THE AMERICAN HOLOCAUST
A history lesson
SINCE OUR WORLD turned upside down with the slashing and burning of our national house, we have seen voters’ remorse by some Trumpers who have lost their jobs and/or are watching their retirements go up in smoke. How could they have thought it would just happen to others? On Facebook, I asked my friends if they had sympathy for the remorseful. All but two said no. One said he would forgive if they repented their sins, acknowledged their mistake, turned off Fox News, and left Truth Social, among other conditions. The other one, who happens to be my daughter, said, “I don’t forgive them until they work twice as hard to undo the damage they have wrought and start unpacking their racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, etc. They have to do the work.”
And don’t forget the malice of the hard-core Trumpers—and Republicans in general—towards the disadvantaged and the less fortunate. In a recent poll, Americans generally (including 27 percent of Republicans) were in favor of foreign aid, although 45 percent of Republicans believe that the U.S. should not provide aid abroad.
I can’t say this enough: For decades, the GOP has conditioned people to be angry at others—Blacks, other people of color, the poor, the disabled, women, gays, immigrants, “welfare queens,” foreigners, and anyone less fortunate, for whatever reason. When it was no longer as easy to pick on our gay brothers and sisters, who had gained more mainstream rights, Trump and his cronies started whipping up hate about trans. Not that they actually cared about this issue. Like all other targets Republicans singled out to demonize and ruin, trans people were just a distraction to keep your eye off their real agenda, which was to crucify Democrats and keep control, to enrich themselves with tax cuts, to keep the poor poor.
LET’S LOOK AT the bigger picture. As leader of what was once called the Free World and is now known as the International Community, the United States, and our president, have, since World War II, taken on the duty of helping to support and defend our Western allies. The United States has been regarded as the democratic superpower that other Western nations looked up to and depended on for good stewardship and leadership. Part of the deal was to keep other nations from developing nuclear capability. Our common good was our common goal.
Many Americans think of us as having always been a world power. That isn’t true, of course. We’re the new world. The beginning of our ascendance began after the Spanish-American War in 1898, when we began acquiring territories. It continued after WWI, when we emerged as a major economic power. But it wasn’t until after WWII that we became an economic, political, and military power. In 1944, American foreign policy professor William T. R. Fox coined "superpower" as a term in its modern political meaning, referring to nations with huge power status, particularly the United States, Soviet Union, and Great Britain.
In the interest of avoiding another global war, for the first time the United States began to use economic assistance as a strategic element of its foreign policy and offered significant assistance to countries in Europe and Asia struggling to rebuild their shattered economies. Our benevolence spread around the world, which brought us goodwill. This was the beginning of a new era for the United States.
The United Nations was founded in 1945 in an attempt to maintain international peace and security and to achieve cooperation among nations on economic, social, and humanitarian problems.
In the end, it comes down to values [...] We want the world our children inherit to be defined by the values enshrined in the UN Charter: peace, justice, respect, human rights, tolerance and solidarity.
But, just in case UN values and human rights weren’t enough, on April 4, 1949, the United States was one of the founding members of NATO—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance of 30 countries in Europe and North America. I’m sure you generally know what NATO’s mission is, but let’s be specific:
Security in our daily lives is key to our well-being. NATO’s purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.
POLITICAL – NATO promotes democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.
MILITARY – NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO's founding treaty – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.
You can see the pattern of energy and power devoted to peace, security, economic, and humanitarian issues after the bloodshed and devastation of World War II. This was to benefit peoples and nations globally, so that none of us was ever in such a precarious position again. We and the other Great Powers saw democracy as the way to lasting peace and prosperity.
That America, writes Thomas L. Friedman in his brilliant March 11th column, A Great Unraveling Is Underway, was summed up by two lines in John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 1961: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
And: “So, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
And then…along came Donald Trump.
Trump is destroying our democracy and putting us squarely in line with our autocratic enemies—enemies of peace, freedom, democracy, and humanitarian values. The USAID and other programs that Musk has maliciously, deliberately, and gleefully slashed, with approval from Trump and now Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the rest of the cowardly GOP, will lead to the deaths of thousands if not millions of vulnerable people in our own country and abroad.
