CutDice

What an idea produces matters more than what it promises.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

There’s a lot of discussion of USAID right now — the impact of the cuts, and who deserves the blame.

The reality is, USAID made this inevitable.

There was always going to be a reckoning, because the agency stopped being a technocratic institution for development and started becoming an ideological project of Democrats and the global left.

Localization was the real shift.

Launched during the Obama years, it took well-founded development concepts — participation, local knowledge, co-design, capacity building — and repurposed them into a larger anti-Western ideological project: shift power.

Community participation has always been part of good development. Listening to local context matters. Co-design matters.

Localization took those concepts and turned them into a funding and governance model that pushed money toward local organizations that often lacked the systems, controls, distance, or institutional culture to safely manage large amounts of U.S. aid.

That is not a small technical issue.

Programs became harder to oversee. Impact suffered. Local actors gained leverage over U.S. funds in ways that could drift far outside the scope, strategy, and interests of the United States.

You don’t have to support how he dismantled the agency to understand why the agency became so easy to dismantle.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@stoleaballoon @ericgreenburg @Ike_Saul @elonmusk USAID funding did go to these camps. The camps were not managed by USAID, they were managed by partner organizations - as all USAID funded camps are.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@hexidethmal @hayesy316 @mattyglesias Except of course, it isn't. a 5% stake is not "owning" the means of production. Neither is a 100% stake if it is isolated to one company. Again - it is about whether private people and companies can compete - and in a socialist country they can't.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

Agreed for the most part. Trump, though, has been transactional, not ideological, from the get go. That's one of his most glaring traits, apart from the corruption of course.

Frankly, though, small stakes in companies that benefit from government investment might not be a bad idea, if constrained. Not saying the current administration can play that role - but the approach may be a good one if paired with a deficit reduction plan.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

That's not what I said. I said simply a government stake in a company is not, independently, socialism. More precisely, I said it isn't in conflict with a free market.

Even if a government intervenes within the market to shape the market strategically, that's not incompatible with a free market (within certain, specific strategic scenarios).

Governments don't inevitably do anything. They make intentional decisions. Sometimes those decisions are corrupt, sometime mis-informed, sometimes painful but necessary.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@ericgreenburg @Ike_Saul @elonmusk Point being - all the romanticization of Aid ignores the terrible harm it can actually, and has actually caused.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@ericgreenburg @Ike_Saul @elonmusk The EU openly debated the role of camps in the war:

https://t.co/ToIcKT9Jyb

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@radicalreporter @mattyglesias Edging towards socialism is taking control of private companies. Socialism itself is supplanting the private sector with government run businesses at scale. Both have terrible consequences, neither are what is happening with this.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@Dan83795675 @mattyglesias That's corruption. Absolutely terrible.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@stphnbsvrt @mattyglesias If within the sphere of National Interests, perfectly reasonable. If not - then that is corrupt. Not socialism though. Socialism is what Mamdani is trying to do - take over sectors and leverage government to outcompete the private sector.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@OverCommonName @mattyglesias Could be strategic or corrupt. Each case should be assessed independently. Not socialism though.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

Socialism is a system, not individual actions. Take small stakes in strategic companies and assets is perfectly inline with a capitalist/free market society.

If they start taking on significant stakes across a sector, reduce competition, and create policy that favors the stakes they own - that is a different conversation.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

What you are skipping is that USAID took a drastic turn away from evidence/interest based priorities, to ideological leftist priorities.

Localization. They turned their whole agency around to focus on this - an ideological initiative to reset the balance of power between the west and the global south.

https://t.co/sJ4jT7DYk7

[CutDice @cut_dice]

There’s a lot of discussion of USAID right now — the impact of the cuts, and who deserves the blame.

The reality is, USAID made this inevitable.

There was always going to be a reckoning, because the agency stopped being a technocratic institution for development and started becoming an ideological project of Democrats and the global left.

Localization was the real shift.

Launched during the Obama years, it took well-founded development concepts — participation, local knowledge, co-design, capacity building — and repurposed them into a larger anti-Western ideological project: shift power.

Community participation has always been part of good development. Listening to local context matters. Co-design matters.

