(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Trump solves the C.P. Snow dilemma [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-04
66 years ago, British chemist and mystery author Charles Percy Snow delivered a Rede Lecture at the University of Cambridge titled “The Two Cultures.”
The thesis of Snow’s lecture (which he eventually turned into a book) was that the British sciences and humanities, what Snow called "the intellectual life of the whole of western society," had become two cultures instead of one and that the British establishment clearly favored the humanities to the detriment of the sciences. Snow contrasted the British educational system with the American and German systems which he identified as treating both the sciences and humanities more equitably.
Snow’s lecture was controversial when it was first delivered and it remains controversial on both sides of the Atlantic; you can find plenty of discussions and debates and symposiums about Snow’s 1959 lecture on YouTube.
Who knew that 66 years later (almost to the day) an American president would deploy the wisdom of Solomon in solving C.P. Snow’s dilemma?
Just defund all the sh*t, humanities and sciences alike.
We begin today with Dan Garisto writing for Nature Magazine (republished by Scientific American) about the deep and severe budget cuts affecting the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice,” according to an email seen by Nature. The policy prevents the NSF, one of the world’s biggest supporters of basic research, from awarding new research grants and from supplying allotted funds for existing grants, such as those that receive yearly increments of money. The email does not provide a reason for the freeze and says that it will last “until further notice”. [...] Cuts to NSF spending this year could be a prelude to a dramatically reduced budget next year. Science previously reported that US President Donald Trump will request a $4 billion budget for the agency in fiscal year 2026, a 55% reduction from what Congress appropriated for 2025. Similarly, the proposed 2026 budget for the National Institutes of Health calls for a 44% cut to the agency’s $47 billion budget in 2025, according to documents leaked to the media. During Trump’s first term, Republicans in Congress rejected many of the president’s requested cuts to science funding, but it is not clear that they will do so again.
At the present time, STEM is preeminent in American circles, what with all the talk about the crises in the humanities that we hear on this side of the Atlantic nowadays.
If Trump has anything to say about it (and he does, though his is far from the sole voice in the debate), both cultures will be in the same boat sooner rather than later.
Michael Paulson of The New York Times reports that in his proposed budget, the tacky shoe salesman also proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
The endowments, along with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, were among the entities listed in a section titled “small agency eliminations” in his budget blueprint for the next fiscal year. The document said that the proposal was “consistent with the president’s efforts to decrease the size of the federal government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities” and noted that Mr. Trump’s past budget proposals had “also supported these eliminations.” In 2017, during his first term, Mr. Trump proposed eliminating both the arts and the humanities endowments. But bipartisan support in Congress kept them alive, and in fact their budgets grew during the first Trump administration. [...] The Trump administration had already upended the endowment’s distribution of grants. Shortly after the second term began, the N.E.A. announced it was eliminating grants this year from a program supporting projects for underserved groups and communities. Then the agency announced that it would require grant applicants to promise not to promote “diversity, equity and inclusion” or “gender ideology” in ways that run afoul of President Trump’s executive orders — creating confusion and concern among arts groups applying for grants. Both requirements were put on hold as court challenges were considered, and recently the agency posted a notice suggesting that it would no longer require grant applicants to certify that they will not promote gender ideology but will expect the agency’s chair to review grant applications in accord with statutory requirements.
Paul Krugman writes for his self-named Substack about the reasons why MAGA wants to “destroy” science in America.
Why should those who aren’t scientists care? In the 21st century, science isn’t some esoteric intellectual affair. It’s the foundation of social and economic progress. And no, we can’t expect the private sector to fill the gap left by loss of government support. Basic research is a public good: it generates real benefits, but those benefits can’t be monetized because everyone can make use of the knowledge gained. So government support is the only way to sustain science. And that support is being rapidly ended. But why do our new rulers want to destroy science in America? Sadly, the answer is obvious: Science has a tendency to tell you things you may not want to hear. Medical research may tell you that vaccines work and don’t cause autism. Energy research may tell wind power works and doesn’t massacre birds. And one thing we know about MAGA types is that they are determined to hold on to their prejudices. If science conflicts with those prejudices, they don’t want to know, and they don’t want anyone else to know either. So they really want to destroy science. Again, this isn’t hyperbole, and it’s not about the long run. American science is being gutted as you read this.
Rebecca Gordon writes for TomDispatch that all (or nearly all) of the illegal and unethical actions of Trump 2.0 have their antecedents.
