'More on Trump's Effort to End Basic Medical Research in the United States'

[sop]

"The NIH released a seemingly down-in-the-weeds new directive which has the effect of drastically reducing the federal funds that go to institutions doing basic medical research...Last night’s directive reduces that stream of funding somewhere between 50% and 75%."

"If this stands, it would mean big drawdowns at institutions across the country doing basic medical research, especially in academic medical centers. I hear some people talk about whole institutions closing down or particular universities just closing down their research work in the affected areas altogether."

"On the why, I think it’s a combination of two things. One is anti-COVID research payback, combined with a general hostility to scientific expertise culture and a general and not-incorrect belief that the kinds of people who work in these institutions are mainly not friendly to Trumpism. Basically, it’s seen as a body blow to blue-state and -city culture. Combined with this is a more structural belief that universities and colleges are institutional loci of opposition to MAGA and Trumpism. So you can knock them out of commission in a broader political and culture war by simply defunding them."

"On a secondary level, once you’ve established that these grants are at the political pleasure of the chief executive, they’re a powerful tool for disciplining these institutions. Criticize President Trump and watch half your budget disappear. This latter model is very much the one pursued by people like Viktor Orbán in Hungary: discipline the universities and bring them under political and patronage control. Putting it all together, it’s very much a move in a broader culture war, seeing universities as the breeding ground of cosmopolitan, liberal, empirical values in the society. So you either destroy them or put them on a tight leash."

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-on-trumps-effort-to-end-basic-medical-research-in-the-united-states