Trumpian USA goes from absurd to weird amid sacking of outdated institution – and norms

US President Donald Trump

WASHINGTON: A US-funded transgender clinic in Hyderabad is among the many hundreds of packages fed into the “woodchipper” as Donald Trump’s MAGA minions led by Elon Musk gutted USAID, the US authorities’s fundamental overseas support company, summarily firing most of 10,000 plus work power within the US and abroad.
Lengthy festering resentment in MAGA circles at “liberal” Washington institutions losing billions of {dollars} in US tax-payer cash on “woke” packages the world over, a few of which they are saying are anathema to even host international locations, resulted within the new Trump dispensation torching the Kennedy-established USAID on Thursday.
Greater than 6000 USAID personnel in missions the world over, along with 4000 based mostly within the US, have been abruptly sacked amid a lot handwringing that good packages — many regarding illnesses like malaria and tuberculosis, diet for youngsters, and meals and medication to probably the most weak — was being buried with the questionable and dodgy.
MAGA activists cited dozens of packages, from a $20 million support to supply a brand new Sesame Road (youngsters’s) present in Iraq to $4.5 million to “fight misinformation in Kazakhstan,” to $1.5 million to advertise LGBT advocacy in Jamaica, to vent their ire on the greater than $ 40 billion that USAID was disbursing yearly.
Among the many packages they cited was one the place USAID partnered with Johns Hopkins College below the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Aid (PEPFAR), to launch India’s first complete well being clinic for the transgender group in Hyderabad named the Mitr Clinic in January 2021.
Moreover, two extra clinics have been established in Maharashtra in July 2021 to supply complete well being care companies, together with common well being companies, steerage on hormone remedy, gender affirmation procedures, psychological well being counseling, and HIV/STI therapy, all in a “stigma-free atmosphere.”
The initiative is alleged to be a part of USAID’s broader efforts to help well being outcomes and inclusivity for the transgender group in India, the place the company has a comparatively modest $ 150 million program total. India has lengthy weaned itself out of US munificence, preferring commerce to assist, and the $ 150 million USAID program within the nation accounts for lower than 0.25 per cent of US overseas support scattered all over the world.
USAID web sites and social media handles, together with its India handles, disappeared in a single day as Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) riffled by way of itemized US authorities’s spending listing to spotlight what MAGA rank and file see as wasteful spending on the expense of American tax payers, whilst tens of hundreds of US authorities staff throughout companies are being sacked or urged to stop.
Among the motion on Thursday bordered on the comical as pro-Musk MAGA warriors and so-called “woke” activists doxxed (publicly named and shamed) personnel on each side. Musk ridiculed studies {that a} 19-year-old DOGE staffer whose on-line identify is “Massive Balls” had in a single day change into a authorities skilled, whilst Marko Elez, one other DOGE nerd deployed by Musk, was reported to have resigned after anti-Musk activists unearthed a few of his racist social media posts looking for, amongst different issues, to “Normalize Indian hate.”
Different posts cited included “I’d not thoughts in any respect if Gaza and Israel have been each wiped off the face of the Earth” and “99% of Indian H1Bs will likely be changed by barely smarter LLMs, they’re going again don’t fear guys.”
Amid a rising social media conflagration, Musk and his supporters warned activists doxing his so-called “Nerd Pressure” that they might face prosecution, together with a Boston College staffer who shared a “needed for treason — lifeless or alive” poster claiming Musk and his minions have been finishing up a coup in Washington.
As if all this was not weird sufficient, Trump on Friday morning introduced that he can be signing an Government Order subsequent week “ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!”
“Best President ever!” Musk responded to the publish. A couple of minutes later, he added, “I like @realDonaldTrump as a lot as a straight man can love one other man.”