think this is why checks and balances are so important right now.
I agree with this. Thank you. And I do think this is a space where Congress 100% needs to act. And I hope this puts pressure on Congress to act and resolve issues -- although I am skeptical that if Congress does in this current political environment that it will be a good solution instead of just the preferred Trump model.
Since I'd prefer to not get the "preferred Trump model" out of Congress, I'm really hoping we can coalesce around a middle ground rather than forcing the hand with a Senate that confirmed RFK Jr. purely out of Trump's wishes.
But I fear that's exactly where we are headed.
Well, the bureaucracy was created by democratic laws legally passed by Congress and signed by presidents past, and now instead all seems to be not so much under the elected president as under a new bureaucrat who holds no real office and was assigned to his task by the fiat of the president. And who is also the richest man on Earth and now apparently wants to be able to look at everyone's tax forms. Maybe not an improvement.
Congress (somewhat) frequently passes unconstitutional laws that are affirmed/signed into law by the executive in office at that time. Does not make it constitutional to remove executive oversight from the executive branch because such laws were previously passed by an executive and by a Congress.
By way of example, if Trump -- in this Republican dominated Congress -- signed a law giving him utmost power over all levers of government for a bill passed by the House and the Senate, it does not mean it is not unconstitutional just because the Congress and the Executive signed it into law.
The "checks" either imposed or presumed that give an unelected and (largely) unaccountable civil service effective veto power over the government's policy is not constitutional. Regardless of whether a prior congress and prior president passed such law.
This is not the get-out-of-jail-free card you want it to be unless you forever revoke all arguments that unconstitutional bills passed by the current Congress and signed into law by Trump are forever and totally always good law that must forever be followed and the judiciary can do nothing to rebut it.
His party controls Congress and seems largely subservient to his will. Good opportunity to repeal bad laws and pass good ones by the proper channels, I would think.
I simply meant to say that the single election of 2024 was no more or less democratic than any of the ones that came before, and the actions being done by his non-elected right-hand man cannot claim any unique mantle of democratic legitimacy.
(And your later comments seem to be correctly saying that we are not a pure democracy anyway, so now I am slightly confused as to what your original point was.)
My point to you had nothing to do with whether or not we are a "pure democracy" -- we are obviously not. You will note my comment said nothing about democracy to you, but you're trying to piece together distinct arguments from other comments.
To address what I did not raise with you, the clear response is we don't live in a democracy. The winners of elections do not get to run rampant. There are checks and balances, generally outlined by the constitution. However some people also want to presume there are checks and balances outlined by an unelected and (largely) unaccountable civil service technocracy that exists within the executive, imposed upon the elected executive. (Although I'll note, everyone in this thread who agrees the unelected civil service should serve as a check upon the presidency should, of course, at least agree we live in a republic on that basis, but seem to disagree because they're attached to the word "democracy" -- but misapply it aggressively)
All that said, Trump cannot just do whatever he wants if a bill crosses his desk for signature that gives him what he wants. He is still constrained by the constitution, enforced by the judiciary.
This was true for every prior president. And unconstitional measures passed by such prior presidents, and congresses, regardless of whether they were democratically elected, are held to the same standard. Usurping executive power over the executive, regardless of the laws on the books, is almost certainly unconstitutional.
But Trump ran on the promise of DOGE? While I don’t agree with thoughtless changes, I very much *did* vote for the government to be audited and reduced in size
The bureaucracy owes it's 'birth' in large part to the Administrative Procedures Act, whereby Congress decided to vest the Executive Branch of government with quasi-legislative (Code of Federal Regulations) and quasi-judicial (administrative hearing officers/administrative law judges) power. I've long felt this was a violation of the separation of powers but, unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), the Supreme Court does not listen to me.
As time has passed, Congress has, it seems to me, increasingly 'punted' its power to the Executive Branch. by vesting a great deal of discretion in the federal administrative agencies. It's much more fun to go on MSNBC (or Fox News) than it is to actually, you know, do the legislative heavy lifting.
I don't have much sympathy for those congresspeople now whining that the executive is using that discretion (that THEY gave him) in ways they don't like.
Jesse has not done well the last month. I hope he realizes at some point that most of his twitter is just reflexive opposition. It is #resistance.
He never defends underlying issues. He either (1) rejects that it is true, because musk is not scrupulous and an online troll and therefore it is false because musk has no credibility, (2) challenges that the evidence presented is insufficient to prove the point (notwithstanding less than a month to do anything, and courts blocking efforts at obtaining detailed information) or (3) moralizes the great tragedy of the most sympathetic cases in his mind and calls his opposition evil.
I understand these positions. But I can get them from literally 90% of the people I socialize with, with no more nuance than Jesse presents. Literally all my group chats are catastrophizing in the same way. I understand he is angry and upset.
But it ends at that. I come to Jesse for nuance, but I fear he is unable to bring that in the current political environment. Which is fine, and fair. But ultimately is not brings me to hear his positions and thoughts.
Nary a word of concern for all the people whose lives could have been 'saved,' but weren't because funding transgender operas and Serbian diversity officers took priority. But that's ok.
