Amid the turbulence, corruption, and disorder that characterized the Trump administration, one defining feature has been its deliberate and extensive destructiveness.
The administration’s aggressive challenges have targeted a broad range of institutions, including the legal system, higher education, scientific research, ethical norms, America’s foreign partnerships, freedom of expression, the civil service, religious entities, and the press.
Reflecting on this unprecedented period, former federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig remarked on the unparalleled nature of the damage caused during this presidency.
While some of the harm inflicted can be remedied by subsequent administrations, rebuilding strained international relations, restoring lost governmental expertise, and reviving productive scientific research could require years—even under committed new leadership.
One particularly hard-hit area has been medical research. The administration curtailed thousands of research grants, reduced funding allocations to universities and hospitals, and proposed drastic budget cuts exceeding 40 percent for key institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Science Foundation.
Jennifer Zeitzer, deputy executive director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, warned that these cuts threaten to severely cripple biomedical research nationwide. Similarly, Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, cautioned that such funding reductions could devastate the country’s public health infrastructure.
Experts in presidential history have expressed deep concern about the extent of this disruption. Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton University, described the dismantling of expertise and experience under the guise of eliminating fraud and waste as catastrophic, potentially leaving lasting damage that may be impossible to fully reverse.
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