Destroying a Generation of Knowledge

Gregg Gonsalves, The Nation -  What we are seeing is a purge—of the administrative state, of the universities, of expertise—that is consistent with events like the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s and ’70s, or the dismantling of the tsarist civil service after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Just because this moment isn’t associated with the intense political bloodshed of those eras doesn’t make the comparison any less apt. In one way or another, the goal is to get rid of an entire set of people and institutions in the service of a radical ideology.

And what is rising in its place is also recognizable from history. From the Covid contrarians running the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration to the anti-vaxxers down at HHS headquarters, we have our 21st-century Lysenkos propped up not by the strength of their ideas but by their political patrons in the White House.

While the short-term effects of the administration’s policies have been well-articulated, the long-term ones are just as chilling. In less than 100 days, President Trump has created a lasting legacy: We have lost a generation of expertise, of systems built up to care for our nation and provide for our collective future in terms of scientific advances. 

These resources won’t just spring back if Trump is gone. Senior figures outside the government are seeking other opportunities. Students and trainees are missing the chance right now to take up their chosen profession; they’re not all going to wait around indefinitely for the political winds to change. The rest of the human, administrative, and physical infrastructure for science, public health, and healthcare is starting to wither away as well. In government, in addition to the mass dismissals, we have people like Peter Marks—central to drug development and regulation for years—walking away from the FDA in disgust and protest. If you needed more evidence of the central punitive nature of these purges, some agency officials are getting told they can go work in remote rural locations in Alaska or Montana and remain in federal service. At least they are not getting a bullet to the head as they are marched out to the countryside. But they are indeed facing a kind of exile.