Outrage of the Day - Feb. 9, 2025

MAGA’s Sickening Hypocrisy: From ‘Save The Children’ To ‘Defund The Org That Actually Saves Children’ (TechDirt); and, With Aid Cutoff, Trump Halts Agency’s Legacy of ‘Acting With Humanity’ (NYT):

Funds from the world’s richest nation once flowed from the largest global aid agency to an intricate network of small, medium and large organizations that delivered aid: H.I.V. medications for more than 20 million people; nutrition supplements for starving children; support for refugees, orphaned children and women battered by violence.

Now, that network is unraveling. (NYT)

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After years of screaming “save the children” while baselessly accusing others of exploiting kids, the Trump administration is now trying to destroy the actual infrastructure that saves children. This one crosses from standard MAGA hypocrisy into genuinely evil territory.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t think you can (or should) call most people inherently “bad,” but if you support what the Trump administration is doing here, you are a bad person. (TD)

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From Comments:

As one of the most important philosophers of the modern era once put it: “They’re all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing! If you’re preborn, you’re fine; if you’re preschool, you’re fucked!”

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“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you.

You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

— Dr. Dave Barnhart, Christian Minister

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When the central pillar of your ideology is hating The Other and blaming them for all the wrongs (whether real or imagined) that you suffer there must always be an Other to vilify, and if the current one is no longer doing the trick then a new one will be found in short order.

And the best part is that a hate-focused ideology like this isn’t even safe for it’s members, because if ever there’s no-one outside the group that’ll make for an effective scapegoat and target for hate and blame? Why then it’s time for a little in-group ideological Othering…

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[ed. I've always thought MAGA was largely a cult of personality thing, specific to Trump (with no obvious heir apparent). Now that Musk seems intent on out-Trumping Trump we have someone who's a hell of a lot smarter and more dangerous in a lot of ways (Trump being 78, and with obvious cognitive/personality issues). So that hope/theory may no longer be operable. It could and undoubtedly will get much worse.]