How to Make America Poor and Stupid Again – Cave Into Trump’s Culture War

 

 How to Make America Poor and Stupid Again – Cave Into Trump’s Culture War

Undermine Academic Freedom and Defund Scientific Research if Universities Don’t “de-Woke” 

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

Supporters of the Know Nothing movement [1840-50s] believed that an alleged "Romanist" conspiracy to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States was being hatched by Catholics. Therefore, they sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in defense of their traditional religious and political values. The Know Nothing movement is remembered for this theme because Protestants feared that Catholic priests and bishops would control a large bloc of voters… Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its colloquial name. 

Wikipedia, where “native Americans” meant White Protestants

When the nation was young and truly “stupid,” conspiracy theories spawned political movements that captured the minds of an uneducated electorate. The United States was a relatively small and inconsequential nation then, but American drive and technological innovation made America the great economic power it has been since the industrial revolution. Today, with the most modern technology and medical tools and cures on earth, the push toward autocracy carries with it a toxic disruptive force: pushing “right thinking” (as defined by the MAGA minority) as this nation’s highest priority, elevating bizarre conspiracy theories well above truth and facts.

Lockstep conformity, adherence to “right thinking” principles “or else,” is the bullwork of the authoritarian control; dissent or alternative thinking is severely punished. Think: the purge and forced “re-education” of Uighurs in Western China or the Siberian gulags where those daring alternative thought in Russia are sent… if not simply tortured and killed. If those methods are not attractive to you, look around you. Law firms challenging the Trump vision are denied security clearances and face clear attack if they do not tow the MAGA line. Bibles are popping up in public school classrooms in several states, as local attorneys general push for a Supreme Court reversal of the separation of church and state. And so much more.

They key to instill “right thinking” as a mandatory substitute requires mass media (under attack now) and social media to spread and repeat misinformation constantly. Trump’s “excuse” is often to purge antisemitism and expressed sympathies for Palestinians in Gaza, no matter the peacefulness of the expression. As Jewish students marched into Trump Tower with signs reading “not in our name,” Trump ignored them. Allowing them would be to subvert his direct control.

The online social networks are the instrumentalities that change our cultural values from empirical facts to fanciful and often dangerous conspiracy theories. In an ironic twist, when users of X query Musk’s statements, his own X-dwelling Grok chatbot labels Musk as a major source of misinformation! Trump has mandated that the theoretically independent Smithsonian purge itself of exhibits and programs that are out of step with Trump’s vision of America.

But the most horrific Trump practice is the to cut scientific and medical research grants from some our most advanced and prestigious universities if they do not alter their academic programs (in the case of Columbia University, literally to put certain ethnic studies under direct Trump receivership). With funds cut in the middle research projects involving millions of dollars of equipment manned by some of our most educated scientists, there is a new wave of fear and doubt sweeping across those incredibly experienced and educated scientists, the same people who are derided by MAGA believers as “elitists” who are “out of touch” without a belief in “Jesus Christ our savior” who has “anointed” Donald Trump as our autocratic leader. They revere the medical quackery of HHS head, RFK, Jr, and scoff at medical facts. The results are sobering. Columbia University was the first to be slammed by Trump, but hardly the last:

“When President Trump canceled $400 million in funding to Columbia University over its handling of student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, much of the financial pain fell on researchers a train ride away from the school’s campus, working on things such as curing cancer and studying COVID-19’s impact on children… The urgency of salvaging ongoing research projects at the university’s labs and world-renowned medical center was one factor in Columbia’s decision last week to bow to the Republican administration’s unprecedented demands for changes in university policy as a condition of getting funding restored.

“The Ivy League university announced Friday [3/21] that it would overhaul its student disciplinary process, ban protesters from wearing masks, bar demonstrations from academic buildings, adopt a new definition of antisemitism and put its Middle Eastern studies program under the supervision of a vice provost who would have a say over curriculum and hiring.

“The university’s decision to accede to nearly all of the Trump administration’s demands outraged some faculty members, who say Columbia has sacrificed academic freedom. The American Assn. of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, representing members of Columbia’s faculty, filed a lawsuit Tuesday [3/25] saying the funding revocation violated free speech laws.” Philip Marcelo for the March 27th Associated Press.

It gets a whole lot worse from there: “More than three-quarters of scientists in the U.S are weighing leaving the country and are looking at Europe and Canada as their top relocation spots, according to a new survey released on Thursday [3/27]… The scientific journal Nature poll found that 75.3 percent of scientists are considering leaving the U.S. after the administration cut funding for research. Nearly a quarter of respondents, 24.7 percent, disagreed.

“The highest contingent of researchers who are looking to move out of the country are those who are early in their careers. Nearly 550, out of 690 who responded to the survey, said they are considering leaving the U.S. Out of the 340 PhD students, 255 shared the same inclination, the poll found… The administration, along with tech billionaire and close Trump advisor Elon Musk, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency, have terminated entire agencies and made cuts in the last two months in an effort to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.

“Some of those reductions were felt at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where all grants for equity issues, which encompass studying Black maternal health and HIV, were canceled. The cap on indirect costs of NIH grants was capped at 15 percent.” The Hill, March 28th. Trump’s policies mirror those of an autocratic banana republic… and unless stopped, will shove the United States into an uncompetitive global also-ran, where our “greatness” will be relegated to the history books. None of these policies will even maintain what greatness with still have! 

I’m Peter Dekom, and while the breadth and scope of the Trump/Musk destruction of what really made us great will be mire the United States in an artificial intelligence-dominated nation of poverty and mediocrity.