New executive order puts all grants under political control

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/new-executive-order-puts-all-grants-under-political-control/

by pbui • 12 months ago

229 201 12 months ago

Zaheer• 12 months ago

Related paulg tweet: https://x.com/paulg/status/1951996478555357530

"The Trump administration has suspended the funding of Terence Tao and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA."

abetusk• 12 months ago

Terence Tao's toot on mathstodon.xyz: https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/114956840959338146

noncoml• 12 months ago

The replies to his tweet are a cesspool. Why do people still use Twitter?

ojbyrne• 12 months ago

You have to be logged in to see the comments. So…

v5v33• 12 months ago

Because it has an enormous userbase including active daily postings from many of the most prominent minds.

mschuster91• 12 months ago

The replies to his tweet are a cesspool.

Maybe it's just Twitter's algorithm that only serves me the decent replies - but these at least have a point, antisemitism is running utterly rampant in academia these days. In no relation to Qatari funding, one might assume...

mindslight3• 12 months ago

intermerda• 12 months ago

Paul Graham? Pretty sure he was anti-Trump before the last election.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s one of those “enlightened centrists.”

shrubble• 12 months ago

All bureaucrats do this sort of thing: shut down something innocent to serve as a rallying cry.

UCLA has $8 billion in endowments and the state universities in total have $30 billion in endowment funds. How many years could they fund Tao and his institute if they really wanted to?

noelwelsh3• 12 months ago

The govt has frozen about $584 million in grants to UCLA. The endowment won't last very long if they spent it to replace that. Furthermore, endowment money often has conditions that prevent it being spent freely + it is used for other things.

pfannkuchen2• 12 months ago

I don’t really understand why so much of science is funded by the government instead of by private philanthropy. It seems like an obvious channel for corruption of science. Sure private donors have interest driven motives too but it would be diffuse across many areas not concentrated like a political party’s interests.

teaearlgraycold• 12 months ago

Private philanthropy doesn't feel like it's free from corruption.

dotancohen2• 12 months ago

Recent events related to the Qatari funding make this poignant.

kevinventullo• 12 months ago

Is anything stopping private philanthropy from funding science today? Generally speaking it is in the government’s interest to support fundamental scientific research.

pfannkuchen2• 12 months ago

I’m not aware of anything stopping it except for perhaps how the system is set up.

Like if I want to fund a pet study that I’m interested in, can I just call up Harvard and offer the lab $1M to work on it? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that, but I’m not really sure why it doesn’t exist (which is why I’m asking if anyone else knows).

dragonwriter2• 12 months ago

Yes, the interests of private donors. Private philanthropy mostly feeds what private donors are interests in (weighted, of course, by having money to give, so for all intents and purposes, it goes where the interests of the superwealthy are.)

And those tend to be: things that are perceived by the donor as having high immediate returns, things that are perceived by the public as having high immediate returns and thus are good for buying status, and things that provide a convenient channel for the donor to exercise power via the donation, making it away to enjoy wealth while also getting a tax break for it.

Basic science doesn't tend to fit any of those, which is why science funded by private philanthropy is small compared either to government funding of basic science or total private philanthropy.

panarchy6• 12 months ago

What biased incentives does a government have that isn't even worse than a corporation or an individual who has large sway in corporation? How exactly would Dow Chemical funding research for understanding cancer effects on chemicals they produce not be extremely biased? Why would other rich people who are friends of the CEO of Dow fund that research? How exactly would a private donor fund something like the Apollo missions? Why would they bother when they could just reinvest their money to make more money? These billionaires could be donating billions right now and in large they aren't.

ajkjk2• 12 months ago

"why would the government pay for things that benefit the people that they govern and which those people elected them do?" what do you want a government to do?

ajkjk2• 12 months ago

*to do

AdieuToLogic2• 12 months ago

I don’t really understand why so much of science is funded by the government instead of by private philanthropy.

Two reasons.

First, private philanthropy is neither sustainable nor sufficient in scope.

Second, because government funded science is free from having to produce immediate results in order to satisfy the whims of a specific patron such that funding is continued.

It seems like an obvious channel for corruption of science.

