[russellbeattie]

This year is definitely the beginning of the end for American scientific leadership. The damage being done is incalculable.

The best and brightest simply aren't going to want to come to the U.S. for an uncertain future where they'll be harassed at the airport every trip and then defunded or deported at any time for "political" reasons (a.k.a. racism, bigotry, religion, ignorance and anti-intellectualism).

Amazingly, we're only 200 days into this administration.

We have 3 years, 5 months and 12 days left, assuming we still have free and fair elections in 2028.

For the next several years, the administration is going to continue to dismantle our country's foundations brick by brick, enabled by Congress and SCOTUS. The attack on immigrants is in full swing, but the total takeover of science, public education, universities and mass media is actually just beginning.

[ethbr1]

> We have 3 years, 5 months and 12 days left

The midterms are in 2026. A swapped House (and/or Senate, but less likely) would drastically shift power.

[russellbeattie]

> "...would drastically shift power."

What exactly do you think will change? The administration is already ignoring the law with impunity. Unless there's a big enough swing so that impeachment and conviction is a reality, Congress will have essentially zero impact.

Around 40% of the country still supports the president unconditionally. They are truly ecstatic with what's happened so far. The other 60% are being gerrymandered so their majority status is inconsequential. If Republicans do lose the House, it'll most likely be by a small margin, and the current Congress will rush through a bunch of laws to be signed that will make the next one as useless as possible.

And even if there was in fact a huge swing allowing Congress to try and stop the White House's wrecking ball, the amount of damage between now and January 2027 will be monumental and irreversible.

[ethbr1]

I know it's vogue to construct a view in which depression and inaction are the only logical conclusions, but that ain't our reality.

> The administration is already ignoring the law with impunity

Can you provide an example where they've ignored a Supreme Court ruling?

And the histrionics around this are uniquely relative to modern norms. Look up the shenanigans around Marbury v Madison https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison#Backgroun...

Joisting for power between federal branches (and with states, historically) has been a constant in American democracy more often (most of its history) than not (1970s+).

> Around 40% of the country still supports the president unconditionally

Yes, such is the danger of personality cults in democracies.

> The other 60% are being gerrymandered so their majority status is inconsequential.

Gerrymandering has always been a finger on the scales of elections, and will continue to be, until such time as Congress puts a stop to it (though debatable they have the power). https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/

> the amount of damage between now and January 2027 will be monumental and irreversible.

I imagine FDR's ghost is spinning in his grave, with things to say about Hoover.

[hn_acker]

> Can you provide an example where they've ignored a Supreme Court ruling?

How about the case where the Supreme Court told the administration to obey a lower court's order and facilitate Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return to the US [1]? The Trump administration openly defied the Supreme Court's order for nearly 2 months (April 11 to June 6) [2][3]. Setting aside whether the "temporary" violation of a Supreme Court order has been legally resolved, the administration brought Garcia back to press (hypocritical and doubtful) human smuggling charges to justify deporting Garcia again, and a judge let Garcia stay in jail for longer otherwise necessary because the judge thought the administration would deport Garcia before he could have his trial [4].

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/11/even-the-supreme-court-s...

[2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego_G...

[4] https://apnews.com/article/abrego-garcia-deportation-immigra...

[ethbr1]

"Facilitate" was a weasel word that the Supreme Court knew would allow the administration to play as it wished, hence why it was affirmed by this Court.

If the Supreme Court had wanted to order him back immediately, it would have done so.

The facts are that this administration has skated on and just over the line with regards to lower courts, especially in matters of immigration, but has yet to ignore a directive from the Supreme Court.

If you're aware of an actual example, feel free to provide it.

[russellbeattie]

I could respond in detail to each pedantic item, but you seem knowledgeable enough to know them already, so here's a summary: There's plenty of non-SCOTUS laws that have been ignored. The gerrymandering is being nationally coordinated. Comparing Trump to Hoover is farcical and you know it.

The word "histrionic" is what really got me though. We're well past the stage where anyone deeply cynical about the state of things and the foreseeable future can be accused of histrionics. And we're way beyond any previous historical analogies.

My whole point is that the damage to the country is permanent. Whether it'll eventually destroy the Union has yet to be determined.

