Video script:
Bill Gates said something earlier this month that earned a lot of my respect (Cited in the video).
But I’m not talking about Bill Gates today. What I want to discuss is why he sounds more straight forward, more outspoken in this topic than most of the young activists.
I occasionally travel down the foreign policy rabit hole on TikTok or some other platforms, but I rarely see those activist influencers condemning the USAID closure, you know why? It’s because in the populist far-left narrative, the United States has always been a destructive force. The US foreign policy from both parties has always been about ruining other countries, not helping them. Because of that narrative, when Donald and Elon make crazy changes to US foreign policy, the far left crowd tend to stay silent because they feel awkward to defend the old policy that they used to condemn.
A year ago, If you asked a typical gen Z influencer, “What do you think of USAID?”, they would probably tell you, “It’s a US imperialist tool to control other countries.” Really, 7 out of 10 would say something like that. It just wasn’t sexy to admit that the US policy actually did something good.
That’s why we have to wait for a guy like Bill Gates to spell out the consequences of cutting foreign aid. I think that’s pretty tragic. It’s not because Gates has more sympathy than those activists. But he does have more policy common sense. He probably did the math and had an idea of, for example, how fast HIV can spread in a place where people can’t afford condoms. It’s pure data.
Most young activists, however, don’t bother to do the math, but instead rely more on vibes and intuition. Most of them are still hellbent on the belief that they would totally do a better job than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris because somehow they have a purer and stronger moral code.
One thing they keep saying is that, “We’re tired of the lesser of two evils. We’re not gonna vote for any evil.”
Well, a little digression first: If you believe Joe and Kamala are evil, despite all the personality traits they exude, I have to guess you have very questionable social skills and social experience.
But never mind. For the sake of the argument, let’s say you’re right, somehow they are evil and maybe I am too fucking blind to see the evil in front of my eyes. Fine.
But even if they are evil, why punish millions of children, as well as adults, in these poorest countries? The aid from America was a significant source, if not the majority source, of their nutrition and medical supplies. Now they’re just gone, overnight. Now their lives, unfortunately, will be on your conscience. You may think that by not voting, you will be punishing Joe and Kamala. But I can assure you that their living standards will not be affected in the slightest, whether you voted for them or not. You think Kalama will be broke because she’s not President? No. You aren’t punishing the Democrats. You are punishing Ethiopians, Nigerians, Congolese, Somalis. What did they do?
Of course, I’m not trying to guilt-trip you. I don’t think you should beat yourself up over something that you didn’t understand. But a lesson should be learned. Every choice has consequences. Not making a choice also has consequences.
And you need to see that the US foreign policy did help other countries in many ways. I’m not just talking about Normandy kind of stuff. Why do you think 90% of the countries are having peaceful, steady, economic growth right now, trading goodies voluntarily instead of fighting for land with other countries? That norm never happened in human history until the last few decades, right? There are good, competent people that worked behind the scene to make it happen, including a large section of the American “establishment”, including the US navy that keeps the shipping routes clear of pirates, the US bases that prevented Russia from marching into Europe, and of course the USAID that gives out stuff. You don’t want to dismiss everything just because being edgy is the path of least resistance on the Internet.
The consequence of being cynical about politics is that now some completely vile creatures, who explicitly ran on a platform of screwing up other countries using a Nazi slogan, are running the Federal government of 3 million employees. So, please stop claiming that by not voting for Kamala Harris, you made an “ethical choice”. You kinda fucking didn’t.
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