It’s tempting to think of Donald Trump’s second term as a sui generis reign of lawlessness. But sadly, the federal government’s willingness to violate federal and international law with impunity didn’t begin with Trump. If anything, the present incumbent is harvesting a crop of autocratic powers from seeds planted by President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney in those war on terror years following the attacks of September 11, 2001. In their wake, the hastily-passed Patriot Act granted the federal government vast new detention and surveillance powers. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 established a new cabinet-level department, one whose existence we now take for granted. [...] The constant thrill of what some have called security theater has kept us primed for new enemies and so set the stage for the second set of Trump years that we now find ourselves in. We still encounter this theater of the absurd every time we stand in line at an airport, unpacking our computers, removing our shoes, sorting our liquids into quart-sized baggies — all to reinforce the idea that we are in terrible danger and that the government will indeed protect us. Sadly, all too many of us became inured to the idea that prisoners could be sent to that infamous offshore prison of injustice at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, perhaps never to be released. (Indeed, as of January 2025, of the hundreds of people incarcerated there over the years, 15 war on terror prisoners still remain.) It should perhaps be no surprise, then, that the second time around, Donald Trump seized on Guantánamo as a possible place to house the immigrants he sought to deport from this country. After all, so many of us were already used to thinking of anybody sent there as the worst of the worst, as something other than human.
Jaden Edison of the Texas Tribune writes that private school vouchers are now the law in Texas.
Senate Bill 2 will allow families to use public taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s education at an accredited private school or to pay for a wide range of school-related expenses, like textbooks, transportation or therapy. The program will be one of the largest school voucher initiatives in the nation.[...] The law’s passage follows years of discord in the Legislature over school vouchers. The Democrats and rural Republicans who fought against it argued that the program would harm already-struggling public schools, a major employer for working families and a resource center for many Texas students — the majority of whom reside in low-income households. [...] Most participating families will receive an amount equal to 85% of what public schools get for each student through state and local funding — roughly somewhere between $10,300 and $10,900 per year for each child, according to a legislative budget analysis, which included financial projections for the next five years.
Ja’han Jones of MSNBC wonders why ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith can’t be a loudmouth when it matters; specifically, during Smith’s interview of Trump.
Smith let the president slide on two claims I found particularly egregious at the event, which featured the “First Take” host on a panel with right-wing commentator Bill O’Reilly and NewsNation host Chris Cuomo. The first came after Smith asked Trump about his blatantly partisan attacks on colleges and universities. Smith asked Trump about Harvard and whether his administration’s attempts to force changes at the university constitute an attack on academic freedom — but Trump randomly pivoted to talking about “riots” in Harlem and claimed that New Yorkers “went up” and protested against Harvard — which is in Massachusetts — for some reason, before making the baseless claim that Black people support his crackdown on the university. [...] This was nonsensical. There’s no evidence Black people — let alone people in Harlem — support any college crackdown en masse. In fact, as my MSNBC colleague Steve Benen recently covered, a recent Washington Post poll showed a whopping 70% majority of U.S. adults oppose Trump’s efforts to bend colleges and universities to his will, and about two-thirds support Harvard in the current standoff. [...] But rather than push back on the president’s false claim, Smith teed up another question, asking whether HBCU funding is at risk under this administration. As I see it, Trump opened the door to this possibility during last year’s campaign, when he openly floated the possibility of investigating HBCU presidents who didn’t vote for him. That seemed to send a clear message that HBCU leaders who don’t support Trump could face some sort of repercussion, whether personally or institutionally, if he were elected.
Finally today, Juliette Kayyem of the Atlantic points out that the full effects of Trump’s tariffs are coming.
The Port of Los Angeles, the busiest in the Western Hemisphere, processes about 17 percent of everything the United States imports or exports in shipping containers. The adjoining Port of Long Beach accounts for another 14 percent. Over the years, a whole ecosystem has arisen to support the loading and unloading of the cars, clothes, electronic gadgets, and other things that people want. There are workers and warehouses, trucks and loading pads, security structures and rail lines. [...] The economy, and the supply chains that allow it to function, can adjust fairly quickly to certain shocks, including weather disasters and even a pandemic. Early in the COVID shutdowns, toilet paper was in short supply as Americans spent more time at home and less at workplaces and schools. The problem eased as manufacturers ramped up production, transportation systems adapted, and consumer anxiety decreased. But Trump’s trade war is different because it is unpredictable and indefinite. Even if he were to renounce tariffs tomorrow, Trump has already shaken global confidence in American economic-policy making. No one can comfortably make business decisions based on what he does. Unless the Republican-controlled Congress steps in to quickly take away the president’s ability to impose import duties at will, a failed effort so far, even foreign trading partners who believe they have a deal with the United States could be at risk of capricious new taxes on their products.
Of course, the defunding of the arts and sciences as well as the increased tariffs really isn’t (or shouldn’t be) Trump’s decision. Ultimate responsibility lies with the Republican-controlled Congress.
Try to have the best possible day everyone!
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/4/2320376/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-Trump-solves-the-C-P-Snow-dilemma?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
