Here’s the problem with “America First” – it’s for people who are unable to see the big picture.
The New York Times has laid out a stark picture: the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. is expected to leave a devastating toil on the world. The following is the estimate of deaths – just for this year.
We’re talking about 3.3 million deaths from preventable causes:
- 1.65 million from AIDS
- 500,000 from lack of vaccines
- 550,000 from lack of food aid
- 290,000 from malaria
- 310,000 from tuberculosis
That’s 3.3 million lives – not lost to bullets or bombs, but to hunger and diseases we already know how to fight.
Think about that.
Most of you reading this will feel shock over these 3.3 million preventable deaths – it’s the equivalent of wiping out Chicago. You feel devestated because deep down you know these are real human beings with families, hopes, and dreams – just born in different circumstances.
You can imagine how it would feel if your own child was one of the 500,000 who died without vaccines. You are heartbroken, not only over the idea of death, but over tthe slow death of starvation. You can also extract from this number the much, much higher number of people that may not die, but whose lives will be forever changed by the loss of their family and friends – all because of nothing more than human selfishness.
Then there are those of you who will feel nothing. You’ve walled off your capacity for empathy – viewing these deaths as abstract statistics happening to “others” in faraway places.
But even if you can’t even find sympathy for these people, you should feel fear.
History proves that mass suffering breeds instability. Today’s abandoned regions become tomorrow’s terrorist recruitment grounds, disease incubators, and climate disaster zones. Why do you think our aid to these countries started in the first place?
It seems to me that a lot of people think that the US helps other countries because of bleeding-heart liberal values But I, for one, am not naive enough to believe this. It would be wonderful to think that we sometimes do the right thing, just because it’s the right thing – but my intuition and experience says those situations are not common.
Just look how our government treats its own citizens. Most Americans are kept in a deliberate state of barely-getting-by – just comfortable enough not to revolt but stressed enough to keep grinding. We’re maintained like machines – given the minimum oil required to keep the gears turning. We’ve succumbed to enough Netflix and fast food to numb us, and have given up fighting for enough healthcare or housing security to thrive.
So it’s laughable to believe our government sends aid abroad out of kindness. Our overlords don’t even show empathy to their own citizens – why would they genuinely care about strangers across oceans? No, this aid is cold calculation. Unstable regions threaten supply chains. Dead consumers can’t buy products. Pandemics don’t check passports at borders. Desperate populations create migration crises that eventually affect stock prices.
The aid the US government dispersed via USAID was its investment in maintaining the global economic structure that keeps the money flowing. The math is simple: spending billions on aid costs less than losing trillions when regions collapse. The decision to help others is made in situation rooms, not from the heart – calculated on spreadsheets that determine exactly how much suffering can be tolerated before it threatens the bottom line.
All this to say, if you don’t care about the loss of human life on the other side of the planet, your indifference won’t protect you when the consequences arrive at your doorstep.
Compassion aside, self-preservation alone should make these numbers terrifying to everyone.
Providing aid to tackle these issues costs far less than military action. The U.S. has spent trillions on wars – like in the Middle East – over years, yet for a fraction of that, aid could save millions of lives in just one year.
Here’s why this matters:
- Aid is cheaper: Funding vaccines, food, and medicine is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions poured into tanks, jets, and troops.
- Aid saves more lives: Those 3.3 million deaths aren’t hypothetical – they’re what happens without help. Military spending, on the other hand, often takes lives and leaves chaos behind.
- Aid prevents bigger problems: Healthy, stable communities don’t spiral into conflict. By helping now, we avoid the need to fight later.
Some say military action is about security, but let’s be real – spending billions to bomb a problem doesn’t fix its roots. Aid addresses poverty, sickness, and desperation. It’s not just kinder – it’s smarter. Why fight a war you could prevent for less?
Helping people in war-torn and poor areas isn’t just as cost-effective as fighting them – it’s more cost-effective, and it saves way more lives. The numbers don’t lie: 3.3 million people could be alive with aid, or gone without it.
And it’s hard to not be disgusted by the fact that these lives will be lost due to the truly disgusting behavior of two of the richest white men on the planet.