The MAGA War on Science Is Deadly—and It’s Just Getting Started
Over the past century, universities have emerged as key
nodes in the scientific establishment that converts public funds into research.
On the whole it has been a spectacularly successful system. But it has had the
unintended effect of rendering the universities hostage to federal funding. It
so happens that a good chunk of that funding goes into biomedical research. In
brief: This administration is willing to let people die of cancer if that’s
what it takes to win the war on supposedly “woke” universities.
Another target of the administration’s aggression is this
thing called the “administrative state.” It’s hard to say exactly what the
administrative state is, other than a catchall for everything that
conservative ideologues don’t like about government. The trouble is, of course,
that the administrative state is really the workings of a functioning democratic
government, and the biggest part of the government consists of administering
things that are very hard to cut: the Defense Department foremost, but also
things like air traffic management, nuclear safety, and so on. Much easier to
cut are contracts with outside suppliers, especially those whose benefits
accrue to future generations. In short: Science funding has fallen victim to
the conservatives’ need to perform violence against a demonized bureaucracy.
Right now, we are only seeing the short-term consequence of
the Republican war on science: Projects are canceled, and funding is denied,
individual careers are broken, research institutions are diminished, and
scientists drain out of the country for
safe havens around the world. The long-term consequences of Trump’s war on
science are likely to be far more serious.