[ethbr1]

Histrionic: deliberately affected, overly dramatic or emotional

I.e. anyone who believes that adjectives suffice where facts fail

There are things that are not happening and things that are happening. Trying to phrase the former into the latter doesn't do anything but hasten a post-truth era.

[exasperaited]

> The midterms are in 2026.

What is it they say in America? "Oh sweet, summer child?"

Honestly and seriously: look at the abuse of power and its escalation. Consider the consequences to Trump if he lets the House flip. Impeachment again and this time removal really would seem likely.

Now consider, in all detached seriousness: why would a man who tried a coup and thinks he can disappear people to El Salvador let that happen?

Now consider that he's trying to force the creation of a new census that doesn't count illegal immigrants, which is obviously about denying the democrats seats, and he's fired someone for producing numbers he doesn't like and replaced them with "all new numbers".

It's not going to be the end of his interference, right?

The midterms, if they happen, will not flip the House. If they do, he will try to delay, confuse, challenge, set them aside, produce alternative results, claim massive fraud, or interfere with their certification. If he can't stop them, he will threaten them individually until they quit. (Don't say "he can't stop the election, under the constitution"; it's a meaningless phrase now)

You're not having a normal election in 2026.

Even if I turn out to be wrong, I really wish people would start acting as if predictions like these are entirely plausible. Because they are. He's moving much faster than critics expected, and yet he's doing all the things they expected.

[ethbr1]

> why would a man who tried a coup and thinks he can disappear people to El Salvador let that happen?

Because he has an ego the size of a planet and cares about his legacy.

Being remembered as the president that broke democracy is not his mental narrative.

[SauciestGNU]

Hence the push for a mid-decade census (likely illegal) and revised fascist-friendly electoral maps. Can't risk popular sovereignty overruling Nazi priorities.

[yibg]

Personally I'm not very confident even in the next free and fair election things will change materially. Trump is the public face but the reason he's in office and also has control of congress is because Americans voted that way. It's not very clear that if elections were held tomorrow, that the result would go any different.

[jrs235]

But but but American Exceptionalism! Americans are the best and brightest! The rest of the world can't compete! /s

Those doing and supporting what's happening a) care only about power, b) honestly think they and America is superior, c) both and d) think this time is different assuming they are educated and know history.

[msgodel]

Whether it's real or just poor communication a lot of the country felt like the scientific institutions had been weaponized against them. Maybe the constituents of those institutions even believed either making themselves an enemy of the public or creating PR indicating they were was moral but the practical reality of public institutions is that they must have the trust of the public or they will come to an end.

Hopefully people remember this for next time.

[watwut]

> Whether it's real or just poor communication

Nah, there was nothing "poor communication" about it. It was very well done bad faith communication from bad actors. It was intentional lies. This was not a fault of communication of these institutions. They can not match the lies machine from well founded and motivated political groups. And that is about it.

[SauciestGNU]

Don't forget the resentment the religious hold toward science over things like evolution and the big bang that are inconsistent with their superstitions. There's been a concerted effort by evangelical Christianity to undermine the place of science in our society, probably because when religion loses its explanatory power over the wondrous things we see in the world people turn toward the alternatives, like evidence-based explanations.

[mindslight]

It must be nice to be in Trumpist lala land, where it's always someone else's fault.

Trust of our institutions, scientific and other, had been deliberately destroyed by anti-intellectual political hacks over the past few decades. Some from appealing to regressive religious fundamentalism, but much just shameless ignorant grandstanding of painting the complex world as unfair. And it's mostly those same hacks who are now supporting the wanton burning of our societal institutions while continuing to whitewash it as "conservatism".

Sorry, the fault here lays entirely with the fascists - most especially with the people supporting them who should have known better.

[thisisit]

Really? Is that why Project Warp Speed was both an achievement for Trump and at the same time vaccines were produced too fast and hence unreliable? That is at the same institutions were a friend, when it fit the narrative and enemy, when it didn't fit the narrative. People who say - "Don't trust the government, they make terrible decisions" are now saying "Trust the government". What a turn around.

Hopefully people who have voted for this and defending this remember this as the beginning of the end of American exceptionalism. It's certainly not happening any time soon. Maybe decades later but these things will be remembered in the same way as Mccarthyism.

[yencabulator]

> beginning of the end of American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism has always been a weird delusion, I don't see that ending. USA not being a market leader in <whatever>, now that can end and it's starting to happen for sure.