And as far as the sledghammer, the American people have been promised the scalpel for decades. At some point, the pendulum swings. If this is ugly, economic collapse or violent civil war is uglier.
Frankly, it all sucks. What is happening today sucks, and business as usual from six months ago sucks. Most of us are just trying to make a buck, feed our families, and get back in bed relatively safe and sound every night.
The craziest thing to me has been observing how insular the blowback here has been.
You either run in circles where everyone is terrified and worried or you don't. And the people who run in those circles have been very insulated from how everyone else has lived. With jobs constantly coming and going. And a constant need to justify one's productivity and existence as an employee.
Doesn't help that the government is run horribly, and most people's touch points dealing with the bureaucracy have been "jesus christ if this wasn't the government that person would have been fired yesterday".
Government needs to do better and hold itself in plausible accountability to the populace. And yet it has refused to do so, and the moment there is pullback from funding pet political and social projects of the educated elite (for which there is no broad consensus), hysterical screaming mutes any stories of justified pain by real people feeling the blowback of policy shifts. The umpteenth story of federal workers whining about having to go into an office (where they work 25 hours weeks and have the best benefits/retirement available on the planet) blunts true stories of actual harm and tragedy of people who are being forcibly relocated from geographies all across the world that they may have moved to as a sacrifice for the broader cause of benefitting the planet.
And yet everyone that runs in those circles had ignored the disdain they've accumulated from regular people. There's an obvious story to be told about republicans becoming the political party of the working class. But democrats still are unwilling to hear it.
>With jobs constantly coming and going. And a constant need to justify one's productivity and existence as an employee.
How is Trump going to fix this? What does it have to do with the government?
The point is that people who work in federal government, in particular, have become accustomed to the idea of a job for life -- with no real metrics or accountability (so long as they aren't high enough to be in the public sphere).
In contrast, people who work in the private sector do not have such protections and expectations. And are befuddled when government workers complain of returning to the office, hiring freezes and generous severance packages in lieu of outright termination.
It is tone deaf. And a reason why Trump still remains generally popular in approval ratings (and at a minimum a full state change from Biden).
Yeah I get that you people hate government workers. But they also get paid less than equivalent private sector jobs. Government work is very different from private business work too, there are way more jobs that need to be done that no one else will do and hence they are essential.
Also I would be onboard with a government employment reform, but this is not what DOGE is doing. They are not finding inefficient employees and introducing performance management, they are just cutting what they don't like and what MAGA people hate.
You're 100% right: "the American people have been promised the scalpel for decades."
I'm a conservative. If you told me I get to vote on $10,000 from the government to help my neighbor fight his cancer I'd very likely vote yes.
If you told me to vote on $100,000 from the government to help the people in Albuquerque fight cancer I'd probably vote yes, but less quickly.
If you told me to vote on $1,000,000 from the government to help the people in New York fight patients with cancer I'd probably vote yes, but would think a little harder about all these things--not because I want people in New York with cancer to die... but I think it's our natural proclivity to want to help those closest to home first.
If we had all our US-based problems solved, then let's talk about spending the "extra" money on other countries' problems. We're global citizens, and have an interest (and the power) to be able to do that. It's a good, nice, right thing to do.
The question is one of degree. Government has crept, slowly crept, into all sorts of nice, good, helpful things in the world. Good for us.
Some of them are wonderful, some less so. Some are effective and efficient, some less so.
The shock and awe effort we're seeing is... shocking and awe-inspiring and awe-ful. But nothing else has been as effective at pointing out (and perhaps actually changing) the status quo.
It's a little funny to see the Left defend the status quo (being "progessives," and all), but I welcome them to the party and the challenge we on the right have with defending what is. It's also a good exercise for us on the right to dismantle and "deconstruct" things.
Republicans haven't shown any willingness to solve US problems. They forgot all about natural disasters now that they are in power.
> But nothing else has been as effective at pointing out
Yeah they will soon point out how incompetent they are and how good americans had it before. Hopefully it will happen soon and they will get booted out. Americans don't need fascists in power.
This is a long justification for parochialism that I doubt you believed before Jan 20.
"Theory of Moral Sentiments"
You don't have to apologize for "angry moralizing" when you've savaged something that is morally grotesque and deserves to be savaged. I hope you keep doing it.
With respect Jesse, I have been following you for years now and I just have to point something out. You pride yourself on trying to see the facts and be objective. I appreciate that, but as a person who lives outside the liberal, Ivy-educated, content creator, non-profit Brooklyn bubble, I have to say that every one of your opinions seems influenced by your milieu. Sometimes it is obvious that the common sense part of you wants to just say what you think, but you are a single man in your insane world and you can't afford to be any more of a pariah. So, you call the Zizians "she", you laughed at the fact that Jews are indigenous to Israel on your show, which seems to be a joke to you because you don't know much about Jewish history and you have to be pro-Palestinian narrative in your world. That is mandatory. And now you are hysterical about saving your friends' jobs at their NGOs. You are really out of touch. Americans don't care. We have actual real problems. Our own kids can't read or do math. I teach in a trailer. My teacher's salary doesn't keep up with inflation. I am afraid for my Jewish son. My students openly hate Jews and nothing is done about it. I think you would be a better journalist if you got out more.
