https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/04/democrats-foreign-aid-trap-trump-00202447

When I asked veteran strategist David Axelrod whether Democrats were “walking into a trap” on defending foreign aid, he literally finished my sentence.

“My heart is with the people out on the street outside USAID, but my head tells me: ‘Man, Trump will be well satisfied to have this fight,’” he said. “When you talk about cuts, the first thing people say is: Cut foreign aid.”

Rahm Emanuel — the former House leader, Chicago mayor and diplomat — told me much the same: “You don’t fight every fight. You don’t swing at every pitch. And my view is — while I care about the USAID as a former ambassador — that’s not the hill I’m going to die on,” he said.

Trump’s orbit, meanwhile, couldn’t be happier seeing Democratic lawmakers lined up on a downtown Washington sidewalk Monday — in their view, wasting political capital defending an agency that they believe the public doesn’t give a rip about. Musk himself spent the following 24 hours posting videos of Democrats protesting the move.

“The federal bureaucracy is very unpopular. … It’s a pretty widely held, majority position — if you poll it, people think the government is wasting money. And, very simply, that’s the battle that we’re fighting,” one senior Trump administration official told me Tuesday. “The Democrats are now taking the opposite position: ‘Everything’s perfect.’ ‘Nothing to look at here.’ ‘No money is wasted.’ ‘All your tax dollars are being spent well.’”

“Not a very politically tenable position,” the person added.

The political considerations in vocally defending foreign aid are of course entirely separate from the humanitarian and national security concerns at play.

Dismantling USAID is already having tragic consequences for health and development programs worldwide, Axelrod pointed out, and America’s withdrawal from the world will give its adversaries new opportunities to win influence abroad.

Republicans had long been proponents of exerting “soft power” — winning global hearts and minds by feeding the hungry, fostering emerging economies and getting vaccines to the most vulnerable populations. China, notably, stands ready to fill the void.

That’s to say nothing of the argument that Democrats’ fight needs to be everywhere all at once given the scale of the threat. That’s what Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz passionately argued to me soon after this column first published.

“People empowered by the president are violating federal law in multiple ways, taking over federal payments, illegally shutting down whole departments, freezing Head Start and Medicaid, and the best these podcasters can muster is that we should wait for a more popular program to defend? Spare me,” said Schatz, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee overseeing USAID.

“The emergency is now. We need to act like it,” he added. “This isn’t about any particular program or the theater criticism that substitutes for strategy. This is about making sure these billionaires are not able to loot the federal government and strip it for parts.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626312)

DEBUNKED FAR RIGHT CONSPIRACY THEORY!!! 🥳🥳🥳🎇🎆🎇

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/02/05/media/politico-usaid-subscription-government

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626324)

i'm waiting for the first smart Dem to publicly say that a hard look at USAID funds is overdue.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626337)

“Dem”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626369)

Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, is dismantling USAID, which feeds the poorest children on earth.

This is oligarchy at its worst.

Musk’s actions are not only immoral and unconstitutional, they are counterproductive to our standing in the world.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626464)

the more people find out the mindbending reality of where all this money was ACTUALLY going, and the more they start following these bread crumb trails, the more people are implicated and the more devastating this all becomes for the likes of (((Axelrod))).

it's corruption on a monumental scale.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626376)

She went on Colbert to do damage control just a couple nights ago.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626554)

Jews, real talk let's cut the "hehe" sophistic kike bullshit for a minute and try to be serious:

Do you guys feel the genuine national vibe shift that is happening yet? Even a little bit?

Do you have ANY sense at all that something "big" might be heading your way? I'm not claiming it will happen this year, or even next year or the year after that... but soon rather than later?

I don't actually expect honest good faith answers from you people, but I sure would love to know. I really do wonder what goes on in your little rat skulls sometimes other than weird sexual fantasies involving blonde shiksas and giant anthropomorphic dollar bills or whatever.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626580)

Also seems like for the last few years, almost all of that growing chatter seems to be strongly trending in only "one direction" for "pretty much" all "demographics" under "<40." Hehe!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5675965&forum_id=2#48626626)