Yes, relying on private entities to fund scientific research does seem like an obvious channel for corruption.

derbOac3• 12 months ago

Second, because government funded science is free from having to produce immediate results in order to satisfy the whims of a specific patron such that funding is continued.

I agree with you but there's irony (and a possible lesson about motives) in the current situation.

jghn2• 12 months ago

Because basic science is the sort of thing that no one funds, yet winds up being very useful at the applied science phase that people do fund. So it's useful as a community to fund basic science as it leads to really cool applied science where people can start turning profits

827a3• 12 months ago

The biggest reason is because we have a strategic multinational interest in remaining a leader in science. China (and other countries) will fund science. We have to as well, or we fall behind. Its national security.

We also have a strategic interest in draining intelligent individuals from other countries and nationalizing them in ours, which science funding plays a major part in doing.

One of the reasons why its complicated, however, is that the University environment has changed significantly in the US. What used to be academically-motivated institutions dedicated to the pursuit of education are now, essentially, just boring businesses, with more middle managers than educators. As one example, UCLA has a $9.8B endowment. Their athletics programs brought in $120M last year (though, they spent more, and the university itself had to provide gap funding of $30M. yup.) IPAM was receiving $5M/year in NSF funding (DMS-1925919). One obviously extreme way of looking at this: UCLA could have funded Terrance Tao's mathematics research group for six years with the money they used to save a hundred million dollar athletics program that's somehow still losing money.

This is a priorities issue for universities, through and through. But, Universities have slowly evolved their priorities to bloat their managerial class, which has forced them into impossible financial situations where the only way out is to bias investment into revenue generating verticals like maximizing the size of the student body at any cost on the backs of no-default student loans, international students, and athletics programs. Research takes a back seat.

I am all for public funding of science, but even many university researchers would argue, as a part of the system, that its broken (for reasons which extend even beyond those I've brought up). That's why I struggle to take a solid side on this issue; I want science, but what I want more is a University system that actually takes education and research seriously.

derbOac3• 12 months ago

The current system is broken but nothing about this administration is aimed at helping fix its problems.

With most actions, there's nothing being remedied, just an assertion of control. The action isn't tied to an improvement goal or a remedy with rationale.

As Tao noted, in cases where a remedy for a wrong is mentioned, the remedies being proposed by the administration do far more harm to any ostensible victims than the original asserted wrongs.

Nothing about their actions is in good faith in terms of improving academics in the US, nor do they even try in most cases to pretend to be trying to improve academics at all.

mnky9800n2• 12 months ago

It’s also that most r1 university budgets single largest contributor is grant overhead which is the approximate 50% of the grant you win is given to the university. But the people who write and win these grants have little say over how this money is spent. Also because universities are impervious to reorganising there is a lot of extra weight within departments as well.

toomuchtodo3• 12 months ago

Because hope is not a strategy.

energy123• 12 months ago

Neoclassical economics has an answer!

The market can't provide public goods like basic research since it's non-excludable. This is a market failure, causing inefficient allocation of resources.

Therefore, the government has to provide it. This can improve efficiency of resource distribution, if done well.

Whether it's done well is not a foregone conclusion. That's why we need effective and technocratic state capacity, free from corruption and independent of political influence.

mnky9800n2• 12 months ago

I don’t feel like what you said provided an answer.

dotancohen2• 12 months ago

  > I don’t really understand why so much of science is funded by the government instead of by private philanthropy.

The two are not orthodontal, it is not "instead". Why does the government fund science? To keep the nation ahead of its rivals. Why doesn't philanthropy fund science? Actually, it does. How much more philanthropy would you like? And from whom?

stevenwoo• 12 months ago

There's a half hour explanation of how the government funding of science research became a thing in the USA. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/28/1253247256/-higher-education-...

ulfw• 12 months ago

Because imagine just for the sake of discussion (I am well aware this is not possible. Just trying to make an extreme point. You could pick HIV or MS or Parking's or any other incurable disease) there was a magic pill that could cure cancer. You take it once a day for a week and any cancer is gone. Doesn't matter which cancer. All of them, gone for good. Magical!

Would would ANY private enterprise (i.e. pharmaceutical company) want to fund research that would enable that?

