Sound the alarm
Alarm bells have been sounding even back when Donald Trump was vying for the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election. During the 2024 campaign season, coalitions of experts, business leaders, researchers, and other industry professionals penned open letters warning about the danger a second Trump administration would pose to the United States.
With those warnings largely unheeded, Trump is back in the White House for a second term, and he has proven himself to be more destructive and unhinged than ever. Now that the damage is being done in real time, a new wave of people who are in the best position to understand all the ramifications of Trump’s power trips is sounding the alarm.
Nearly 2,000 members of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a letter this week warning that the Trump administration is actively dismantling America’s scientific research enterprise. The letter details the depth and breadth of the assault, with funding gutted, scientists fired, public data access restricted, and researchers pressured to tailor their work to fit political narratives.
For those people who believe that science doesn’t affect their lives, the letter reminds us that our smartphones, car navigation systems, and life-saving medical care are all thanks to science. The letter also points out how we rely on engineers even when we drive over bridges and take flights. In addition, “businesses and farmers count on science and engineering for product innovation, technological advances, and weather forecasting. Science helps humanity protect the planet and keeps pollutants and toxins out of our air, water, and food.”
The signatories, which include Nobel prize winners, describe an unprecedented and growing “climate of fear,” where scientists are now avoiding terms like “climate change” in proposals to avoid retaliation. If this assault on independent scientific research continues, they warn, the United States will lose its edge in technology and medicine and therefore defense and the economy—and recovery could take decades.
Open letters are not just warnings but calls to action. Pushback from courts, Democratic politicians, and the efforts of concerned citizens have already helped put an end to some of Trump’s most evil or deranged plans. Until there is no longer a need for such open letters, America—and everything it has long stood for—remains under threat, and we must not yield to defeatism.
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month