It gets harder and harder to read (or listen to) the news. Every day, there’s a new outrage–a new front in Trump’s war on reality, a new offense to the Constitution and the rule of law. When federal troops are, in essence, being sent to invade cities with Black mayors, when museums and cultural centers are being stripped of historical facts offensive to the Mad King, when a once-storied and proudly independent Justice Department has been turned into the personal tool of a would-be dictator, when the National Institutes of Health reject sound science in favor of voodoo medicine, when the Presidency has become a mechanism for corruption and graft…When everywhere you turn, something horrific is happening, it begins to seem as if we are all living in a dystopian nightmare.
Given the “firehose” nature of the information we waken to daily, it’s easy to lose sight of some of the most important losses we are suffering, or the thread that connects the assaults. When you stand back, when you try to assess the overall motivation of this retrograde MAGA movement, you do see a pattern. There is, of course, the deep-seated racism that forms the basis of Trump’s appeal and that prompts the administration’s daily efforts to erase information about the contributions and tribulations of women, gay people and Blacks. But MAGA’s animus against social progress is even more deep-seated.
MAGA is an all-out assault on knowledge. “Owning the libs” is shorthand for “we’ll get rid of those smarty-pants elitists who think they’re superior because they know stuff.”
That deep-seated resentment against scholarship and knowledge–against things like evidence and fact and the scientific method–is what has motivated the war on America’s universities. And if that war is successful, America’s decline will be inexorable.
A recent article from Time Magazine was prophetic. It was written by an academic who is leaving an America that is no longer hospitable to intellect and sound research.
I was returning from Marseille, France after participating in a workshop in March that I co-organized at the Iméra research institute on climate change and religious conflict during the Little Ice Age. The topic is now effectively banned from federal funding after the Trump Administration stripped support for scientific research that mentions the word “climate,” amid a broader purge of “woke” keywords in the federal government….
For months, I have watched coordinated attacks on the National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institution, Institute for Museum and Library Services, Fulbright Program, Woodrow Wilson Institute, U.S. Institute of Peace, Kennedy Center, USAID, Department of Education, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and other federal agencies that support academic research and education.
As the author notes, when politicians—rather than professionals— select the research to be funded, the entire pursuit of knowledge is corrupted.
So when Aix-Marseille Université (amU) decided to launch a “Safe Place for Science” program, I became one of the 298 researchers who applied. After all, I was already due to spend one year there as a visiting professor, and the initiative promises three years of research funding. The university has invested €15 million for the program and is lobbying the French government to match that amount, so it can double its planned hires to 39 people.
Europe has seen an opening and is taking advantage of it. The European Commission recently unveiled a €500 million program to make the continent a “safe haven” for researchers. France has committed another €100 million. And American scholars–including many of our very best– are applying in large numbers. As the author writes,
Packing up and relocating to France, or any other country, will be an adjustment. But it is clear that an era of U.S. brain drain is beginning, as researchers and scientists seek opportunities in places where academic freedom and research are still valued.
If MAGA’s war on knowledge continues–if it succeeds in ridding this country of those detested “elitists”– America’s decline will be irreversible.
A tragic situation unfolding, predictably, as the actions of our pathetically destructive administration continue on a horrible and, as you point out, most unfortunately, irreversible course. Thank goodness for the world that so much investment is being made by European countries, and how sad for the once mighty US of A in that arena to witness the flight of more and more of our intellectual soul over to those who believe in the absolute necessity and importance of the study and research of science and academia in general .
On the US political front, 2026 mid term elections first, then the fiery and fearless Gavin Newsom, or someone possessing those qualities and more, in 2028, for the Dems, who apparently are the only ones who understand the immense and utter gravity involved.. Turning all of this around, back to the aspirational nation we strive to become, will take much longer than anticipated, but we can do it.
So Trump met with his trainer yesterday and received his new directives. We’ll see where he takes America from here.
You’re right, Gil. It will take a decade or two to un-f*** what these MAGA morons have done in just 8 months … with more idiocy to come. Remember when Steve Bannon instructed this goon squad to “flood the zone with bullshit”? This is what it looks like. The Koch-sponsored horror of P-2025 now has some mentally defective ideologue trying to ram it all through in the shortest time possible. What is Voght’s motive? Absolute power? Who will be the next helmsman when the orange hairball finally croaks and chokes on his own insanity?
