For generations, American leadership around the world has meant more than military might. It meant food, medicine, disaster response, and the belief that freedom and dignity weren’t just American rights — they were human rights. That legacy was built on programs like USAID, which have quietly but powerfully defined the moral backbone of U.S. foreign policy.
But in recent years, we’ve watched an agenda rise that treats compassion as weakness and international cooperation as betrayal. That agenda reached its pinnacle under Donald Trump, whose anti-American war on USAID and global humanitarian aid was not just cruel — it was calculated. His goal wasn’t reform. It was retreat. It was abandoning everything that made American leadership credible in the first place.
Trump's Project 2025 allies are promising more of the same: deeper cuts, more isolation, and the final dismantling of a world order built on hope and cooperation. While Democrats in Congress fight to defend our values, too many Republicans are busy echoing MAGA slogans, cheering on chaos, and pretending that tariffs and tweets can replace diplomacy.
Meanwhile, the world suffers.
In places like Ukraine, El Salvador, and Gaza, aid is drying up. The Guardian reports that even Europe — once a reliable partner — is struggling to fill the gaps left by Trump’s withdrawal and the chilling effect of the MAGA movement. From Sudan to Central America, Western programs are shutting down. As China seizes influence through aggressive lending and Elon Musk cosplays as a savior on social media, real children go hungry, real hospitals close, and real refugees are left behind.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t “America First.” This is America absent.
And the results are catastrophic — not just for the vulnerable abroad, but for our own economy and national security. Humanitarian collapse breeds instability, and instability leads to migration, extremism, and war. If you’re worried about immigration, if you're tired of hearing about inflation, if you want to prevent the rise of fascism, then we cannot afford to gut the very programs that keep regions stable and secure.
The story of Kilmar Albre Go Garcia, a Maryland man and longtime construction worker who was deported under Trump’s cruel immigration dragnet, is a stark reminder of what that administration stood for. He wasn’t a threat. He wasn’t a criminal. He was a neighbor — an American in everything but paperwork. But under Trump, he became a target. His deportation wasn’t about safety or law — it was about fear and political theater. And it’s the same worldview that seeks to destroy humanitarian aid: punish the vulnerable, dismantle hope, and call it strength.
We must show up. We must be the country we say we are. That starts with funding.
Call your congressperson and ask them to support USAID. Tell them that American leadership means something — and it’s not measured in MAGA hats or meme stocks like DOGE, but in meals delivered, futures protected, and dignity preserved.
The fight for democracy doesn’t start at the ballot box. It starts in the lives we choose to value — here and around the world