"You are really out of touch."
Americans think we spend ~25% of our budget on foreign aid. They think we should spend 10%.
We actually spend 1%. Jesse's more in line with the average American than Trump/Musk here.
I don't care and most other people don't care. You think I'm stupid because I don't share your exact views. I know that foreign aid isn't significant. I. do. not. care. It annoys me that overeducated douchebags earn 3 times what I do to propagate gender ideology in Zambia or whatever and I am pleased to see them lose their jobs and be publicly shamed. That's not policy, it's entertainment. The difference between me and you and me and Jesse is cultural, not political. I have friends who are in literal tears because their cousin at the IRS or the EPA is worried about their jobs. "Good", I think. I'll tell you something else. I have been a public school teacher for 11 years and it has really opened my eyes. I used to be pretty far to the Left politically. Now I see the total corruption, wasted money, and strong-arming coercive practices against staff and families that happen in government schools. So, when people tell me that this is a feature of all of government, I am much more sympathetic to this view. At this point, I am happy to see government defunded by half and I think it would only improve our lives. So any attempt to eviscerate our bloated, obscene government programs is totally welcome for me. And before you call me a hypocrite because I am a public employee, know that I am now an advocate for school choice and families keeping the money that would go to public schools to spend on educating their kids as they wish.
"I don't care and most other people don't care"
That's my point, I don't think that's the case. The average American thinks we should be spending 10x what we currently do on foreign aid.
They are free to spend as much as they like on these causes. Vance had it right when he called BS on the idea that people should care about starving children in Africa anywhere near as much as they care about their family and immediate community. We all choose, every day, to prioritize frivolous desires over saving the life of a starving child in Africa. You could live securely on a shoestring budget in order to feed a dozen needy kids. That's not going to happen. There are more desperately poor people in Africa today than there were 20 years ago. African nations must develop the instutions and cultural norms that are required for a healthy society. Progressives will blame the ills of Africa on colonialism or racism and continue with their feel good policies that enrich NGOs and corrupt officials.
Right. Why is cutting funding resulting in babies dying within days? First, I call bullshit on that. But, if true, why aren't these countries forcing their billionaire elites to pick up the tab?
This is my chief complaint. I respect differences of opinion about foreign aid. What I'm having a hard time with right now is the suddeness of the withdrawal of aid, with no opportunity for the recipients to replace it with aid from the UN or NGOs or other countries. Life-saving aid is just suddenly gone. Choosing to go about it in this way, versus a phased withdrawal, strikes me as unnecessarily callous.
First, everyone else's billionaire elites usually live in the US or Europe anyway. Second if they have significant resources in a given country where the local government wants to repurpose them, that country tends to get blockaded, sanctioned, and/or invaded.
And yes, under conditions of severe famine, malnutrition can kill a child in days.
What make you think that they even have billionaire elites? Most countries aren't as rich as the U.S.
"Vance had it right when he called BS on the idea that people should care about starving children in Africa anywhere near as much as they care about their family and immediate community"
He had it so right the Pope felt compelled to step in and tell him his religious justification was wrong.
As you point out, we already don't care about starving African children as much as our immediate community. By proportion of the federal budget, we care about starving African children about 100x less than our community. The point is that our level of care about starving African children isn't, and shouldn't be, zero.
The Pope is in the hospital and is writing his Left wing bullshit responses like Biden was running the US.
Classic internet behavior of making up a guy to get mad about here
Taxing Americans to give money to other countries does not make it acceptable because it is « only » 1% of the budget. Think about all the value that 1% could create for Americans.
Now… consider that this 1% is borrowed.
It is creating value for Americans. We benefit greatly from a stable world that aligns with American interests. We want people to like America so they buy our stuff. If other countries are healthier, they'll have more money to buy our stuff. If other countries like us, they'll side with us on global issues.
Also, helping people where they live means fewer people trying to get in to the US. If you think immigration is bad now, think of how bad it will be when there's more war/famine/disease people are trying to escape.
I feel like you are talking out of a time capsule from 50 years ago. The idiots in charge of these programs think Amerikkka is the evil empire. They don't want to spread the values that would benefit us and the rest of the world. I think a good argument is being made that this absurd cultural imperialism whereby we are spreading extreme gender ideology (for one example) is only going to harm our reputation in developing countries. In fact, I support real public health initiatives and other examples of reasonable soft power, but, like everything else in our government, our schools, and universities, everyone has lost their minds and just cutting it all seems reasonable.
There have been several videos posted online by people from countries receiving aid (I recall a very cogent woman from Ghana) making exactly this point. And she also pointed out the leaders just steal all the money anyway.
You sound like a psycho in all these comments
And don't worry, this is my swan song. I unsubscribed a little while ago. The problem with Jesse is that he is a Brooklyn hipster and the only time his views deviated from that world view was SLIGHTLY with youth gender medicine
That's why I paid to read his sub stack. But if I want to hear the opinions of child-free hipsters whose chief value is apologizing for their unearned privilege, I can take the train to downtown Portland. And then I would have the benefit of inhaling second hand fentanyl.
