The Numbing of America
Don't look away.
Trump writes ‘Vladimir, STOP!’ after Russia launches deadliest strikes on Kyiv since last summer — CNN
Ah, who among us can forget the immortal words of FDR in 1940: “Adolph, STOP!”
Happy Friday.
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ICYMI…
A Memo to RFK, Jr.
I recorded a quick video tonight about a story that’s been haunting me all day. And I didn’t want it to get lost amid all of the other chaos and bullshit:
Numb America
The Trump Era has been (in no particular order): disorientating, exhausting, disillusioning, outrageous, and dangerous. It’s left millions frightened, angry, and determined to resist.
But I want to talk for moment about what it has done to the American heart. Trumpism revels in its toughness and its cruelty; America First encourages Americans to look away from the rest of the world. America Alone means a calculated indifference not just to international threats, but to human suffering abroad.
Six days ago, the NYT reported: “As Famine Rages in Sudan, U.S. Aid Remains Scarce.”
Don’t look away.
The children died one after the other. Twelve acutely malnourished infants living in one corner of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital, Khartoum.
Abdo, an 18-month-old boy, had been rushed to a clinic by his mother as he was dying. His ribs protruded from his withered body. The next day, a doctor laid him out on a blanket with a teddy bear motif, his eyes closed.
Like the other 11 children, Abdo starved to death in the weeks after President Trump froze all U.S. foreign assistance, said local aid workers and a doctor. American-funded soup kitchens in Sudan, including the one near Abdo’s house, had been the only lifelines for tens of thousands of people besieged by fighting.
Bombs were falling. Gunfire was everywhere. Then, as the American money dried up, hundreds of soup kitchens closed in a matter of days.
“It was catastrophic,” said Duaa Tariq, an aid worker.
The stark consequences of Mr. Trump’s slashing of U.S. aid are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has set off a staggering humanitarian catastrophe and left 25 million people — more than half of the country’s population — acutely hungry.
This should shock the conscience of the nation. But America does not seem shocked. It just seems numbed. It is too overwhelmed, too distracted to care all that much. And, of course, there are the amplified voices of indifference telling Americans that this is not their problem. Telling them that they should not care, not help. JD Vance and others tell us, we should focus instead on Americans — whose aid, ironically enough, he is also busy slashing.
It was not always this way.
To be sure we shouldn’t gild our history: America has looked away before. But not always.
Many of you remember how the world — and Americans — rallied to address Ethiopia’s biblical famine of 1983-1985. But our history of humanitarianism goes back much further. For a great summary, go here: “America’s Legacy and Leadership in Fighting Global Hunger.”
As early as 1812, Americans sent ships full of wheat flour to relieve survivors of a deadly earthquake in Venezuela. During the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s, the U.S. sent ships loaded with food from Catholic Charities to the starving people of Ireland. During WWI, when German blockages threatened famine, the United States established a Commission for Relief in Belgium (headed by future president Herbert Hoover) that sent assistance to 10 million French and Belgian civilians. After the war, we sent millions of dollars to prevent famine in Soviet Russia, eventually opening 19,000 kitchens across the country, feeding 11 million Russians.
After WWII, the country stepped up again to rebuild war-ravaged Europe. Winston Churchill called the Marshall Plan "the most unsordid act in history,” while British historian Norman Davies described it as "an act of the most enlightened self-interest in history."
It was precisely this sort of aid that defined America’s identity and role in the world. It was also a huge strategic asset.
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the U.N. General Assembly in 1960, he focused on the problem of world hunger:
“We must never forget that there are hundreds of millions of people, particularly in the less developed parts of the world, suffering from hunger and malnutrition, even though a number of countries, my own included, are producing food in surplus. This paradox should not be allowed to continue.”
His successor John F. Kennedy expanded on those efforts when he created USAID. Five days after he assumed office, in the first televised presidential news conference, Kennedy announced plans to send food aid to the Congo. Like Eisenhower, Kennedy understood the strategic value of “Food for Peace”.
“Food is strength, and food is peace, and food is freedom,” Kennedy said, “and food is a helping hand to people around the world whose good will and friendship we want.”
In June 1963, JFK again addressed world hunger in a speech to the United Nations.