The immense money (the US spends over $200B a year in cancer 'treatments') that these companies would not be making anymore would deter any such research.

Same goes for many other scientific discoveries. Some are for the greater humanitarian good, not for private enterprise profit maximisation.

FredPret2• 12 months ago

All companies are not one giant entity. Even when they illegally collude, they're holding onto their knives and keeping a keen eye on one another's backs.

Of course any company would take this deal and make a boatload of money (though less than the $200B / year).

Undercutting all its competitors would be a bonus, not a deterrent.

This has happened so many times throughout history. New tech comes in, does the same thing cheaper and better, old companies die out kicking and screaming.

jjk1662• 12 months ago

The same reason bridges and aircraft carriers and public schools aren't funded by private philanthropy. Why am I paying taxes if not to fund things done for the public interest?

esseph• 12 months ago

Because not all science that needs to be done is profitable.

Companies and their shareholders only do things that are profitable.

panarchy6• 12 months ago

There's a reason the Americans discovered how to make atomic weapons first and it's because their researchers were living under a less oppressive state that wasn't motivated by anti-intellectualism and dumb ideology.

pokstad2• 12 months ago

But the Soviets made them second…

epistasis2• 12 months ago

Not because they trusted their scientists to be able to do it though. They used the plans stolen form the US instead.

defrost2• 12 months ago

But they didn't.

An Australian nuclear scientist working for the UK Rutherford (New Zealander) labs | Tube Alloys | MAUD program told them how to.

It took a while to convince the US scientists who were mainly interested in making big hot piles for power.

The actual building of atomic weapons (Trinity, Fat Man and Little Boy) took place under a fully authoritarian ultra secret State directed militarily controlled program that cost a significant chunk of national GDP.

The example you chose appears to be both incorrect and the very opposite of whatever point you wanted to make.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_Alloys

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Oliphant

panarchy6• 12 months ago

Interesting. How about we replace the USA (I mostly highlighted the US because that's where this site and the population that use it is based) with the Allies. And being authoritarian isn't about having secretive or highly controlled group (which makes sense given what they were working on and the stakes), but rather the general cultural interpretation of freedom perceived by those who are likely to be doing research. And while you can argue that the USA had authoritarian overtones then as well, the key point is that they weren't as overt as having to greet everyone with good tidings for your supreme leader and keep all your opinions strictly in line with the party's. Notes released from the German scientists (I think Heisenberg comes to mind?) revealed they weren't highly motivated by the regime's philosophy despite supporting it outwardly while those who were the most invested into the Nazi ideology never published much of note.

themafia3• 12 months ago

The jingoist dream of America is falling apart. It must seem, to some who are very dependent on it existing, as if the sky actually is falling. Perhaps it's just a good opportunity for them to study history that has been untouched by North American propaganda.

Anyways, we have the Internet, I'm not sure it matters _where_ innovations are created anymore. It certainly does not seem to be stopping China on any level.

America is going to have to give up the "World Police" (a.k.a. The Military Industrial Complex) badge and move into it's relative political middle age with a little more care and aplomb than the last 6 decades have allowed for. The haze of WW2 is far behind us now.

joules77• 12 months ago

Go deeper - why does anti-intellectualism emerge?

toomuchtodo3• 12 months ago

Nationalist populism sacrifices academics and intellectuals to create a divide between “the people” and the presumed said “elite,” which is then weaponized for political gain by the actual “elite” (political, economical, etc). These movements rely on emotional resonance and simplified narratives, as opposed to educated, informed discourse.

My crude take on the underlying root cause is resentment, discontent, and similar feelings. Happiness is reality minus expectations, and a whole lot of folks are unhappy life did not turn out how they thought it would.

https://warwick.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/researchers_point_t...

https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/1/1/ksab002/6185295

dehrmann• 12 months ago

Headlines like this don't help.

"Scientific fraud has become an 'industry,' analysis finds"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44796526

Jimmc414• 12 months ago

While I agree in spirit on the concern about political interference in science, the Manhattan Project was actually one of the most secretive, tightly controlled government programs in US history.

In addition many scientists involved (like Oppenheimer) later faced political persecution during the McCarthy era.

