Written by the brilliant Craig Mazin, the HBO miniseries Chernobyl opens with a weary man’s voice over audio-cassette hiss: “What is the cost of lies?” This is the central dramatic question of the miniseries, which beautifully (and at times brutally) illustrates the deadly costs of Soviet lies and secrecy surrounding the worst nuclear disaster in history.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
— Frequently attributed to Mark Twain
Like many Americans, I dreaded Donald Trump's “triumphant” return to the White House—cue The Imperial March—and he’s already fulfilled his promise to make me miserable again. The president’s first few weeks back in action left me tired, anxious, and hurt. While the implications of his softheaded executive orders are of course broad, the rapid decimation of U.S. foreign aid really hit home because my wife is a full-time contractor to USAID.
TAKE 2: she was a full-time contractor to USAID.
Along with hundreds of kind, committed, professional coworkers doing good work for a good cause, she was senselessly furloughed this week. To her credit, she had braced for impact. After Trump froze foreign aid like he was cancelling Disney+, the news was perpetually worse, and anyone employed in the USAID space saw the writing on the wall.
My wife is resilient and eternally positive. I wouldn’t say she’s over it, but the fog is lifting.
Still, like Peter in Office Space, part of me wants to withdraw, do nothing, and watch Kung Fu. Fuckin’ A. But doing nothing feels yucky and I’m too old for martial arts. So, I’m doing what makes me feel better: reading, watching movies, and writing. These things help me process the enigmatic; in this case, what Trump and Musk have done to USAID.
Why? Why take a wrecking ball to something that does so much good?
I’ll let history judge our sitting president. "News is only the first rough draft of history,” says publisher Katherine Graham (portrayed by Meryl Streep) in Steven Spielberg’s delightful The Post. (The line was reportedly used first by Alan Barth of the Washington Post.) And hey, I just learned that Graham’s parents owned an estate that was later owned by Donald Trump. The internet is fun; and one thing I do appreciate about Emperor Tangerine is his behavior teaches me new words, like softheaded.
As for Grand Musk Tarkin, I’ve been mostly uninterested (and perhaps a bit naive). After he gutted Twitter, I logged off and paid him no mind. Sure, I thought it was weird when he and Trump became bromanctically involved, but the world is awfully weird right now. “Relax,” they said, “all the billionaires are doing it.”
But following the Bending of Silicon Knees on that awkward Inauguration Day, things got dystopian fast and Musk made an inhumane announcement: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID through the wood chipper.” Wait, what? They can do that? We knew USAID was on Trump’s hit list, but nobody saw this destruction coming. Not this fast. Alas, it came, and the wood chipper was a chippin’.
And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know? Don’t you know that? And here you are. And it’s a beautiful day. Well... I just don’t understand it.
Fargo’s fearless pregnant police chief got no answers from the captive madman in her rear-view. I just don’t understand it either, Marge.
Before Chippergate, I just saw Musk as the so-called genius that created Tesla and launched rockets. Maybe he’s like a real-world Tony Stark, I pondered. Wait, could this be Iron Man? Nah, iron has integrity. I now believe he’s more like the twin-nemesis of secret agent Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, but a humble disrupter who only wants the world (and some sharks with friggin’ laser beams!).
Or, sticking with the weird, perhaps Musk is more like Dr. Salvator from Amphibian Man, a 1962 Russian classic (Tarantino’s podcast leads to strange places). This film’s mad scientist implants shark gills into his adopted son so he can live underwater. Ironically, the shark-boy then falls in love with a gil-less girl that he rescues from, you guessed it, a shark! See, it’s all connected to sharks. Would it surprise anyone to read “Musk Implants SharkX-Tested Laser Beams Into SonX’s Eyeballs” in tomorrow’s headlines? But I digress.
Back on land, I found some statistics from WIRED magazine revealing. The Musk Foundation has $9.5 billion in cumulative assets, zero employees, has saved Musk an estimated $2 billion in taxes, and in three years disbursed less funds than are legally required. Less funds. According to biographer Walter Isaacson, Musk has little interest in philanthropy. That’s jarring.
