Back on Jan. 6, 2021, then-President Donald Trump tried to stay in office with a rather crude coup attempt. This one involved actual violence, to include beating cops and killing a few. The attempt failed, and Trump pondered, perhaps between shots on one of his golf courses, how to do a better job at taking over the government and becoming an oligarch, a quasi-dictator, or whatever term you like.

This time around, Trump realized he first needed to win an election, and frankly, he got lucky. Though history will be very kind to former President Joe Biden for all he accomplished, it was clear to many, including me, he was not going to be a strong candidate for a second presidential term. I truly wish he retired, with great dignity, months before he did. That act would clear the stage for a candidate from a generation-or-more younger, one who more fully grasped the Trumpian dangers we face.

A Gov. Gavin Newsom of California or a Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, or heck, my old boss, Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, could have run and been much for forceful in both supporting the politics that work, and not just for the rich, and also aggressively taking on the felon ultimately elected. Though I dearly love Michelle Obama, frankly she was wrong when she famously said, “when they go low, we go high.” No, when they go low, we respond and call them what they truly are: wannabe authoritarians who value nothing but staying in power.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

Well, we didn’t, and the GOP now runs all three (yes, all three) branches of federal government, leaving a loyal opposition with very little room in which to do anything. That means a great deal of danger in the form of a philosophy all government is bad (except, perhaps, the part that gives SpaceX contracts) and needs to be gutted and, if possible, destroyed.

Having completely failed on his “day one” promises to end the Ukrainian War and lower egg prices (he’s hoping you won’t remember if he does other big and crazy stuff, President Trump is turning to other targets most Americans are largely unfamiliar with.

The most recent target of Assistant President Elon Musk has been USAID, that is, the United States Agency for International Development. USAID is the principal organization for distributing assistance to needy places around the world. And for most Americans, the aid is not what you think.

Trump and Musk would have you believe the U.S., with little thought or analysis, sends bales of cash to nasty nations around the world in hopes of buying off their good will. Well, with a few relatively minor exceptions (e.g., repaying a loan) we don’t send cash. As noted in a report by the Brookings Institution, overseas aid is hardly the giant cash-sucking entity Musk would have you believe. More on that in a moment…

There are several governmental organizations that pass out foreign aid besides AID, and these include the State Department (where I worked briefly as a military advisor to the ambassador overseeing aid to the former Soviet states), the Department of Treasury and the Department of Health and Human Services, each of those in single digit donations percent-wise.

And again, a very important point lost on the Trumpers is foreign aid is almost never the direct transfer of U.S. currency to other countries. No, they don’t want our cash, they want stuff. They want tractors and seed, and they want well-drilling equipment and crop watering equipment. They want medicine and vaccines. More than 80% of so-called foreign aid is actually spent by the U.S. government inside the U.S., buying the supplies as noted above and then shipping them to the countries in need. A rare exception in recent years has been some direct transfers of cash to Ukraine, and they find it easier to buy the military hardware they need internationally, rather than just relying on U.S. hardware and weapons. But that is a rare exception.

A wonderful example of this type of program is one former President George W. Bush put in place to battle AIDS in Africa. This program, U.S. PEPFAR, during the last 20 years or so has saved 25 million lives and enabled 5.5 million babies to be born HIV-free. How? We didn’t send cash, we sent needles, meds and other vitally needed supplies that clearly save lives.

Well, President Trump just zeroed out that program, so there will soon be an increase in illness and in deaths in Africa, from an illness now easily prevented. Musk will soon have (more) blood on his hands, though I doubt he will notice. (Note: Marco Rubio granted a waiver for PEPFAR on Saturday within hours of when the USAID targeting first came to light, and since then has reiterated that it’s exempt from any cuts.)

And most, heck, nearly all, of the aid does not go to corrupt governments, but rather to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) operating inside the troubled nation. Our aid is designed to help those most in need, and over the years it has, by and large, worked, with the number of people globally lifted from poverty reaching 85 million per annum.

As part of his takeover of USAID, the Trump thugs “removed” two security personnel and later gave orders to “shut AID down” though it is unclear what that means. After all, every one of the foreign aid payments, be it to a John Deere dealership in Iowa for a dozen tractors or to a seed company for a million bags of corn, was approved by Congress. Years ago, then-President Richard Nixon tried what he called a “sequester” of appropriated funds, the same lockdown Trump is now trying. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Nixon, but as this current court is owned and operated by President Trump, I wouldn’t bet against him getting away with it.

Stay tuned…

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.