American atomic research succeeded despite, or perhaps because of, intense state control and funding

thisislife2• 12 months ago

And it was an international project - the British were involved too, before the Americans suddenly cut them off.

panarchy6• 12 months ago

Yeah it probably isn't the best project to highlight the sentiment, but it was well known one and immediately came to mind in a period that had the contrasting factor.

I don't particularly think that the secrecy or control of a single group really reflects on the overall culture however. We wouldn't call phreakers authoritarian just because they weren't publishing their exploits in the newspaper or letting any new person fully into their circle.

Also the prosecution and harassment of communists/leftists and minorities in the US during that era is why I stipulated less oppressive rather than unoppressive.

seanmcdirmid3• 12 months ago

You can’t just look at the Manhattan project without looking at the research output that led up to it.

HelloNurse• 12 months ago

The "raw material" of the Manhattan Project was a flourishing community of researchers, including many European exiles; "secretive, tightly controlled" management is simply the only reasonable way to run such a military program.

Consider that at the same time the Third Reich also had a nuclear weapons research program, and it went nowhere.

m4rtink• 12 months ago

Well, many of the researchers would have been killed if they stayed in Germany. It kinda helps being alive when researching how to build a nuclear bomb.

Seb-C• 12 months ago

The Manhattan project was an engineering project, not so much a scientific one. It was only made possible because the science and theories behind it were discovered first.

WillPostForFood2• 12 months ago

Do you really think WWII America was a less oppressive state? Do you know much harder it was to get porn back then? Or be a trans? Japanese internment? Food ration cards? Office of Censorship? Smith Act? The draft? Curfews and blackouts?

jonny_eh• 12 months ago

All that stuff was bad, especially Japanese internment, but this feels like a whole different category. It's a full-blown ceding control of the country to one man.

bee_rider• 12 months ago

They meant less oppressive in comparison to Nazi Germany.

msgodel2• 12 months ago

Lol what? At the time that was done we were drafting people to fight in foreign wars, taxes were extraordinarily high (after having zero income tax just recently) and those weapons were built specifically to support that.

thrown-0825• 12 months ago

This is propaganda.

The Manhattan project succeeded because it was consuming a significant portion of the US GDP at the time, the scientists were forced to live on site with their families and every word they said was monitored.

jacquesm2• 12 months ago

Projects such as these consume large sums of money no matter who funds them. But the scientists that worked on it were not forced to work on it, a large number of them were refugees from exactly the kind of regime that the OP contrasts the United States with, which at the time, side-by-side would definitely be favorable for the US.

Military projects, especially making the most powerful weapon in history for use in the largest war up to that point, are always done with as much secrecy as is feasible. Living on-site was also practical: the reason the site was as isolated as it was was in part because of secrecy, the families being there was both to improve security and for convenience. Finally, yes, every word they said was monitored. But they were scientists and their families working on top secret machinery of war, which ended up changing the course of history in a significant way, they quite literally ushered in a new age. They knew they were monitored and that this was one part of the price to pay for working on that project.

In contrast with that age: now all our words are monitored, even inane ones that are exchanged between people who would have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

sillyfluke• 12 months ago

This is propaganda. The Manhattan project succeeded because it was consuming a significant portion of the US GDP at the time.

I'm confused, are you claiming the enemy was not consuming a significant portion of their GDP on their weapons program?

the "necessary but not sufficient" concept applies here.

tremon2• 12 months ago

Nice revisionism you got there. It wasn't Americans that discovered it. It was mostly German scientists working in the US after they fled their own more oppressive state.

BobaFloutist2• 12 months ago

People that flee their own, more oppressive state to build a better life in America are Americans. That's the whole point.

oaiey• 12 months ago

Every day I wake up and see the United States drifting deeper into the totalitarian playbook. It scares the shit out of me.

leptons• 12 months ago

The Republicans want it to collapse. They want to burn it down so they can rule over the ashes.

ocschwar2• 12 months ago

This ends science in the United States.

