With their assault on science, Trumpists aren’t just harming America – they’re harming themselves | Jan-Werner Müller

The administration is subjugating science to political imperatives, a major blow to US soft power and technological progress

The Trump administration is waging an unprecedented war on institutions devoted to research and higher learning. While plenty of countries have harmed universities by imposing neoliberal logics on academia – creating artificial markets in the name of spurring professors to be more productive – the Trumpist subjugation of all science to political imperatives has no equivalent in a democracy; if anything, it is reminiscent of Stalin’s Soviet Union. The assault now also targets foreign students and any kind of international collaboration – a major blow to US soft power. Why are Trumpists engaging in what can only be described as an act of wanton self-injury?

Project 2025’s Russell Vought, the director of the office of management and budget, initiated the rule change that would make any federal grant subject to review by political appointees – including funds for science that so far have been allocated through judgment by first-rate fellow scientists. This measure would furnish Trumpists with a new weapon to threaten universities along the lines of: “Nice medical school you have there – pity if something were to happen to it because your administration had failed to come into alignment with the president’s priorities.”

Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University