Yes, because I'm angry. Now you understand how Trump got elected. I live in Portland and I have been dealing with the most extreme insanity for years.
I think Jesse tried to touch on this when he mentioned "obvious potential positive externalities of the U.S. engaging in health and development services in other countries", but even if you care only about Americans and not at all about other people, spending 1% of the budget on foreign aid might be a very good deal, because of the benefits of the soft power it gives us. For example, our access to markets and our ability to build military bases in strategically important areas are influenced by our soft power.
Do americans not care about farmer subsidies? I live in rural America, trying desperately to get land for a farm. Im watching programs set up to help farmers have ecological sound, long standing farms get slashed and leaving those farmers holding the bag. Farmers are getting older and older, the average one pushing 60. How do we feed people if we don't get in younger farmers? DEI programs for farmers were set up to bring in young blood, and now that's gone. You care about feeding your kids? Care about supporting farmers. Otherwise, all of our food comes from abroad with high teriffs and a solid mark up on that, God forbid transportation of that food goes down, because then you don't have food at all.
Americans don't care because they dont know the ramifications. And that's fine, they shouldn't need to. But in 3 years when american family farms can't make it anymore, when the farmers retire and the young people can't afford to take on the land and crops (something that has been coming to a head for a decade and made worse by these policies) Americans will start noticing as food becomes more expensive. As your kid goes hungrier at night. And then they'll wonder why this is happening. Thank God they slashed USAID funding, it didn't go to you. It didn't go to your neighbors. It didn't go to farmers feeding you, in fact, it came from them. And then you, your family, your neighbors, the average American, is going to have to pay for it.
And its a celebration for those who don't know now. But for those of us aware of the ramifications are going to be, it's terrifying. Sometimes specialists are important. Sometimes it matters. But its not just brooklynites who can see the problems occuring. It's farmers, too. It's rural communities, too.
Yeah inflation is going to accelerate now, haven't you heard? They lied to you that they are going to decrease prices. They just want power.
The idea that a Jewish male in the United States should be feared for is fucking absurd.
Signed,
An American Jewish male
But I do think it depends on your situation. He is college at a school that is one of the schools that has been singled out by the govt for extreme antisemitism. I am worried when he goes to Jewish spaces, like Hillel or Chabad.
*Talk politics with him
He feels the same, luckily. And I don't talk about poliyeith him, much, or my fears. But I am afraid for him and I know many mothers who feel the same.
It's not quite eggs vs. omelets, but you're lamenting a governance reality: there is no politically sensitive way to make big changes. It's nice to think there is some simultaneously-politically-viable-while-also-practicable way to change course, but there simply isn't. The last time the governing party had this kind of mandate was 2009 - Arlen Specter changed parties! - and we couldn't even get the public option.
There are always going to be dead babies. When, where, who, and how are a matter of policy-making and prioritization. It sucks. I hate it. But it is the human condition.
If all things continue along trendlines, there will be war with China and/or a catastrophic fallout from U.S. financial mismanagement. It seems the only path to avoid confrontation will require massive sacrifice in degrees not displayed since WWII. We might well win a conflict with our near-peer adversary. I of course hope for this outcome. But even this hypothesized victory would be ruinous and Pyrrhic.
It is tragic that Trump's methodology is resulting in these specific harms. However, I think the fundamental choice is this: endure short-term tragedy on the gamble that future catastrophe can be mitigated or avoided by strengthening America's position; or spend the handful of politically useful months he has expending capital on comparatively obscure goals.
We don't strengthen America's position by reducing our influence in the world to save the miniscule budget spent on foreign aid.
I see this as the most important element in the USAID debacle. The US has been able to exercise extraordinary international leadership for 80 years because it adopted a guiding policy of using a small portion of its enormous wealth to provide global aid that would earn enormous goodwill. Our power rested on economic clout and nukes, but equally on the moral profile first adopted as a bipartisan decision with the Marshall Plan. The power of our influence was built on this approach, and it has yielded uncountable benefits for Americans, both economic and political, far beyond the dollars spent. There is no more powerful combination than strength and kindness.
The new administration is not just giving up the advantages of soft power, it is no longer interested in global influence that is not the direct result of hard power transactionally applied. We will no longer be a global leader, only a global threat of increasingly small size. We'll seize what we can by strength (Greenland, Panama, whatever), and then we'll be Fortress USA, making China's belt-and-road type strategy appear generous by contrast. Musk, Hegseth, Vance, are all sending this message to our former allies unambiguously: your welfare is no longer our business; if you want our business, pay what we ask up front. No more Mr. Nice-Guy.
No one could possibly think the woodchips of USAID's budget are savings on the scale of what we are giving up. The issue isn't money: it's blindness to the practical strategic value of kindness.
USAID has been an arm of the CIA and US Empire for many years. Color revolutions R US. Who do you think pays for the demonstrations in the streets of Tblisi. And Kiev in 2014. Who do you think pays for so-called independent media in Ukraine. Oh and we feed some Somalian refugees and tell the gullible folks in the US that we're mainly an international aid agency. Trump has ripped off the blinders and yet so many people continue to buy into the propaganda.