I think these guys know that it all has to happen quickly so the shock and awe factor remains a daily force. They know that rational, democratic-thinking people able and capable of governing to the Constitution will overturn their mad rush to absolute power. Gavin Newsome is already demonstrating that push-back.
Meanwhile, those younger generations must be wondering what the hell happened to the lessons from their civics classes (such as they were/are) when everything about our real history, the rule of law and the concept of complete corruption is either being cut out, ignored or flaunted.
Knowing “stuff” is anathema for people who would applaud any new eugenics movement. And, do not expect that to absolutely;y be in the offing.
In the long ago past people who were as ignorant and stupid as Trump and his acolytes would have been pushed out of the flow of life by dint of their trying to get nourishment form those “Pretty” rocks…evolution would have removed them. Sadly that is no longer the case because nowadays one can still thrive without knowing “stuff.”
My idiot Trumper cousin told me that I should stop watching MSNBC, because she “knows” that that is what I do. No, I do not. Boy, does she “know” stuff, herself.
Vernon, I am afraid that it will take more than a decade or two to be free of the damage that is being wrought.
Yes, there is a great upheaval in our country today headed by a senile criminal with a penchant for personal revenge. Without appreciating the potential outcomes of electing such a person to the presidency, the citizens now face the loss of the very freedoms they claimed to cherish. And we all may soon lose those freedoms as the country falls permanently into a true dictatorship. Or… maybe not.
If we can hold off the descent, stall the actions, stand firm on principle we may buy enough time to put into place a new Congress able to vote a big “NO” to dictatorship. Then it becomes a waiting game until a new administration can be elected and enough Supremes die off to re-establish the Constitution complete with new laws to make sure that no one ever gets into power again who does not honor the ideas this country was founded upon.
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
Trump is nature’s cause du jour of the collapse of the old and we are those stuck with being the Phoenix rising out of the ashes.
Don’t think our job will be easy or short term because starting fresh never is.
On the plus side our founders did some of the heavy lifting 250 years ago in defining successful government.
Now we are the people whose rights must be reclaimed and honored.
Those of us too old, or not revered in what we have shared with our world to date, or too limited in financial resources will be left here to see the continuing deep revision in what we had known as a good life.
Im sticking to written news,and keeping with afew subjects,now expnded due the die off of research,that subject,the die off of it. if i use the word,killing it id be under some sort of spin/investigation ,like protesting Palistinian genocide makes me antisemetic. where we fall now is listening to noise. the epstine stuff made its mark, and fell into the round hole with a round peg,Sen wydon has said the treasury dept has epstines finacial files, uh huh. . ive written my right wing NPR prairie public station and suggensted ,
cut of the publicity and trump sound bites of the troll under the white house.
make the story front page with a second page setting. no pics. afterall we all got eat and looking and listening to this embarasment to the world go on about shit,is deafening. hes now hes the diplomat.and putin is making him look like shit. which isnt hard. take the fun and ego outta his everyday existance. write your editors and suggest cutting costs by second paging scripting his
lunacy/
best wishes.. as the world,burns…
Up here in Canada, universities have recognized the same opening. Public health officials have as well, with thriving recruitment efforts of U.S. health professionals well underway. I expect that this fall we will also see substantial increases in international student enrolments. I don’t place much value on international rankings of universities, but I also expect that we will see the first evidence of plummeting respect for U.S. institutions.
Fox and MAGA describe any fact-based, objective university teaching as for-left propaganda. In other words, education equals indoctrination to them. It’s terrible.
The U.S. is wounded but far from defeated. The P2025’ers should be reminded that tyrants rarely die of old age unless they are in a prison cell. Their arrogance may well become their undoing.
A brilliant post by Sheila. @abeger your post content most appreciated. Lived half of my life in Canada. Canada knows who their friends are. As an American, I am so proud how Canadians are standing up to our wannabe dictator. The world order is transforming in response to Trump’s retaliatory tariffs. And the future does not look good for MAGA abroad much less at home. Red be gone. Blue be on. Press on.