March Madness: The Fascist Attack on Science

Trump Has Already Achieved a Lot..

Normally I keep my political views separate from my work in engineering and science. However, these are not normal times. The world is facing an existential threat in the form of climate change and the American people, for reasons I still can't begin to understand, have elected a fool who can't construct rational sentences and who believes in conspiracy theories and dogmatic ideology over reason and science. Seriously, I know it is difficult to do but just try listening to Trump talk when he isn't reading from a teleprompter. He literally can't construct grammatical sentences that have any logical flow, points, or evidence. He simply rambles off whatever random thoughts come to mind that he's heard in the Right Wing echo chamber or that he knows will get applause by attacking some group identified as others by the fascists who are his base.

Some may think it's too extreme to call him and his followers fascists but if it talks like a fascist and salutes like a fascist, it's a fascist. Political scientists have a consensus on what specific qualities make up fascism and Trump and his supporters check off every box: authoritarian leadership that rejects democratic norms, a cult of personality, disdain for intellectuals and experts, scapegoating of minorities, glorification of violence and militarism, and efforts to control or discredit the press. Donald Trump’s political agenda and rhetoric have echoed all of these elements. He has repeatedly attacked scientific and academic institutions, delegitimized elections, elevated loyalty to himself over constitutional norms, vilified immigrants and political opponents, and spread disinformation while dismissing the role of independent media. Trumpism exhibits clear authoritarian tendencies and an overt hostility toward the institutional foundations of liberal democracy—including science itself as indicated by his many attacks on the budgets of organizations such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. The Union of Concerned Scientists has a blog that tracks the attacks on science from Trump and his followers I encourage everyone to check it out and to do whatever they can to resist fascism and preserve US democracy.