Millions

 Trump's sweeping termination of U.S. foreign aid programs last year has largely fallen off of most of our news feeds—leaving a lot of conservative influencers to declare that it was all no big deal; a nothingburger. 

But Nick Kristof today in the New York Times does the math and brings the receipts. He marshals convincing evidence that the number of people—mostly children under five—who have died so far as a result of Trump's aid withdrawals is at least in the hundreds of thousands. 

And likely to be in the millions before the decade's end. 

There is something profoundly unsettling in the thought of both the scale and invisibility of that silent holocaust—the fact that so many human beings could perish right now, in our own era—indeed, in just the past year or so—with us sharing this same planet—and not even a whisper of their cries would register in our newspapers. 

But it has ever been so. How many Victorians really paid all that much attention to the Indian famines Mike Davis wrote about, when they were happening? 

The stubbed toes of monarchs always dominate the news. We write our glorified gossip columns about the politicians and celebrities and other great figures of our time and call it reporting. 

Meanwhile, a million or tens of millions of children sicken, starve, and die—and we barely take notice of it. 

"When crimes pile up, they become invisible," as Brecht once wrote. 

As he added in another poem—they say that Philip of Spain cried over the fate of his Armada. But when all those husbands and fathers went down into the deep—"were there no other tears"?

The history books are silent on their families and loved ones. They may be silent about today's mass death as well—the fact that the U.S. government, under the leadership of a group of rich, cruel men, willfully caused the easily-preventable deaths of millions of children; and never even really gave a reason for it. They may not have even thought much about it. 

Even Susie Wiles isn't willing to defend or explain it. "No rational person could think the USAID process was a good one," she said in that Vanity Fair interview. 

Millions, perhaps tens of millions of the world's poorest people dead. All because Elon Musk went on a lark for a few months before he got bored and went back to shitposting on his social media site. But at least one member of the administration is willing to admit that the "process" was not good. 

Shades here of Khruschev's "secret speech." The vibe is very much: "Comrades, some excesses may have be committed..."

Thousands dead. Starved. Sickened. Wasted. For nothing. For a couple men's fathomless narcissism and boredom and vanity. 

And must they fall—the young, the proud, the brave—

To swell one bloated chief's unwholesome reign? (Byron)

Millions of children. All dead. For nothing. 

Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam

At one fell swoop? [...] Did heaven look on,

And would not take their part? (Shakespeare).

As Thomas Hardy would say: "All this [...]/ With God's consent, on thee!/ Blinded ere yet a-wing [...]" May we not forget. May their graves not be silent. May they cry out in an agony and reproach never dimmed: Shame! Shame!