If someone asked you which of Trump’s policies was the most catastrophic, what would you say? His personal attacks on law firms that had the nerve to represent clients he didn’t like? His unleashing of ICE to threaten and arrest people who have committed no crime? His efforts to intimidate the media? His assault on free speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom? His blatant disregard for the Constitution?
All of these are horrible, despicable, and vile.
Yet one of his grievances burns deeper than the other. This is his contempt for science.
His first show of irrational hatred for science was his selection of the utterly unqualified Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. He is a conspiracy theorist with no experience in science or medicine. RFK has been a one-man wrecking crew.
Then he used his authority to close down university research centers. These centers are working on cures for the most intractable diseases: cancer, ALS, Alzheimer’s, and more.
Why does Trump hate science? Is it another facet of his ongoing hatred for knowledge, the arts, culture?
Fareed Zakaria of CNN gives a good overview.
Watch.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This also in a guest column in the New York Times this morning–comments from a call to scholars:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/opinion/trump-musk-doge-government.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20250521&instance_id=154950&nl=today%27s-headlines®i_id=134643815&segment_id=198359&user_id=19a3bfa50e7c3500ca6359b823d96d69
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Can you make this available as a gift article for people who don’t subscribe or just give us a summary? Thank you!
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Frances–I’ll see if I can “gift” it. CBK
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Frances: I didn’t know about this sharing thing–I have 8 more. This should go through. CBK
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/opinion/trump-musk-doge-government.html?unlocked_article_code=1.I08.suqZ.3CEQWEA5Yvx9&smid=url-share
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Thank you! It worked!
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Frances: You’re welcome . . . and I learned something new. Thanks. CBK
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This is an excellent review of how the US created an environment in which science thrived. It only took a few months for Trump and the regressive GOP to destroy it. They created a self-inflicted brain drain as the best and brightest leave this country for places including China where their research will be supported and respected. Like manufacturing scientific research is not something that can be instantaneously revived. As Zakaria points out, it took the US decades to create our university based research program with support from federal agencies. This brain drain will have a drastic negative impact on our people for many years, and it is tragically stupid!
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Tragically? Perhaps criminally would be better. Both?
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Retired: I also thought the idea that they were going to make government workers suffer was just a bit telling of some serious psychology going on there. CBK
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Right wing extremists tend to support states’ rights and despise the federal government. They have been on a propaganda campaign to undermine the power of the feds since Reagan.
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Retired: “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
I was thinking this morning about how, at least since Reagan, but also attached to the recalcitrant racism that still lives in the heart of way-too-many Americans, that PUBLIC EDUCATION and teachers have been the long-time recipients of the same sort of disease of being propagandized to death for the sake of those same generation-hopping biases and resentments. (And as Diane so well has documented over the years.)
Of course you know that, by those same racist propagandizers, the country is getting payback for electing an uppity black man for President . . . . twice. CBK
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Agreed, CBK.
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Let us stipulate and regret that Trump will do much damage during his second term in office. Let us then reflect on how the quite unpopular Trump still won in 2024.
To all minds open to evidence, it is beyond all doubt that Joe Biden had suffered serious cognitive decline, even before he was sworn in as President. This decline got much worse over four years. This conclusion has been proven by two recent books, by other media accounts, and by our own eyes and ears. It is very likely that Biden had aggressive prostate cancer that his doctors – and he – knew about long before last week’s public disclosure. A cynic – a realist – will conclude that the game plan was for Biden to be re-elected and then resign as Kamala Harris became President without benefit of being chosen by voters.
Almost all political journalists were in on this scam. Many of them knew first-hand how bad off Biden was; the rest heard about it and believed it was true. Almost all of them lied to the public, lies of commission and omission. Their prime loyalty was advancing their political agendas, stopping Trump by any means necessary – including staying silent about Biden’s condition.
But the June, 2024 debate exploded the coverup and gaslighting into public view. All but the blindest of partisans – e.g. this blog’s host and most commenters – knew by then that Biden was not physically in a condition to last long in a second term. The identity politics mania that controls the Democratic party made Harris the only possible replacement. Democratic political pros all knew that she was a very weak candidate even against the very unpopular Trump. So the corrupt journalists got what they tried to prevent by unethical conduct: a second Trump term.
We need a news media that is trusted by a large majority of the public, especially with the mendacious Trump in office. But that trust won’t be regained until there is a full accounting of and sincere repentance for how they covered the Biden presidency.
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I find the reasoning in this comment mystifying. Every single president in history who is older than his cognitive peak suffers “cognitive decline” over the 4 or 8 years of their presidency. It happens in PLAIN VIEW. There is nothing for administration officials to “cover up”.
The only question that is relevant today is whether any president’s cognitive decline has put the country in danger because the president’s extreme dementia, or inability to recognize truth from fiction, or lack of any decision-making capacity at all, has led to his making irrational, fantasy-based decisions in running the country that were very bad for many people and caused horrible damage and chaos to our country.
THAT IS NOT BIDEN.
Biden ran a superb administration that managed – DESPITE the saboteurs Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin who in a 50/50 Senate were able to block anything they wanted – to pass admirable progressive legislation. “Old” Biden’s decades of experience as a legislature and understanding how to get things is done is the primary reason that happened. Biden’s unprecedented decades of experience is why he knew how to hire truly excellent people who knew how to get things done in his administration.
Of course Biden had “failures” along with many successes, but they were not due to his dementia, but due to the Republicans preferring to let the country burn.
