And the Chinese will pick up the pieces in Africa and other places.

Which is good for those countries. In my home country of Bangladesh, China is helping build infrastructure. While the U.S. was bankrolling left wing social and activist programs to destabilize the government (and ultimately contributed to the recent overthrow of the government, which will derail a decade of consistent growth).

But really bad for American world view, force projection and so on.

What “American world view?”

Chinese actions come with the same global political ambitions as the US foreign aid has. Don’t be naive as to their ends.

It’s instructive that you mention only USAID. Based on past conversations, you were born and raised in Asia, right? So maybe you have an ax to grind. What about all the other agencies that are being gutted?

It’s more than that I’m Asian. The same arrogance and disregard for popular sovereignty in other countries that you see at USAID/State/NED has metastasized and been turned inward. “Deplorables” is how Acela types see Iowans and Bangladeshis alike.

As the parent of a kid who got put in a “BIPOC” affinity group, I’m thrilled about the cuts to DOEd and the hammer coming down on teaching race consciousness (https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa...).

My dad spent his career in public health. He did things like convince villagers in Bangladesh to trust hospitals instead of midwives. So I’m thrilled to see cuts at NHS and CDC, which torched public trust by making exceptions to Covid lockdowns for protests. Those people are just bad at their jobs—everyone in public health knows you don’t do shit like that.

I can’t wait to see what Tulsi does to the intelligence services that lied us into the Iraq War, and what Kash does to the FBI that investigated conservative parents as domestic terrorists. These agencies are full of disloyal people who think they know better than the public, and few people are going to lament them getting canned.

As a train nerd who took Amtrak every day to work for two years I hope we fire every manager at Amtrak.

I hope the social security checks keep coming. The FAA and FCC generally seems to do a pretty good job. That’s about it.

The Tulsi that pushes Russian disinformation? That should do well for rooting out lying. Also some facts: Intelligence services did not lie us into the Iraq war - politicians did. Politicians manipulated intelligence reporting to fit their narrative. Since you seem to like conspiracy theories, it should be obvious that this was so Halliburton, the company vice president Dick Cheney was CEO of, could profit from government contracts. Guess what CEO will now profit from government contracts due to all the lying from the current slate of politicans.

And by conservative parents as domestic terrorists, I assume you mean the people convicted of crime due to their actual criminal actions on Jan. 6?

> The Tulsi that pushes Russian disinformation

People talking about all this Russia shit sound like Reagan/Bush republicans.

You sound like a Russian troll...

> And by conservative parents as domestic terrorists, I assume you mean the people convicted of crime due to their actual criminal actions on Jan. 6?

I think he means parents who made threats of violence against school boards.

Buddy, Amtrak is gonna be gone in a decade if Trump remembers it exists.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/1f1vdz8/trumps_rec...

That would be an improvement!

The damage to the US’s global influence and stature. Whether that’s morally a good or bad thing is a separate question. There is no question the US has screwed over a lot of countries. But be aware that the Chinese will step into the void as they already have in Africa. And those countries may find themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire. As bad as the USA is (and it’s pretty bad) it’s still better than China (though at the rate it’s digressing this may not be true for much longer).

But why should Americans care about any of that? Do you think the Chinese care what we think of them?

Because America is on Earth and the state of global politics does affect the US, her prosperity and her people.