Reid, I anticipated that my comment might receive this kind of response, and also a response noting how many times the US has been called out by those in other countries for its failures to live up to the ideals it professes.
To your point, I don't believe that by labeling something "empire" you make it one. The US has used its leverage as a hegemonic power to ends both bad and good, and the bad is a national shame -- though I suspect you and I might sometimes differ on which uses fell on which side of that line. My own lens for these issues is an attempt to weigh individual cases on the particulars, rather than to presume that US intervention is necessarily evil, which I think has become as much at matter of faith in some circles on the Left as the opposite has been in some circles on the Right.
What has distinguished the US from other powers who exercise hegemonic leverage is that other nations see this as a lapse and try to shame us, and that we are sometimes ashamed. This dynamic did not hold for the USSR and doesn't hold for Russia and the PRC. The fact that we fall short and are taken to task is a function of the increased leverage that initiatives like the Marshall Plan and later USAID provided. The underlying question should not be whether the US global presence has been for the good on the whole, but whether its withdrawal will be for the good on the whole. I suspect you and I would not agree.
To the other objection I anticipated, pointing to the anger that the US has provoked by failing to meet its ideals, I'd reply to by noting that the US has been unusual in inspiring ethical expectations that it could fail, and that inspiration has clearly been of value well beyond the price paid for the many cases where it has failed to meet those expectations.
As for your comment about Bill Kristol et al., below: the DOGE acolytes are dismayed that USAID supported causes on the Left and progressives are dismayed that it supported causes on the Right. They are reaching into the pot and pulling out individual items they think will enrage the people on their side. This is the politics that has brought us to this pass, and I think those on the Left should realize that the outcome of this game is asymmetrical: it is a tsunami from the Right. We are already drowning in it.
If we're really getting ready for war with China, like thread OP said, then we absolutely need more CIA, not less.
And not 10% or 20% more. Like 10x more.
You think China's equivalent is just sitting back doing nothing?
oh, and did I mention that Bill Kristol received money which originated in USAID (after being laundered through other organizations). But I guess I forgot: the former neocon apologists for war crimes (can you say Dick Cheney?) are now loyal Democrats! See: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/even_a_short_list_of_how_usaid_spent_our_money_is_outrageous.html
Let's assume this is true. Being able to overthrow governments hostile to the US for less than 1% of our annual budget is a steal!
We paid for demonstrations in Kiev? And in return we drained Russia's military without risking any American lives? I see this as an absolute win!
Of course, this isn't true. USAID payments are public, we know where they all went.
Weakening America's international influence is probably the only net-positive that's going to come out of this madness. But we're also weakening our domestic effectiveness, and are dying and more are going to die. Trumpism is the violent convulsion of a declining empire.
Several years ago I watched a video of an art class provided to Afghan women by the USA. Efforts to improve their lot are commendable. This particular class session was on the art of urinals. The expression on their faces as they were shown various urinals was WTF. I hope no husbands were informed.
It is an assumption, without evidence, that broadly this money is being productively spent. In the above case I would say it's counter-productive. The USAID bucket has money to combat HIV combined with irrigation in Afghanistan that doubled poppy production. Grants can be cherry-picked to support USAID good or USAID bad. Fixing this could start by having with each grant the name of the advocate who decided that expenditure was useful. This would give a source to query on why do it and also visibility on conflicts of interest.
"Fixing this could start by having with each grant the name of the advocate who decided that expenditure was useful."
I like this idea. In the name of congressional oversight, I'd even say that if you want your USAID grant approved you need someone in congress to vouch for it.
I don't know? Maybe make changes in 6 months instead of 1 week, after literally asking anyone that is knowledgeable about any these topics what all these programs do? Maybe put someone in charge that has enough good, adult sense that he isn't getting emotionally hung up and lying about having highly ranked video game characters?
I am so, so tired of false dichotomies. Of course there are a million shades between the current state and whatever Musk is doing.
And by all means - there is absolutely no reason to be mean about dead babies. Cut the funds, I guess, but the eyeroll attached to it? The smug social media updates? That's cruel. Saying that he's going to turn Gaza into a hotel strip? Inhumane. At least I'm smart enough to know that if I see someone treat someone else badly, I expect that is also exactly how they will treat me when it suits them. I have always, always considered that everyone who watches poor character and bad treatment of other people and is - shocked! - when it is turned on them the most pathetic and deluded of fools.
And that is the meanest thing I've written on the internet in a long, long time.
There was no good reason to make huge and disruptive changes to the government. What we needed was permitting reform and civil service reform, not this shit.
What catastrophe are you even talking about?
I think our economic trajectory is not sustainable. I think that however it is resolved will be to the detriment of millions of people. This could take a bunch of different forms, ranging from my children experiencing American civil service in full dilapidation to world war because of irreconcilable differences.
Think of just the 2008 crash or COVID: comparatively mild, short-term disruptions that wreaked havoc on certain demographics.
I do not defend the cuts to USAID, but I understand them. Stories like those Jesse highlighted are heartbreaking; any major policy shift will result in similar stories. The status quo will result in similar stories.