I could make a good argument that Biden had a more successful presidency – in terms of what he was able to accomplish under very trying circumstances – than Obama did. Biden was very old. No one is covering that up or disagreeing. Biden was slowing down and probably forgetting more things. No one covered up that up or disagreed. But none of that meant that Biden could not do his job as well or arguably better than any of the most recent presidents. Just because Biden wasn’t as sharp or energetic as he used to be did not mean that Biden was not still absolutely good at his job.
I note the hypocrisy of anyone criticizing the media for supposedly not reporting on Biden’s extreme dementia because suddenly NOW they embrace and trust the media’s gossip! LOL! Biden didn’t recognize George Clooney? How DARE the media not tell us! Biden performed poorly at a debate just like Trump did in two debates? How dare the media not tell us! Of course Biden proved he was cognitively fit just days later at a long press conference where he fielded reporters’ questions without any of the constant dementia-like fantasy inventions that Trump spews every day, but THAT doesn’t matter to people who are so outraged because I guess they KNOW in their hearts that Trump is far more rational and cognitively sound than Biden ever was, and that’s why they are outraged about Biden but fine with the media not reporting on Trump’s obvious cognitive unfitness and the cover-up that the White House is doing about Trump’s inability to have a clue about what is going on (except if Bruce Springsteen says something critical, in which case Trump is right on it).
Biden didn’t run a demented White House and administration. Trump is doing just that, and someone is criticizing the media for not telling us a lie – that Biden was unfit to be president but Trump is? And that someone now believes the media’s attack on Biden because of gossip?
Who does anyone care that Biden was “so old” that he didn’t recognize George Clooney, which the media and some gullible folks here believes proves that Biden was making really bad policy decisions and could not run the White House. They don’t need to stinkin’ evidence! Which makes sense because the evidence shows the opposite happened! Biden’s aging also included wisdom and led to a White House that got things done.
Two of the sharpest minds in politics are Bernie Sanders and AOC. And both of them endorsed Biden’s re-election so fast that it is obvious that Biden would not have run if they had not. They were the ONLY prominent politicians who stood behind Biden’s re-election – most were cowardly and wanted to see how it played out.
Anyone here really think the two of them would ever take part in a cover-up? Would ever endorse Biden (when every other Democrat remained silent) if they really thought he was demented?
Those savvy politicians knew that Biden had the best shot to beat Trump again and fight for the progressive legislation they wanted.
Our so-called liberal media is incredibly corrupted. If it wasn’t, Trump’s second debate performance (“they’re eating the dogs!” and the demented things Trump says and does ALL THE TIME would be the subject of the same kind of reporting that Biden supposedly not recognizing George Clooney is getting.
(I like that Biden didn’t recognized old George Clooney – I’d rather have him disinterested in celebrity than tweeting about Taylor Swift. If Biden were constantly tweeting insults at Taylor Swift, then you’d have a good case for dementia.)
Lots of people believe Trump is sharp as a tack and Biden was from 2020-2024 far too demented to be president. They are Trump voters. They don’t need no stinkin’ evidence. And they can’t be reasoned with.
Other people can, and I find when you talk one on one with people who – unlike Trump voters – actually know that Trump is cognitively unfit to be president – they actually acknowledge that Biden’s presidency was a positive thing. If Biden is supposedly an example of how people with dementia conduct their presidency, then maybe Obama’s presidency would have been much better if he was 40 years older and supposedly losing his cognitive faculties.
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As with everything you write, just blind partisanship. Say the worst about Trump, and that still does not change the facts about Biden.
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lol! you are demonstrating what demented reasoning really is! Insults like Trump instead of cogent reasoning.
Let me guess, you are someone who thinks that Donald Trump is more cognitively fit to be president than Biden ever was.
Say the worst about Biden, that still doesn’t change the facts about Trump. But someone who likes what Trump is doing and hates what Biden did to reverse Trump’s terrible first term policies would be just like you and be unconcerned that the media is not reporting daily on Trump’s dementia.
“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets!….”
“Now I have to tweet some mean things about Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift”
If only Biden tweeted insults at Taylor Swift and Bruce instead of actually presiding over a competent, respected administration that got things done, would you think he was as cognitively fit as Trump to be president?
“They’re eating the dogs….”
The sad thing is Trump doesn’t simply sound demented or look demented – which is the entirety of your “evidence” that Biden should never have been president.
Trump actually does the things that demented people do that make them a danger to themselves and others.
But I’d say the real dementia is exhibited by Trump supporters who Trump says will support him even when he shoots people on Fifth Avenue.
The demented Trump supporters who think that the real danger is from presidents who don’t recognize George Clooney and not from presidents who claim the right to shoot people on Fifth Avenue if they want.
Why are you even trolling at this blog?
Trump will do much damage during his 2nd term, unlike Biden who UNDID some of the damage that Trump did during his first term.
If you can’t actually acknowledge that Trump’s dementia and cognitive unfitness is far more newsworthy than Biden’s is, then that speaks for itself. You are simply a partisan hack who comes here to insult the host and other people.
Biden knew the difference between reality and fantasy during his entire presidency. Why aren’t you concerned that Trump does not?
It’s always sad when a Trump partisan pretends to be something other than what they are. They can’t defend Trump, so they attack Biden not for his failures, but because he didn’t recognize George Clooney, or has less energy, or forgets more.
Who is more demented? An elderly man who runs a White House that accomplishes much good and is respected throughout the world?
Or an elderly man who says some immigrants are eating pets and tweets insults about Taylor Swift? And who has no idea what he is doing when it comes to policy?
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Because of the abuse that he suffered from his father as a young man, Donnie is a deeply insecure guy, and he is profoundly ignorant about almost everything and hates people who are smarter and more informed than he is, which is almost everyone. As with Gates in education, here we have a fellow’s pathology writ large and foisted upon the rest of the world.
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