The New York Times reported projections from acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID Nicholas Enrich:
· Up to 18 million additional cases of malaria per year, and as many as 166,000 additional deaths;
· 200,000 children paralyzed with polio annually, and hundreds of millions of infections;
· One million children not treated for severe acute malnutrition, which is often fatal, each year;
· More than 28,000 new cases of such infectious diseases as Ebola and Marburg every year.
Check this out before American autocrats delete this page:
The United States is the largest single provider of humanitarian assistance worldwide. … The primary goal of U.S. humanitarian assistance is to save lives and alleviate suffering by ensuring that vulnerable and crisis-affected individuals receive assistance and protection. U.S. funding provides life-saving assistance to tens of millions of displaced and crisis-affected people, including refugees, worldwide.
Our assistance provides urgent, life-saving support, including food, shelter, safe drinking water, improved sanitation and hygiene, emergency healthcare services, child protection programs, and education, among other activities. This assistance is provided as close to refugees’ homes as possible in order to ensure timely access to assistance and mitigate against the need for dangerous onward travel. This approach also helps facilitate the safe and voluntary return to their countries of origin, if and when conditions allow them to do so.
Here are just a few of the catastrophic expectations by international humanitarian organizations:
NEW YORK, February 2, 2025—In response to the freezing of US foreign aid and abrupt dismantling of core infrastructure of the humanitarian aid system, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued the following statement from Avril Benoît, Chief Executive Officer of MSF USA:
As a medical humanitarian organization working in many of the same crisis zones as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and its partner organizations, we know that the sudden pause in humanitarian and health assistance and the rapid dismantling of critical components of the humanitarian aid system supported by the US government will cause an unmitigated humanitarian disaster affecting millions of the world’s most vulnerable people.
NEW YORK, 5 March 2025 – “Announced and anticipated funding cuts will limit UNICEF’s ability to reach millions of children in dire need.
“These cuts by numerous donor countries follow two years of aid reductions at a time of unprecedented need. Millions of children are affected by conflict, need to be vaccinated against deadly diseases such as measles and polio, and must be educated and kept healthy.
“As needs continue to outpace resources, UNICEF has consistently brought efficiencies and innovations to our work, and we have stretched every contribution to reach vulnerable children. But there is no way around it, these new cuts are creating a global funding crisis that will put the lives of millions of additional children at risk.
From The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), a global non-profit that rescues and rehabilitates animals, and protects their habitats—one of the largest animal welfare charities in the world:
It’s been over a month since the US government abruptly suspended all federal foreign assistance. This funding pause has had immediate, steep consequences for IFAW and our partner organizations, forcing life-saving work for wildlife to a grinding halt.
While these actions continue to be challenged in the courts, the situation remains highly uncertain and changes daily. Many projects remain effectively terminated, leaving wildlife vulnerable to poachers and habitat destruction and the communities that live alongside them at risk of increased human-wildlife conflict.
Animals and wildlife are the unintended victims of this crisis. The urgent need for funding to defend elephants, cheetahs, songbirds, pangolins, and countless other threatened species worldwide must continue, with or without the US government’s support.
Actress Jennifer Garner has been an ambassador for Save The Children for 15 years. This is what they’re saying:
Cuts to foreign aid budgets have forced us to immediately stop life-saving work providing food, shelter, medical care, clean water and education for millions of vulnerable children and families in many places around the world.
Over 4.4 million pounds of food isn't reaching children and families, including in areas where famine conditions have been declared.
Over 13 million items of urgent medical supplies remain stuck in warehouses, unable to treat children.
Thousands of kits for newborns and their mothers are being held, leaving mothers and babies at risk of infection, pain and malnutrition.
In the wealthiest nation in the world, where we’re going to give grotesque tax breaks to billionaires, American children will be hungry. The old and weak will die. The poor will suffer. And this will be true globally. Trump’s rejection of our national identity and honor will exact hunger, violence, and pain. The tragic deaths that occur will be on Trump and everyone who voted for him, on Elon Musk and his young tech goons, and on those regrettables whom Trump chose for his cabinet. Those deaths will be on them all. This will be the American Holocaust.
As someone recently asked on Bluesky, “When did being a decent human become uncool?”
Please send any questions or comments our community can address and respond to. Peace.
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From @BrutAmerica
All the performative and very real cruelty -- it's technically madness. Thanks for fighting the good fight Beth.
Great piece! Lots of things I had not read about before