Inadequate and stupid
These days it’s getting harder and harder to adequately capture with words the absurdity and malevolence of Trump and his goons. Right before our very eyes, Trump and the richest human being on the planet are maliciously and gratuitously heaping misery on the planet’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Yet Republican Senators and members of Congress applaud (or pretend to applaud) this wholly unnecessary evil.
Apparently, some lower echelon members of the Trump “administration” are aware of the hypocrisy these horrendously inhumane cruelties represent, and are taking steps to soften the political backlash. The Washington Post reports that a memo circulating among USAID employees warns them not to communicate with the press about these shocking disruptions to humanitarian assistance.
The memo then claims to be “correcting” a “false narrative in the press” about the disruptions to worldwide assistance. It claims that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver for “lifesaving humanitarian assistance,” allowing it to continue despite the Trump-Musk freeze in agency spending. The memo claims that this assistance has “continued uninterrupted and has never paused.” Ominously, the memo threatens recipients with potential dismissal for any “unauthorized external engagement with the press.”
This nonsense of course poses a question. If desperately-needed aid is continuing, why are members of USAID forbidden — with the threat of termination — from discussing it with the press?
The answer is simple. The memo is a complete and total lie, and the writers probably know it’s a lie as certainly as its recipients know it’s a lie. There is almost no emergency aid going out whatsoever. While it’s true that Rubio issued the waiver, it has had virtually no effect. The New York Times reported recently that senior USAID officials also received a memo. It explicitly directed them to hold off on approving some of this exception assistance pending further directives from on high. What’s more, while a tiny percentage of this assistance did continue due to Rubio’s waiver, most of it has encountered serious disruptions. The bottom line is, virtually all assistance has been cut off.
One thing the writer or writers of the memo appear to understand is Trump and Musk and the rest of America’s new insect overlords are aware of how bad they look to some of the American people. Unlike the Nazis, who went to great lengths to hide the horrors of “The Final Solution,” Trump and Musk seeme catatonically unconscious of how evil what they are doing is. The few who understand how bad it is are too inept to adequately cover it up.
Trump and Musk continue to commit these appalling crimes against humanity because they think it makes them look powerful and decisive. But to Americans capable of thought it makes them look weak and cruel. Meanwhile, Republican House member and fulltime moron Scott Perry has accused USAID of funding terrorists like ISIS and Al-Qaida. This is what happens when inadequate and stupid people take over.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.