Developing country policies are taking root in the US

Based on my personal experience in Argentina (1966 with General Onganía, and from a distance, in 2023 with Elon Musk’s friend Javier Milei) I foresee the following Third World scenario of present government university policy:

Drastic reduction of federal funding of basic research in all disciplines and the encouragement of and increased resources for profit-oriented research in the private sector. Brain-drain of leading research scientists to Europe, Canada, China and East Asia; drastic decrease of student enrollment in graduate schools.

Increased, but ideologically tightly screened, federal funding to engineering, jurisprudence, medicine and economics schools. Elimination of federal funds for humanities, environmental sciences, political sciences and the arts…

In particular, the impact of the destruction of basic science on the society of a country will be felt only on a long-term scale. As one of the five Argentinian Nobel laureates, Bernardo Houssay, used to say: “You cannot apply science before you actually have science.”

But for the same reasons, all this should not worry, Congress people: re-electability will not be impaired! Likewise, university sports teams will remain untouchable — so, no worries, alumni and sports fans…

— Juan Roederer, Boulder

People will ask ‘Why didn’t they do anything?’

I feel like an ordinary German must have felt when Hitler came to power. All of a sudden, our country is not “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” It’s becoming “of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.”

Trump put forth unqualified, inexperienced loyalists for Cabinet positions. Without regard to existing laws, billionaire Trump and his unelected, Richest-Man-In-The-World side-kick, cut funding for the poorest people in the world.

Musk/Trump have illegally fired government workers who implement existing government programs, including those who oversee our nuclear weapons stockpile. Musk/Trump are threatening our legitimate media — refusing to allow AP reporters to attend press conferences and threatening to “investigate” NPR and PBS. The Washington Post, whose tagline is “democracy dies in darkness,” refused to run a “Fire Elon Musk” ad placed by Common Cause. The paper, now owned by Trump ally Jeff Bezos, refused to say why they wouldn’t run the ad.

Musk/Trump use their power against attorneys and judges who are doing their jobs of determining the legality of the laws passed by Congress. And they are dismantling our relations with foreign organizations and countries.

Musk/Trump have “weaponized” the government against its own people in every way possible. Is this what we want? Do we want future generations to ask, “Why didn’t they DO anything?”

— Mel Fenson, Longmont