Trump and company likely perceive a limited window of maximum effectiveness. Resistance will gel. They will get bogged down.
I'm not convinced that destroying USAID is helping to "change course", and I think getting rid of it is in fact a "comparatively obscure goal". It is not a large amount of money, compared to the overall size of Federal spending. While I think it's crucial to do something about bureaucratic rot, I don't see how USAID is contributing much to the inefficiency of the government overall. I won't pretend to know the effect this has on international politics, but I would think it is to US detriment (and China's benefit), insofar as it harms US soft power.
I've visited some 40 countries and lived in a handful. The only U.S. foreign policy I've ever heard discussed was 1) defense: 2) Israel/mideast; 3) sports/culture/business; and 4) esoteric current events unique to the person's country. I cannot recall a single conversation about mosquito nets or condoms or anything else of the nature. USAID might make for a nice executive talking point, but it surely is not beautifying agent people seem to think it is.
Why couldn't DOGE have given US AID recipients three months notice before turning off the spigot?
I lit on the word 'gamble.' It seems like a HUGE and very doubtful gamble.
Thank you for writing this. One of the reasons I'm a big fan of free speech is that I like to know who the sociopaths in the room are, and if there is a high amount of censorship those people can fly under the radar. Your articles and posts on Twitter/X perform a valuable public service in goading sociopaths into flying their true colors. Same goes for the dark triad cultists who are functionally illiterate on all things statistics, government, economics, international relations, how soft-power works, and so on.
I do find the one-sided calls for evidence of the obvious harms the sledgehammer approach is causing (documented by dozens of news-outlets) amusing given the complete silence in demanding that God Emperor Musk provides real evidence of fraud and abuse (something his team found mind you, not something that was brought to light years ago by journalists and/or Inspector Generals) and/or treating all his tweets as gospel.
Musk tweets something completely insane to justify the ax: sounds reasonable.
Jesse suggests that such an action is likely to have severe negative consequences based on logic and already established reporting: HOW DARE YOU BE EMOTIONAL!? HOW DO YOU KNOW?! HAVE YOU TRAVELED THERE YOURSELF??!! WHAT EVIDENCE DO YOU HAVE... AND RELATEDLY WHAT ARE HYPERLINKS????
Also, either the cultists in the comments didn't read the title of this post (which would've immediately let them know that this wasn't going to be a deep-data dive), or they decided to rage-read from the outset (or not read at all and just publicly seethe).
You know, I've always felt the Great Replacement Theory was grotesque racism by those peddling the conspiracy (because it objectively is). Now however, after wading through the rage directed at Jesse over him mildly calling out the insanity and pure evil of what Trump is doing, I'm becoming a fan. Not of the racists, but of actually replacing them. I'd much rather be neighbors with someone who trekked a thousand plus miles to get here to seek a better life - regardless of how they entered the country - than those who look at children dying in Sudan and say "I don't care." Cultists can still make the idiotic argument that this country is "full." I'll gladly facilitate one to one swaps. Import people who want to be here desperately, export the cultists to somewhere like Yemen or Somalia. No taxes or real government structure there. No taxpayer dollars going to liberal causes like stopping children from starving to death in foreign countries. Conservative moral values applied to everyone who isn't male and part of the dominant religion. Lots of guns. They'll love it. Everyone wins. Let's make the Great Replacement happen y'all.
I jest, kind of. The plan would never work. After all the 14th Amendment provides birthright citizenship, and it would be illegal to deport citizens. Thankfully, nobody out there is trying to get rid of birthright citizenship through blatantly illegal actions...
Devin,how much money have you donated this week to Sudan to make up for what you perceive as the losses they are suffering because USAID has been cut? Didn't think so. But your willingness to deport every American who disagrees with you (?!) speaks volumes. Actually, it is textbook post 2010 Democrats. I have heard (and said!) the same myself. I found that the more involved I got in my actual community, the less posturing I needed to do online. In my experience, nearly everything coming out of Washington is shit. If you want to demonstrate your compassion, step out into the world and do it with your time and money like the rest of us sociopaths.
Ooooh, you got me. I haven't donated anything this week. Does this make me a hypocrite? Or, perhaps slightly more likely, is it that getting aid to Sudan is an incredibly complex logistical feat that USAID had accomplished with my well spent tax dollars, and now that it has been "fed into the woodchipper" it is going to be hard to replicate/replace, and is a task I a mere mortal cannot accomplish on my own (which is why strong organizations are important)?
See, despite what those who are incapable of thinking beyond their own personal experience might state, USAID did a lot of good, and saved a lot of lives. Its existence meant I could focus on helping people in my core competencies. This is why I donate a majority of my time and personal resources to trying to alleviate gun violence. It's why my family and I have sponsored refugees from Ukraine and interpreters and their families from Afghanistan. Where the US Government was dropping the ball for whatever reason (and even the nonprofit sector overall), I could focus on that niche. But now that dark triad personalities are ascendent along with their cults, everything is in flux.
