Fair weather friends

Rage and disgust. Disgust and rage. These are pretty much my two modes of late. 

There are so many things to be pissed about. And it feels impossible to write anything worthwhile, given the relentless news sprint. Every time I sit down, I find whatever I wrote before is now irrelevant. I’ve written and deleted a lot over the past few months.

In order to write anything at all, I’m trying to reframe it as a sandcastle exercise, acknowledging that within seconds of posting, the waves of news will have washed it away.

So here we are.

Chapter 1: the death of USAID

The executive order titled “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” froze U.S. foreign assistance programs and immediately left thousands of people without lifesaving medication and other assistance, tens of thousands out of work. Even if a judge reversed this order tomorrow (which is looking less and less likely), the damage is done. 

Just one example: eight million people in South Africa - nearly 13% of the population- are living with HIV. Of these, 6.2 million are on treatment, predominantly subsidized by bilateral aid. That means that in the weeks since the stop work order was issued, millions of people here in South Africa have lost access to antiretroviral medications (ARVs) that literally keep them alive. 

Nearly all USAID employees have been let go, and many of the organizations they work with have had to furlough or fire most, if not all, of their staff. That means families around the world suddenly lost their income overnight.

Years of progress in global health, economic growth, jobs, and stability - wiped out. And for what?

This is not and never was about saving money, since aid represents less than 1% of the national budget while Trump is by some accounts is simultaneously planning to buy hundreds of millions of dollars in Teslas.

It’s not about national security, since the suspension is kneecapping the U.S.’s standing on the world stage. By putting a stop to these literally lifesaving programs, by not honoring our commitments, we’re leaving a gap that countries like China, Russia, and Iran are more than happy to fill. Not only does that put countless sick and hungry people at risk, it also undermines our relationships with our allies, which compromises U.S. national security, now and in the long term. So the argument for this being in America’s strategic interests at risk is complete bullshit.

This is all about power. 

Political power over collective decision-making. Economic power over resources and how they’re used. Cultural power over what people believe, value, do, and create.

And when you’re stuck in a power pissing contest, you see who your real friends are.

Chapter 2: the death of academic integrity

What causes me to vacillate between rage and disgust, disgust and rage isn’t just what Trump is doing - which, while shocking in its blistering pace, is not surprising in its focus. It’s how other centers of power are, or are not, holding the line. 

Case in point: my alma mater, Columbia. 

I’ve moved from disbelief to horror to seething fury watching Columbia navigate the student protests - I wrote about that nearly a year ago. Since then, Trump cancelled $400 million in grants and contracts to the university. Instead of standing strong, falling back on its nearly $15 billion endowment, Columbia has again capitulated at all possible moments, starting with the arrest of former student Mahmoud Khalil for his political speech on campus and continuing as they agreed to overhaul “protest policies, security practices and the Middle Eastern studies department.”

This is a tale as old as time, a well worn page from the “dictator’s playbook,” as I often say. Autocrats, whether left-wing or right-wing, always target universities because they are independent hubs of ideas and often strong centers of dissent. They must be weakened, silenced or taken over. 

So it’s no surprise that Trump is doing this. It’s disgusting that Columbia and others are falling in line, in the deluded hopes that it will somehow shield them. Not least because these threats are illegal, but also because - he’s coming for everyone. As these Harvard students chillingly and perfectly pointed out, First They Came for Columbia.

“Intimidation only works if there is a weak link, if folks begin to fold and turn on each other or their ideas, or if you abandon the town square.”

This is Columbia abandoning not just itself and the values it purports to uphold, but all of us.

Post script: of course, it gets worse

A judge has now ruled the Trump administration can deport Mahmoud Khalil, and reports say Trump will try to put Columbia into a consent decree. This would effectively legally force Columbia to comply with federal government demands to change its practices. In the meantime, in case there was any doubt, conservative activist Christopher Rufo made it clear that using federal funds as leverage over universities has been the plan all along, saying,

“The raw material of politics is money, power, and status. And so…I’m thinking about, how can we take away their money? How can we take away their power? How can we take away their status to the point…that they have to change?”

So there go your last vestiges of academic freedom.

It all makes me me wish I could have been with my fellow Columbia alumnae recently when they tore up their diplomas. 

In better news: Harvard is putting all its vaunted legal expertise to use and showing some backbone, and this public declaration by hundreds of funders pre-emptively defends their right to “give as they choose under a reading of the First Amendment that treats donations as a form of Constitutionally protected expression.”

But we are not safe. None of us is safe. We’re all on a train barreling towards a cliff, and Trump and his cronies have cut the brakes. Some of us are in the front and will feel the impact more quickly and directly. Some of us are closer to the back and this might make us think we’ll be spared.

But the crash is coming for all of us.