Donald Trump goes nuclear in the GOP's war on science

[marmar]

Donald Trump goes nuclear in the GOP’s war on science
Billions of dollars of cuts in research are leaving lives at stake

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published July 16, 2025 9:16AM (EDT)


(Salon) One hundred years ago this month, the Scopes trial was held in Dayton, Tenn. For 11 days, jurors heard arguments about John Scopes, a high school teacher who had taught the theory of evolution in apparent violation of the Butler Act, a state law that made it illegal for public school teachers to introduce theories that contradicted the Biblical creation story. The trial, which featured celebrated attorneys Clarence Darrow defending Scopes and erstwhile presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan leading the prosecution, was widely publicized and sparked a national conversation about the tensions between science and religion — and government’s role between the two. Then, as now, the controversy was fed by a sense of paranoia and social anxiety over rapid cultural change. In the end, Scopes was convicted, which was later overturned on appeal. But the case took on legendary status, being dramatized in the play and film “Inherit the Wind,” and despite Scopes’ conviction, coming to be seen as a significant victory for science.

Since then, the right-wing in America has intermittently conducted an assault on science that, with the ascent of the religious right, gelled into an all-out war around the early 1980s. Many conservatives have, over the last 40 years, opposed AIDS research, stem cell research, basic facts about climate change — and legislation to address it — and measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Under President Donald Trump, the GOP has decided to go nuclear. The federal government’s support of science and medicine is being systematically destroyed by devastating cuts to research, agencies and staff. It seems the administration and its allies in Congress want to set the United States back a century — back to the time of the Scopes trial.

....(snip)....

The disastrous cuts to science and medicine are happening at all levels of the federal government, and they are impacting every agency. Especially catastrophic, for the lives of millions both in the U.S. and around the world, is what’s happening with biomedical research. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/16/donald-trump-goes-nuclear-in-the-gops-war-on-science/

[Phoenix61]

1. IMHO, the research will continue. They'll contract it out

to private companies who will get the profits and we will get stuck with the bill.

[atreides1]

2. Yeah

And that's all we'll get is the bill, but not access to what the research develops!

[Phoenix61]

3. We'll get all the access we can buy and not one cent more.

Privatize profits, socialize costs.

[flying_wahini]

4. So America is left without its top notch researchers and scientific advancement because that's the way

ASS backwards Putin and Trump teams want it.
The entitled Republicans know it’s gonna come back to bite them on the ass.
Then vote that way anyway.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Meantime China is significantly ramping up an already large scientific and engineering effort focused on the future. .nt