I can't save everyone in the world. No one can. But if a child is drowning in pond next to me, it is my moral obligation to at least try to save that child. And in a world with near infinite ponds, I have to pick where I can be most helpful, in areas that are overlooked by those far more powerful and wealthier than I. And yet in this world of ponds and drowning, MAGA and Muskovite cultists have decided to actively throw even more children into those pools to drown, and then gleeful demonstrate their sociopathy on comment threads such as this.
Do I want to deport everyone that disagrees with me? Obviously not. Deport those who are cheerleading the deaths of thousands across the world due to the insanely idiotic and cruel actions of God Emperor Dr. Strangelove? I'd much rather deport them than those coming here for a better life.
Was my initial comment (and this one) posturing? Absolutely. I needed an outlet to vent, and this was an excellent avenue. Stuff like this helps me overcome writer's block. Am I a particularly good person? No. But as bad as my mental health makes me think about myself, those who decide to posture online about their utter lack of compassion ironically provide glimmers of hope. As bad as I may be, there are apparently a bunch of people out there who are much worse. And at least I'm trying to be better. And with ever more people flying their true colors, it provides even more motivation to help those truly in need. So thank you for the esteem and confidence boosts, I needed them.
I like your jest, kind of.
As I suspected while some of the claims about stopped trials are repugnant, they are also overblown. The statement about rings ‘stuck inside people’ immediately stood out as a gross exaggeration. See link below which refers to the device as ‘user controlled’ bc of course no medical intervention that involves vaginal surgery was going to be effective in rural African medicine.
The Timea article does some other BS too - talking about how now participants wont get the adverse event monitoring - well they also aren’t getting the medicine either so the likelihood of AEs is small. Yes, I understand Rx half-life and their good be emerging symptoms from suddenly stopping a medicine … which should have been identified in Ph1 healthy volunteers!
Totally willing to admit Elon’s pell mell cost cutting has consequences. Said to see Jesse abandon his normally rigorous reporting to swallow every anecdote hook line and sinker.
https://www.prepwatch.org/products/dapivirine-vaginal-ring/
"The statement about rings ‘stuck inside people’ immediately stood out as a gross exaggeration"
Singal didn't say anything about "rings", and there's a part of that Times article that mentions this:
"A clinical trial run by the development organization FHI 360, which implemented many U.S.A.I.D.-funded health programs and studies, was testing a biodegradable hormonal implant to prevent pregnancy. Women in the Dominican Republic had the devices in their bodies when U.S.A.I.D. funding was cut off."
Since those implants are experimental, just leaving them in patients without medical oversight is asinine.
This is also shockingly cavalier: "The Timea [sic] article does some other BS too - talking about how now participants wont get the adverse event monitoring - well they also aren’t getting the medicine either so the likelihood of AEs is small. Yes, I understand Rx half-life and their [sic] good [sic] be emerging symptoms from suddenly stopping a medicine … which should have been identified in Ph1 healthy volunteers!"
It doesn't seem to have occurred to you that testing in "Ph1 healthy volunteers" won't necessarily identify all the problems from "suddenly stopping a medicine", especially if those problems come from can come from interactions between the medicine and the disease that it's supposed to treat -- disease which the "healthy volunteers" wouldn't have.
Finally, did you notice my first statement was that some of this is repugnant, and one of my last was the pell mell approach has real human costs? Bc I think you just saw parts you didn’t like and labeled it as hateful when I’m just asking for honest and accurate reporting. Things are bad enough without scare tactics and obvious manipulation a La the deadly medical devices trapped inside women.
"Finally, did you notice my first statement was that some of this is repugnant"
Yes, yes, I took that with the same seriousness as Trump saying about Mexican immigrants, "And some, I assume, are good people." 🙄
Good thing you took the time to edit such a profoundly droll comeback.
And yes I’m typing with my thumbs in a comment section. The time you took out of your life to write [sic] throughout my mistakes is quite funny.
My point about the rings is that they can be taken out. The framing makes it seem like it required medical intervention to do so. Anyone vaguely familiar with contraception options would realize this was, as I said, an exaggeration of the problem. Described as hauling women into the clinic bc funding was cut or else they would face some medical calamity.
The implants mentioned aren't the same as the rings that you mentioned.
Appreciate the correction I was piecing together the Times article from behind the paywall looks like I made inaccurate assumptions. If you see this and can be bothered please send me the link to the device / trial.
It’s not shockingly cavalier - it’s how careful science progresses to prevent harm to vulnerable people. Dose escalating studies exist for a reason. If a discontinuation AE jumps out in efficacy trials it’s likely and indictment of lack of rigor in earlier trials.
What's cavalier is waving off the risk of adverse effects as small and assuming that earlier rigorous tests on healthy individuals would be enough to make that risk small.
You're basically handwaving away potentially deadly risks with an, "Oh, it's probably fine."
I'm not clear what you're saying. Participants in phase 2 and 3 trials discontinue for AEs all the time....in fact I can't recall a study where no one discontinued due to an AE. But I think I'm misinterpreting, can you clarify?
I meant AEs caused by discontinuation itself. Like suddenly stopping SSRIs can have severe sequelae. These are what we would be worried about if a trial was stopped prematurely and participants weren’t given a chance to titrate off Tx.
