Mondo Bullshittio #56: The U.S. Not Promoting World AIDS Day This Year

In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture and politics…and all that it affects.

While “the U.S.” as a whole can’t be blamed for a certain Orange Creature decreeing that World AIDS Day should no longer be acknowledged or promoted as an “event” (or really acknowledged at all in any other way, shape or form), it still must be said that the majority of said population did vote for him. Ergo, voted for not only the deceleration of progress, but winding back the clock entirely in terms of the strides made for so many historically marginalized groups. Those with HIV/AIDS most definitely included. And perhaps the most vexing irony of all about the Orange Creature turning his back on this day of awareness is that, when AIDS began to fell so many in New York City in particular, he was very much in the thick of bearing witness to it. If for no other reason than standing by to watch his own mentor/homoerotic bestie, Roy Cohn, die of it by 1986.

That the Orange Creature should only further prove there is no room for something like “sentimentality” in his politics (let alone in his nonexistent heart) by not even seeing the value in continuing to honor World AIDS Day for the sake of someone who was arguably even more “near and dear” to him than Jeffrey Epstein, well, it only heightens the notion that there’s nothing inside that man apart from mafia-secured concrete (a reference to how the Trump Tower was built, in case you didn’t get it).

Of course, as is the Orange Creature way—and one learned directly from Cohn—he’s not specifically saying, out loud, that World AIDS Day, as far as the U.S. is concerned, is “over,” but instead wielding his usual brand of sidestepping language that urges all government officials to “refrain from publicly promoting World AIDS Day through any communication channels, including social media, media engagements, speeches or other public-facing messaging.” But that’s to be expected from a president who, ever since taking office for his second term has, per The Guardian, “canceled foreign aid programs that combat HIV and AIDS, scrapped research and prevention resources and restricted funding under the two-decade-old President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the government’s global HIV program established under…George W. Bush, which is estimated to have prevented twenty-five million early deaths.” That’s right, even conservative “Dubya” was willing to make some political advancements for the sake of combating HIV/AIDS.

This in contrast to the Orange One’s increasing cavalierness about providing adequate funding to accommodate both HIV/AIDS research and prevention, which comes at a time when, according to the World Health Organization, “The HIV response is entering a critical moment. Funding dedicated towards HIV is declining which threatens to unravel decades of progress [again, everything the Orange Creature does is ostensibly designed to unravel decades and even centuries of progress]. HIV services are being disrupted, especially in fragile and conflict situations, and community-led services, vital to reaching marginalized populations, are being deprioritized.” But, obviously, it’s no secret that the Orange One is all about keeping marginalized populations that way—deprioritized to the point of dying…in case using ICE like his pro-white foot soldiers wasn’t enough of an indication.

And even Ronald Reagan, for as callously nonresponsive as he and his administration were throughout the AIDS crisis that unfolded throughout the 1980s, “at least” had the “decency” to embrace World AIDS Day once the World Health Organization established it in 1988. Indeed, every year since it was established, the U.S. government has done its part to help promote the day and what it means. For, as much as it is about awareness and funding for adequate resources and research to keep AIDS casualties to a minimum, it’s also about remembering those who did not have the luxury of surviving the illness when it was still brand new, and little was known about its cause or how to treat it. To be sure, the added insult of silencing World AIDS Day is that many people have looked to it as a way to honor the loved ones they’ve lost to the disease. Tens of millions lost to it, as a matter of fact.

But, as per usual, the Orange One and his lackeys have no issue with erasing the reality of millions of people to suit whatever their own nefarious agenda is. Which, in this instance, feels almost like a calculated maneuver to ensure that HIV/AIDS is restored to its 1980s state, perhaps in some fucked-up bid for the Orange Creature to feel as though he’s reliving his glory days. And honestly, with a narcissist like this, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of his “logic.” Meanwhile, and as usual, everyone else is made to suffer for the whims of an infantile megalomaniac. That said, HAPPY WORLD AIDS DAY. And remember, “Silence = Death.”