I swear, every time I blinked during Trump’s tenure, there was a new headline that made me question if we were living in some bad satirical novel. And one of the most egregious moves—the one that still grinds my gears—was this relentless campaign to pull the U.S. out of the World Health Organization (WHO), hack away at Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, and slash or outright delete vital health agencies’ funding. All this, at a time when it felt like our world needed more cooperation, more health resources, more empathy, not less.

I mean, let’s start with the WHO fiasco. The Trump administration decided, amidst a global health crisis, that the best move was to yank the U.S. out of the primary international body coordinating pandemic response? Seriously? That’s like quitting the fire department while your house is ablaze because you don’t like their water hose brand. He waved around half-baked conspiracy theories about the WHO being in China’s pocket, conveniently ignoring how pulling out left a leadership vacuum that only further undermined global collaboration. It was classic Trump: shoot from the hip, blame someone else, and walk away from any sense of responsibility.

Meanwhile, back at home, the administration went after DEI initiatives as if equity was some virus that needed eradicating. There he was, signing executive orders that basically told federal agencies and contractors, “We can’t talk about racism in any real way, or at least not if it makes certain people uncomfortable.” Let’s call it what it was: a direct assault on acknowledging systemic inequities. The man who claimed to “love everyone” effectively gagged any meaningful conversation about diversity. It was like saying, “I have friends of all colors, but don’t you dare mention how race affects job opportunities or health outcomes.” Hypocrisy, meet a new low.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the administration apparently decided that our health agencies—those tasked with keeping us safe—were ripe for funding cuts and strategic sabotage. Agencies like the CDC or key programs at NIH found themselves battling not just infectious diseases but political landmines, courtesy of an administration that cared more about optics than saving lives. Heaven forbid we use government dollars to fund research that might actually address health disparities or improve public well-being. Nah, let’s funnel money into whatever pet project or border wall can gin up the base instead.

The worst part? The timing. We were smack in the middle of a global health crisis, one that demanded cooperation, data-sharing, and international strategy. Instead, Trump’s playbook read like: “Cut, withdraw, point fingers, and rant about sovereignty,” as though viruses respect borders or care about whose ideology is in charge. His supporters cheered these moves as some kind of anti-globalist stance—like the rest of the world was out to get us, or as if listening to scientists is some grand conspiracy to undermine American freedom. The rest of us watched in horror, thinking, “Are we seriously hobbling our own response to a pandemic for the sake of short-term political gain?”

And oh, the spin they put on it: “We don’t need the WHO because it’s corrupt and incompetent,” ignoring that the U.S. was a major voice and funder that could have pushed for reforms from within. Instead, pulling out was akin to taking the ball and going home, leaving the international community scrambling. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu—but apparently that was a risk Trump was willing to take, so long as he got to crow about “America First.”

Then there’s the DEI part. Let’s be real: the U.S. has a tangled history of racial injustice, and ignoring it won’t make it go away. Yet, Trump’s administration basically said, “Let’s not talk about it, let’s ban mention of ‘white privilege’ or systemic racism in federal training.” Because if we can’t name the disease, we can pretend it doesn’t exist, right? This was more than cluelessness; it was a deliberate attempt to clamp down on social progress, to roll back any minimal gains made in acknowledging structural inequalities. And boy, did his loyalists cheer. They called it “fighting political correctness.” I call it burying your head in the sand so you can go on pretending we live in a post-racial utopia. Spoiler: we don’t.

All the while, health agencies, once respected and robust, found themselves underfunded, censored, or forced to parrot the administration’s lines instead of scientific consensus. Remember the whole fiasco of rebranding or downsizing pandemic response teams? Or cutting the global health security unit? And then acting surprised when a pandemic blindsided us? It’s like we fired the firefighters right before the forest fire, then pointed fingers at everyone else when the flames got out of control. If it weren’t so tragic, it’d be laughable.

Look, politics is messy, and funding is always a tug-of-war. But playing games with public health, especially during a crisis, is reckless beyond measure. Encouraging nationalist chest-thumping instead of global cooperation was an act of self-sabotage that left countless people paying the price.

So yeah, I’m pissed. Pissed that in a time where we needed unity, leadership chose isolation. In a moment crying out for compassion and justice, they opted to quash DEI conversations. And in a world struggling with a pandemic, they undermined the very agencies and international bodies that could have helped us navigate it better.

If there’s one silver lining, maybe it’s that we’ve all seen how fragile our systems are when driven by ego and ignorance. Maybe we’ll remember that withdrawing from global collaboration in a global crisis is like building a wall in a hurricane’s path: useless and destructive. Maybe we’ll realize that ignoring racial and social inequities doesn’t make them vanish—it just deepens the wounds.

But hey, that’s if we’re lucky enough to learn from it. Because as long as politicians like Trump—and their ardent admirers—push this anti-science, anti-international stance, we’ll keep facing the same disasters, over and over, while they brag about “draining the swamp” and “making America great again.” Meanwhile, we’ll watch as our health agencies crumble, and international trust goes up in smoke. And let me tell you, there’s nothing “great” about that at all.