“For the first time in the history of the world we do know how to produce enough food now to feed every man, woman, and child in the world…” Kennedy said. “We have the ability, we have the means, and we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime. We only need the will.”
Amid all of the stumbles and disasters of US foreign policy (and there have been many), the humanitarian aid continued to flow.
When a devastating earthquake hit Iran in 1962, American aid was there. America was also there when disasters hit Honduras, Rwanda, Sudan, and Ethiopia. For decades the commitment to world hunger — and the soft power it projected — was a bipartisan issue. In the 1990s, Democrat George McGovern worked with Republican Bob Dole to create the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program.
**
Now all of that is being dismantled. Not reformed — simply shut down. If the Marshall Plan was the most “unsordid” act in history, the Trump/Vance/Rubio abandonment of humanitarian aid may be remembered as history’s most sordid moment.
America ought to be appalled. But, for the most part, Americans’ attention is simply elsewhere. And, let’s be honest, too many Americans who have been told not to care have numbed their consciences.
But, at least for a moment, let’s focus on what we used to be; and what we are becoming.
Exit take: The great irony is that much of this is being done by people who consider themselves ‘Christian” and wrap themselves in Christian identity. Perhaps you might want to share this with your MAGA friends the next time you meet them in church:
Matthew 25:35 - For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.
Isaiah 58:10 - And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.
Romans 12:20 - To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Psalm 22:26 - “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord!”
Psalm 146:7 - Who executes justice for the oppressed, Who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free.
Nota Bene
[More to come later.]
Trump’s immigration ratings turn negative, Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds - The Washington Post
CNN: A frustrated Trump privately concedes ending the Ukraine war has been harder than he thought
Washington Post: Trump and GOP ramp up investigations on Democrats’ top fundraising platform
Politico: Pentagon leadership vacuum overwhelms Hegseth's office: 'It's a free-for-all'
Wall Street Journal: Polygraph Threats, Leaks and Infighting: Pentagon Chaos Rattles Hegseth
Washington Post: Hegseth defended his Signal leak. Others lost clearances for similar lapses.
Associated Press: Hegseth had an unsecured internet line set up in his office to connect to Signal, AP sources say
Politico: Controversial Hegseth chief of staff to leave Pentagon
Elissa Slotkin, the former CIA analyst turned battleground senator, will on Thursday start road-testing what she calls a “war plan” to “contain and defeat Donald Trump.”
In the first of a series of speeches about the Democratic Party’s path out of the wilderness, the Michigan senator said she will span everything from strategy to tactics and tone, acknowledging public perception of the party as “weak and woke” needs to change.
She is urging Democrats to “fucking retake the flag” with appeals to voters’ sense of patriotism, to adopt “the goddamn Alpha energy” of Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell and to embrace an “airing out” of potential 2028 presidential candidates in a broadly contested primary.
Friday dogs… And a happy ending
From my wife’s Substack newsletter: A remarkable story of rescue and redemption. Read this first: The Braunschweiger Method - by J. F. Riordan. It’s about a lonely, hungry, homeless puppy…. who had to be coaxed with singing and bribed with treats.
His new name is Gus. With all his adult teeth in, but very clean, he is between 6 months and a year old. He is not microchipped. He has one undescended testicle, a birth defect that will require surgery, but a minor problem if you can afford it. No word on his hips until x-rays can be done. Notifications have been made to the humane society and local police agencies, and his photo has been shared hundreds of times on social media. No one has claimed him. He is gentle and sweet with the household’s 14 year old small fluffy dog, and with the young grandson. He is being fed well, and after receiving a brief house call for a quick look over, will make an official visit to the vet for a full exam next week. His new family are supremely kind, financially secure, and asking questions about food, supplements, and training. In short: Gus has won the lottery.
I feel what you're saying about what MAGA has done to the American heart. As I struggled with my emotions about the ugliness ascendent this week, I realized that I've given up on the goodness of the American people. 2021 broke a lot of things inside me -- both the coup and seeing how people acted during COVID. I started thinking things like "how on earth can we get people to care about wildlife and the environment when they won't even wear a fucking mask to go shopping for a giant screen tv?" And then Trump got reelected. I don't know how to move forward without cynicism in believing in the goodness of people anymore.
THEY ARE ARRESTING THE JUDGES NOW!!! This is a 5 alarm fire. If they get away with it they won’t stop.