[inverted_flag]

That USAID was Trump and Musk's first target after taking office is peculiar. They made no mention of it during the campaign and most people were unaware of it's existence until a couple weeks ago. The only group with any strong negative opinion of USAID is foreign adversaries.

[sharemywin]

I know farmers hate it with all those billions of $ in extra cash from selling food that was going to waste anyway. I'm sure the rural communities will hate it too when all that money isn't going to the love communities either.

[jghn]

They're already whining about it [1]. All that'll wind up happening is some sort of shell game and we'll still be subsidizing the midwest red voters.

[1]https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/government/2025...

[throwway120385]

But this time only the red voters.

[throwway120385]

My SO suggested that USAID was a target because during the elimination of Apartheid in South Africa it was a critical component of empowering the black population there. Elon Musk's family apparently lost a lot of their political power as a result of that, and this might be payback.

It's similar to why a lot of people thought George W. Bush rolled invading Iraq into his plan to take down Al-Qaeda despite Iraq not apparently harboring them.

[nneonneo]

USAID was a target of Project 2025, which Trump is following quite closely - yes, he absolutely lied about not knowing about this during the campaign.

[jjtheblunt]

> The only group with any strong negative opinion of USAID is foreign adversaries.

What about American taxpayers of the "maga" persuasion?