Generally, this risk should be low once we are in Ph2/3. Of course I now have to make the tiresome response that low is not no, and also this isn’t the right approach to clinical study - which I began and ended my op with in the hopes someone might give me a modicum of credit that I’m not lauding this approach and in fact see real costs and harms from it.
My problem is with the reporting which I wished showed more credulity.
Ahhh yes, now I see what you mean, and I agree with your entire comment.
Thank you … even as I read the end of my last comment and recognize at least a teensy bit overreaction on my own part given this is my own clarifying comment part 13/15
EVIDENCE! I need evidence of all these harms that are just the tip of the iceberg (more evidence needed for the iceberg as well).
First of all, Jesse did provide some evidence. Second, it's on Elon to prove that his actions are in fact improving efficiency and not causing undue harm. Our country has been degraded so far in just a few weeks that it doesn't even occur to people to demand accountability for actions that are so broad-based and destructive. Ask Elon for evidence.
That would be great and I would wade through that evidence if it were forthcoming, but it seems very hard to come by, in great part because of the wild, fast, and seemingly uninformed methods that are being used to identify and exult in these cuts. Watching it from afar, it is really easy to believe that unnecessary harms are probably coming out of this process. There is nothing in the behavior that inspires any confidence.
I don't want someone making cuts to vital services who has 12 children with four different mothers, and who doesn't have time to coach one of them every week in soccer. Much less coach all of them.
Am I part of the problem if I ask to see some actual evidence of these horror stories? Should I just accept these allegations as true? Aren't journalists who want to be taken seriously responsible for citing sources for their claims.
Taking an ax to USAID may be a very bad thing but if you are to oppose it successfully Jesse, you need evidence. You're a great journalist but here is a situation in which you need to do better.
Are there evidence sources? If you know of them I would love the links. In the meantime, my question is - do you trust the process? Are you confident in the methods, in the intent? Are you comfortable with what you are seeing? I would love to sit back and say, I'm sure it's all fine, everything that they are doing is surely well thought through, safe, measured. But that is just not what it looks and sounds like. (I would sleep better if I concluded that I am wrong.)
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Christina. However, I feel constrained to point out that the burden of proof is upon the person making a contention. All I'm asking Jesse to do here is do what journalists always did before they became partisan polemiscists: offer evidence. Since I am making no contention here, I have no obligation to offer evidence.
Actually, the burden of proof is on the person making the policy change. Elon is engaging in what any reasonable person would say looks like destruction for the sake of destruction. He is the one obligated to provide the proof that the things he is doing will result in improved efficiency and not great harm.
No doubt you're on point re: Musk et al offering justification for the acts they take. But that's just not the point I'm making. Jesse has made claims of extreme harm from the cuts to USAID. Those claims require factual support if they are to be considered anything other than sheer show biz. The point you are making is valid. It's just not part of this exchange.
Good comment
This more simply echoes my thoughts above...
I also think that part of the conflict in myself and other newly displaced democrats who are (dispositionally?) inclined to be horrified by aid being cut to innocent, needy individuals is that we have been so lied to, which now makes us doubt the horror stories. With the manipulative tactics of "Trans people are being genocided," "Would you rather have a live trans son or a dead daughter," "Puberty blockers are reversible and harmless," "Minors don't have their breasts/penises amputated" that especially we parents of ROGD youth can see through, we have lost our trust in other horrors being reported accurately.
You caricatured our universally cherished and near-miraculous medical care into something that's a "horror" to yourself - so that you could ignore the horrors and abuses and deaths you're seeing happen in front of you right now? And then you say that everyone else has failed to prove ourselves as trustworthy, to you? Everything you've admitted about yourself as a person makes you the untrustworthy one.
I did not say that I'm "ignoring" the horrors, abuses, and deaths I'm "seeing," but that knowing how irresponsibly and falsely "gender medicine" has been reported on has made me question the accuracy of other claims. How do you describe a "bodily transition" in a minor as "successful" in light of detransitioners who are suing practitioners because of insufficient diagnosis, lack of true informed consent, and regret for lost bodily functions as well as medical damage?
100 % you are absolutely right.
In Lisa's defense, it is not an obviously incorrect position to regard the removal of a minor child's penis or breasts as a "horror." I can say that: I don't think minors should undergo surgery to alter their sex. I don't think I'm in a small minority, either.
No person reading this is going to see it as understandable when Lisa describes their successful bodily transition as a "horror", and you don't need to defend her when she unnecessarily chooses to publicly describe another person's body in that way.
Jesse,
very compelling. The only thing I question is whether the motivation is more resentment or z power grab. But I suppose that doesn't really matter very much when people are needlessly dying because of sociopathic behavior.
The demolition of USAID and other executive agencies isn’t to cut spending – next to no one on the dissident right is saying that or ever did. The whole endeavor is motivated by a desire to deprive leftist NGOs of their patronage by the state.
You can still think it’s a horrible thing to do regardless of their motives, but I’m surprised that you didn’t reference their actual motives in their taking a sledgehammer to federal agencies. The dissident right aren’t shy about their belief in patron/client politics.