It’s been evident since Trump stepped into politics that he knew little about science and hated scientists. Maybe that’s because he makes up his own facts and rejects scientific data if it doesn’t fit into his worldview. As an example, he’s called global warming a hoax, pulled the U.S. out of the Paris accords, and doesn’t care about any increase in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, he’s pushing the use of coal, the dirtiest fuel possible in addition to other fossil fuels. He also doesn’t care about pollution and has cut personnel and funding for the Environmental Protection Agency that enforces pollution laws.
Trump has drastically cut funding for research at universities and federal agencies and fired large numbers of scientists working on various projects. Trump also hired Robert Kennedy Jr as head of Health and Human Services, putting a vaccine denier and anti-science individual in charge of all medical research and agencies like the CDC and NIH. Trump also backs RFK Jr in all of his actions that will hurt American health care.
For some reason, Trump has gone out of his way to make certain that America is no longer a leader in scientific research and innovation. His actions reducing funding at federal scientific agencies and firing thousands of American scientists makes no sense. He has also decreased federal funds for research at many of our leading universities causing them to stop their research and let go of many prominent scientists. It is almost as if Trump is doing the bidding of China to help them get ahead of us in every scientific field. But it’s also helping every advanced nation that are our economic competitors improve their research and innovation.
According to Semafor, the European Union has received a record number of academic grant applications since Trump attained the presidency along with his attacks on higher education. Supposedly, this is due to the universities support of “woke” activities on their campuses. But there is no such things as “woke” science and the scientists who were let go have moved their research to China, E.U. nations and other countries. In fact, other countries have allocated special funds to try and recruit the scientists who have been let go from their jobs because of Trump’s disregard of America’s scientific needs. That includes China. The U.S. brain drain, which is really the Trump brain drain risks the nation falling behind in all scientific fields. Aside from those scientists already fired, according to a poll by Nature, 75 percent of researchers are considering leaving the country because of Trump’s actions. And aside from the brain drain of our scientists, Trump wants to charge 100,000 dollars to foreign scientists for H1-B visas to work in the U.S. So he is essentially shutting foreign scientists, doctors and nurses out of our country, forcing them to take jobs elsewhere.
And the government shutdown is hurting American science even more. The remaining government scientists are not being paid, and new grant applications are suspended. Necessary economic and scientific data is not being collected. But Trump doesn’t seem to care. He wants to control American science and scientists. I wonder how much Bitcoin China has given Trump and his family to destroy America’s scientific establishment and allow China to employ American researchers? China first, or America first?
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020