Cruel Summer

The American president salivating over suffering

Donald Trump tours a new immigrant detention facility in South Florida (credit: Getty Images).

While still a member of Donald Trump’s inner circle, Elon Musk said out loud what would become a mantra for the new administration: “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”

That sentence perfectly and horrifically captures the ethos of Trump and most of today’s Republican Party.

Look no further than the “big beautiful bill,” which just made it through the Senate. No matter which version arrives on the Resolute desk, it will strip millions of Americans of health insurance and food assistance, in the richest country in the world.

Defunding USAID
Yesterday, to mark the official end of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — what’s left of the once-independent agency is being absorbed into the State Department — Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush joined a closed video call with departing staff. They spoke with startling honesty.

In a rare move, both Obama and Bush openly criticized Trump. Obama called the closing of USAID “a colossal mistake,” adding, “Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world.”

“Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you,” Bush said to the staff.

The 60-year-old humanitarian organization has saved millions of lives and thus promoted goodwill around the world. The most tangible way USAID did this was by providing medicine and supplies to curb preventable deaths such as those from HIV/AIDS, malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.

Apparently, that was too empathetic for Musk. USAID was his first hit job. He killed 83% of its contracts, practically overnight. USAID’s 2024 budget accounted for just 0.3% of federal spending.

Brooke Nichols, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, has launched an online tracker to monitor the effects of the USAID cuts. According to Nichols’ impact counter, 332,627 people have died since the cuts began in early March, at a rate of 88 per hour. An analysis by The Lancet estimates that 14 million people who could be saved are projected to die over the next five years.

Creating Detention Camps for Immigrants
Making Trump more appealing to his base is also turning him into a pariah for the rest of the world. His dearth of empathy is disgusting, especially when it comes to immigrants. How many of us ache for an America that welcomed the people brave enough to journey here?

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to visit the Statue of Liberty, you have likely read the inscription chiseled into her base. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” it reads in part. This excerpt from the Emma Lazarus poem “The New Colossus” defines the foundational American spirit, welcoming those from other lands to come and build a stronger United States.

Not anymore. Under this president, those beautiful words now feel like a cruel joke. It would come as no surprise if Trump tried to have that line replaced with “Don’t you dare try to come here. You are not welcome.”

Those who believed in Lady Liberty’s message and came to America seeking a better life may now be arrested by our government and incarcerated in a sweltering tent camp in a reptile-infested Florida swamp.

Trump traveled to the Sunshine State today, where his longtime frenemy, Ron DeSantis, led the president on a tour of the new facility, made possible by Republicans in the Florida legislature.

Nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” it will house thousands of immigrants before they are booted out of the country, with limited or no due process. It is one final indignity as Trump slams the door to a nation that was built by — and still relies on — immigrant labor.

Trump says he wants to send a message of deterrence. But that’s not the message many Americans are receiving. Instead, the message is one of brutality that, under this president, knows no bounds.

Gutting American Biomedical Research
Trump hates science, probably because it is hard to lie about what research proves. His distaste for the subject is reflected in the draconian cuts he has made to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

HHS will see a 25% decrease in funding next year. Cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are a big reason for that decrease. NIH will lose more than $20 billion in funding, which amounts to an astounding 43% of its budget. NIH is the biggest funder of biomedical research in the world, with 95% of all new drugs derived from research it supports. It is impossible to estimate how many people will suffer and die because of these cuts.

One example of a barbaric and nonsensical funding cut that will have real-world consequences is a grant for the University of Texas’s World Reference Center. The WRC has been collecting and housing viruses since the 1950s. Scientists are able to study old viruses to help them combat new ones like Zika, West Nile, and Covid.

On March 24, the $19.3 million grant was terminated with these erroneous words: “These grant funds were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic. Now that the pandemic is over, the grant funds are no longer necessary.”

Yes, the WRC was used to research and fight the COVID-19 virus, but the grant existed long before 2019.

Empathy should be celebrated, not eviscerated. It shows strength of character, not fragility. As Americans, it’s time to ask: If we aren’t empathetic, who are we?

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Dan