Last week, with one fell stroke of his pen, President Donald Trump and government efficiency lead Elon Musk achieved something many on the Left could have only dreamed of in decades past—enacting a pause and review of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
But instead of seeing liberal support, the move caused Democratic officials and voters to rally in defense of the now-embattled organization.
As Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said on the picket line himself, Congress created USAID "for the American people." Trump's "America First" movement seems to believe reforming the organization is what best serves U.S. citizens.
While the Democrats' stance on the matter is divorced from MAGA's—hardly news—what is notable is that it's also quite divorced from what was traditionally the Left's position on USAID.
Prolific mainstream and left-wing journals have reported on some of USAID's more nefarious dealings for many years, often posting critical coverage of the organization itself. Just a few weeks ago, an opinion article in American socialist magazine Jacobin kicked the organization while it's down as it became clear Trump aimed to gut it. Left-wing website The Grayzone published a similarly critical feature around the same time.
Though Democratic President John F. Kennedy established USAID in 1961 with humanitarian ambitions in mind, the organization has been distorted far beyond its intended use.
Over the years, USAID has indubitably used "humanitarianism" as a veil for regime change efforts in countries the U.S. sees political climates as unfavorable.
Take the agency's Obama-era work in Cuba, for example. Around 2010, USAID set up an "HIV clinic" ostensibly to improve Cuban public health, but that was actually an attempt to "incite rebellion," as The Guardian editorialized it.
At the same time, according to the Associated Press, USAID also "undermined" the local hip-hop scene by trying to get the country's "most notorious rappers" to spark anti-government movements.
More recently, the U.S. government has had its hand on the scale in former post-Soviet states like Georgia, where USAID allegedly spent $41.7 million in recent years, financing big and small initiatives from opposition media to USAID-branded independence day decorations.
Many suggest USAID also aided a regime change effort in Ukraine in 2004. This narrative came not from pro-Trump media, as one may expect it to—it was actually reported by The Guardian at the time.
The agency has even funded opposition media in U.S. allies such as Hungary. President Joe Biden's USAID head, Samantha Power, traveled there herself in 2023, launching a campaign to "strengthen democratic institutions."
As policies such as these have drawn the ire of non-interventionist left-wingers over the years, some on the Left have actually migrated towards Trump.
Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the clearest example. While he was still campaigning as a Democrat, Kennedy criticized USAID in early 2023, saying things at the agency had gone "horribly wrong."
There's also a cohort of popular liberal journalists whose views—despite appearing largely unchanged—have earned them ouster from the good graces of today's pro-DNC liberals.
Onetime left-wing hero Matt Taibbi tore into USAID as far back as 1997 when he blamed it for making the world more hostile for American citizens because of its attempted manipulation of international politics. Furthermore, he suggested that on top of its shortsighted political engagements, it made life worse for those it intended to help. A February 3 tweet indicates he still feels largely the same about the organization.
Glenn Greenwald, who became widely known for breaking the Edward Snowden story, has been one of the most vocal critics of USAID since Trump's administration announced it would be pausing its funding. Though his past criticisms of USAID are more limited, there is no shortage of material from the journalist that criticizes the U.S. security state and its foreign policy.
And while the average Trump supporter probably didn't even know what USAID was until a few weeks ago, the fact that the push for USAID reform has long been an ambition of the Left is lost on many.
Watching MAGA rejoice over Trump's accomplishment of a goal many on the Left have pursued for decades—that the Democrats never even considered as a political ambition—has been disorienting. But it demonstrates that putting each other strictly in "Left" and "Right" boxes, and arguing that these labels can never change in meaning, misses far too much nuance.
It's just another example of how Trump has so emphatically destroyed the traditional American political axis and recruited a cult of supporters so disillusioned with the federal government that they've gleefully adopted a traditionally left-wing viewpoint.
As for the Democrats, their marching in defense of a regime change tool that Trump's base is giddy to destroy is extraordinary, but unsurprising. The USAID saga is a further indictment that the party's messaging and actions have estranged portions of the Left—so much so that some of them are even in Trump's cabinet.
Andy Gorel is a photographer, journalist, and recording artist by the name of LA Parties. He is a graduate of Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, and a self-proclaimed burrito connoisseur. You can find him on Instagram and lapartiesworld.com.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
