The real question is when does something break that causes near-universal outrage. Unless something breaks in the near-term that most people care about, nothing will change.

And if it causes near-universal outrage, what then?

Near universal outrage is arguably part of what saved the ACA in 2017, though obviously infighting and incompetence by the GOP leadership was big piece as well— then again, outraged constituents jamming phone lines helps stoke those fires, particularly when it's card-carrying party members who are saying "yeah we'll vote GOP again next time, but not for you; fix this or you're getting primaried."

The real trick is that the outrage has to be enough to break through the right wing media smokescreen that's currently gaslighting half the country with "yeah well everything is about to get more expensive, but you actually want this, it's patriotic to be excited about higher household prices because it's all in service of making America great again, whatever that now means!"

And critically, it's not just Fox/OAN/Newsmax that are the problem, it's also the army of thousands of podcasters and influencers who repeat these talking points. Many of Joe Rogan's 11M listeners likely trust what he tells them considerably more than they trust what a talking head on cable says.

The flip side is that if dismantling a federal agency doesn’t break anything, and doesn’t cause near universal outrage, perhaps the federal agency can/should be dismantled at least temporarily?

Obviously a dangerous game to play, but it’s always safer to do nothing and sink slowly than to start ripping apart the hull at sea in order to fix the leaks. Both strategies have nonzero danger.

> The flip side is that if dismantling a federal agency doesn’t break anything

It's like removing smoke detectors in a house. Or stopping home inspections entirely.

It won't really cause problems. Heck, it will improve the economy in the short term.

Heh yeah to be clear I'm not saying the consequences won't be catastrophic. I'm saying that the gambit does have a success criteria: If we nuke half the federal government and there are no noticeable differences, then the premise that it was all waste is vindicated. A high risk gambit, to be sure.

I think you would need to wait tens of years to notice the effects of the US becoming unimportant, and China and Putin taking its place, as possible effects of removing USAID

That would be a noticeable difference!