While this Musk Foundation data is hard to stomach, it is bro’s money. And to be fair, reconstructing the Death Star (again!) is spendy. But this is the guy deciding the fate of USAID? I’m with poor ol’ puzzled Pete from O Brother, Where Art Thou? here:
That don’t make no sense!
Yes, I know, it’s 2025. Logic has left the building.
Suitably, Trump, Musk, and other gutless woodcutters are blatantly lying about USAID. Again I ask, why? And what is the cost of these lies? Will we ever truly know? Time will tell, as John Cassidy from The New Yorker explains:
The full consequences of this act of vandalism for the world’s poor, and for U.S. standing around the globe, will take years to become clear. Meanwhile, the sight of an unelected billionaire dismantling an agency that was set up to help the impoverished is already undermining faith in U.S. democracy.
Another beloved movie came to mind this week. Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, Syriana was shot in 200 locations on five continents. The political thriller masterfully weaves several parallel storylines: a powerful D.C. law firm facilitates a sketchy merger of two American oil companies; a grieving energy analyst hides in his work for an embattled royal Arabian family; and a veteran CIA agent uncovers a state-sponsored assassination plot (and professional betrayal along the way). With minimal exposition, it’s a lot to process.
But the dismantling of USAID made me think of Syriana’s fourth storyline. This one follows the plight of Pakistani migrant workers, including a father and a son, who work at an oil refinery operated by an American-based energy giant. When the workers are laid off, they find themselves without company-provided food or shelter and facing deportation for being unemployed.
The fatigued father, who struggles with Arabic, desperately searches for work to no avail; while the son and a friend attend a madrassa (religious school) to improve their language skills and job prospects. Ultimately, the two young men are radicalized by an Islamic fundamentalist and carry out a suicide attack on an oil tanker owned by the newly merged American oil companies. Whew.
In short, one apt theme I see in Syriana is that our world is endlessly connected and convoluted—we’re all striking a delicate global balance here, each and every day.
I’m no Jack Ryan, but it’s not hard to imagine the brutal dismantling of USAID coming back to harm Americans in more ways than one. At a rally against the stop-work order last week, Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia (Senate Intelligence Committee) made it clear:
The latest attempt by the Trump administration to freeze U.S.-funded foreign aid assistance and punish the men and women who are working at the agency is a gift to our adversaries that will make us less safe.
While most Republicans are cowering under their desks because they fear that Trump, like Lord Vader, will find their lack of faith disturbing and execute the Jedi Chokehold, Texas Congressman Michael McCaul (Committee on Foreign Affairs) expressed concerns about shutting USAID down:
The problem with doing that with a lifesaving agency like USAID that administers lifesaving food and medications is that you’re putting on a stop-payment order that may have some unintended consequences.
So, what is the cost of these lies we’re hearing? What price do we all pay when openly conspiratorial, dishonest, and self-serving men run a country? This might not be a Soviet-era nuclear disaster, but it sure feels like we’re watching something grim play out in America.
Over that audio-cassette hiss, Chernobly’s Valery Legasoz (Jared Harris) bleakly answers his own question:
It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth, and content ourselves instead... with stories.
Is there still hope of truth in America?
This week in the Wall Street Journal, Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa opined that USAID is a “rogue agency”—a lousy choice of words considering what the Department of Wood Chipping (DWC) has been up to. She also says the humanitarian agency enriches terrorists, sex traffickers, drug cartels, and mad scientists (mysteriously suggesting that USAID was involved in the coronavirus outbreak). Huh? Oh that’s right, this is just an “opinion” from a senator, y’all—she’s just sayin’.
I’ve found no deep-state connections to sharks with laser beams. Yet. The X-File is open. Now that the “critical” first step of laying off thousands of good Americans is complete, I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of USAID’s nefarious underbelly very soon.
In my humble opinion, opinions from elected officials are the last thing Americans need right now. We need the truth. Don’t they know that? Ernst once accused former President Barack Obama of running amok, not following our Constitution, and becoming a dictator. Sound familiar? It almost rhymes.
Indeed, it appears we’ll just content ourselves with stories.