Localization took those concepts and turned them into a funding and governance model that pushed money toward local organizations that often lacked the systems, controls, distance, or institutional culture to safely manage large amounts of U.S. aid.

That is not a small technical issue.

Programs became harder to oversee. Impact suffered. Local actors gained leverage over U.S. funds in ways that could drift far outside the scope, strategy, and interests of the United States.

You don’t have to support how he dismantled the agency to understand why the agency became so easy to dismantle.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@Rob_ThaBuilder That's one issue. The other, the aid and development industry was taken over by activists. USAID in particular made itself an ideological player through its localization initiative. A bit about that in this post:

https://t.co/nw3QHLKaeU

[CutDice @cut_dice]

There’s a lot of discussion of USAID right now — the impact of the cuts, and who deserves the blame.

The reality is, USAID made this inevitable.

There was always going to be a reckoning, because the agency stopped being a technocratic institution for development and started becoming an ideological project of Democrats and the global left.

Localization was the real shift.

Launched during the Obama years, it took well-founded development concepts — participation, local knowledge, co-design, capacity building — and repurposed them into a larger anti-Western ideological project: shift power.

Community participation has always been part of good development. Listening to local context matters. Co-design matters.

Localization took those concepts and turned them into a funding and governance model that pushed money toward local organizations that often lacked the systems, controls, distance, or institutional culture to safely manage large amounts of U.S. aid.

That is not a small technical issue.

Programs became harder to oversee. Impact suffered. Local actors gained leverage over U.S. funds in ways that could drift far outside the scope, strategy, and interests of the United States.

You don’t have to support how he dismantled the agency to understand why the agency became so easy to dismantle.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

Sure, and development professionals in general, and USAID specifically, has three out that research in favor of activism.

There was zero evidence, zero research to back up localization as a policy of USAID and yet, that is what was pursued - because activists took over the sector.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

The underlying issue is that democrats turned USAID into an activist organization. A quick 6 min video that captures that:

https://t.co/2blzazUs7l

[CutDice @cut_dice]

There’s a lot of discussion of USAID right now — the impact of the cuts, and who deserves the blame.

The reality is, USAID made this inevitable.

There was always going to be a reckoning, because the agency stopped being a technocratic institution for development and started becoming an ideological project of Democrats and the global left.

Localization was the real shift.

Launched during the Obama years, it took well-founded development concepts — participation, local knowledge, co-design, capacity building — and repurposed them into a larger anti-Western ideological project: shift power.

Community participation has always been part of good development. Listening to local context matters. Co-design matters.

Localization took those concepts and turned them into a funding and governance model that pushed money toward local organizations that often lacked the systems, controls, distance, or institutional culture to safely manage large amounts of U.S. aid.

That is not a small technical issue.

Programs became harder to oversee. Impact suffered. Local actors gained leverage over U.S. funds in ways that could drift far outside the scope, strategy, and interests of the United States.

You don’t have to support how he dismantled the agency to understand why the agency became so easy to dismantle.

[CutDice @cut_dice]

Another article on the risks of localization: https://t.co/OYl5sOLBN5

[CutDice @cut_dice]

@alex_avoigt Yes, and, there is a larger context at play here.

https://t.co/nw3QHLKaeU

[CutDice @cut_dice]

There’s a lot of discussion of USAID right now — the impact of the cuts, and who deserves the blame.

The reality is, USAID made this inevitable.

There was always going to be a reckoning, because the agency stopped being a technocratic institution for development and started becoming an ideological project of Democrats and the global left.

Localization was the real shift.

Launched during the Obama years, it took well-founded development concepts — participation, local knowledge, co-design, capacity building — and repurposed them into a larger anti-Western ideological project: shift power.

Community participation has always been part of good development. Listening to local context matters. Co-design matters.

Localization took those concepts and turned them into a funding and governance model that pushed money toward local organizations that often lacked the systems, controls, distance, or institutional culture to safely manage large amounts of U.S. aid.

That is not a small technical issue.

Programs became harder to oversee. Impact suffered. Local actors gained leverage over U.S. funds in ways that could drift far outside the scope, strategy, and interests of the United States.

You don’t have to support how he dismantled the agency to understand why the agency became so easy to dismantle.