You can't really enroll graduate students for a 5 year PHD project if their funding can be pulled at a moment's notice like this.

russellbeattie3• 12 months ago

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.

msgodel2• 12 months ago

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.

ethbr16• 12 months ago

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.

yibg• 12 months ago

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• 11 months ago

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.

themafia3• 12 months ago

I genuinely don't understand this. This is due to my lack of experience in University since I never went, and my experience with laboratories, since I've only ever been in one, much to the annoyance of my best friends girlfriend at the time, who was studying Chinook and their spawning behavior.

My understanding is the grants you're talking about are generally for small student salaries as they work on a given project simultaneously with their continued education. Is there not another way to fund these projects? Is there not a better way to engage students into these projects? I don't recall most students having a wide array of choices when it comes to taking on these opportunities.

Is this not a chance to improve a rather ancient and clumsy system?

pyrale• 12 months ago

Is this not a chance to improve a rather ancient and clumsy system?

I seriously doubt that there is any will to improve the system.

My understanding is the grants you're talking about are generally for small student salaries as they work on a given project simultaneously with their continued education.

Grants cover a much larger part of the work at labs. Basically, a grant could be paying anything except tenured salaries and administrative costs.

noelwelsh3• 12 months ago

Grants are usually for projects. Projects may include a portion for postgraduate students, but also pay a lot of other things such as running costs for a lab, travel, conference fees, etc. The costs of running, say, a biology lab are very high (lots of equipment, need to employ technicians as well).

WillPostForFood2• 12 months ago

This ends science in the United States.

Probably not. Grants were always under political control, right? This is just shifting political control from one part of a government agency to another part of the government agency.

noelwelsh3• 12 months ago

The key phrase in the article is "political appointee". Previously, approval was by government employees who had expertise in the given field.

jjk1662• 12 months ago

Individual grants will also require clearance from a political appointee and "must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities."
The order also instructs agencies to formalize the ability to cancel previously awarded grants at any time if they're considered to "no longer advance agency priorities."

ocschwar2• 12 months ago

Until now, once you got a grant, you could count on it.

Now? One of your grad students says something a little too on the nose on Bsky, and your lab gets shut down.

tremon2• 12 months ago

Grants were always under political control, right?

Sure. In the same vein, you have always been at war with Eurasia.

FredPret2• 12 months ago

To play devil's advocate:

- science funding is controlled by the state (and thus politics) in many leading countries, especially China. Doesn't seem to hold them back

- the US pays people vastly more than other countries, and will continue to have the ability to fund expensive research more than others. Maybe it will regain the political will to do so in coming years

You're right that uncertainty is deadly to investment, and signing up for 5 years of a PhD is certainly an investment. But it's hard to see this turn into an actual brain drain, if only for lack of a better place to go.

redserk• 12 months ago

In a completely isolated bubble I’d be inclined to agree that scientific research might not do so badly, but the current set of politics completely rejects generally-accepted scientific norms.

After all, why bother doing research when the guy ultimately responsible for choosing your funding will take a sharpie to any data you collect if it looks bad?

Yizahi3• 12 months ago

This ends USA, full stop. Not this particular executive order, but his orders in general. It's been half a year and that orange turd has completely overtaken USA legislative branch with this "economic emergency", while bobbleheads in the Congress just signed it away voluntarily. And now he is taking preliminary shots at the judicial branch, trying to eradicate judges who aren't bending the knee. All the while testing through his minions if it would be possible to tear down constitution too and remain in power permanently.

sizzle• 12 months ago

What can we do about it?

mathiaspoint2• 12 months ago

It may be that the Americans don't like what the USA has turned into and want it to end.

tsoukase• 12 months ago

Trump governs literally as any corrupt leader in any poor country does since ages: he feeds the people with cheap, superficial lies that they like to hear (we call it, he lets them suck a pacifier) while secretly stuffing his mates with money and power.

But that happens in unprecedented amounts in a developed and organised country, maybe soon developing...

derangedHorse• 12 months ago

Most of my friends got grants from industry. Relying on federal grants to build up a generation of grad students in any field seems like a recipe for disaster. This change might actually bring a higher standard of tax-payer funded research if it enables the public to have faster feedback mechanisms when research stagnates or is misaligned with the public interest.

esafak• 12 months ago

"You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you."

hinkley• 12 months ago

How much of this shit is even legal?

63• 12 months ago

We shall see. Undoubtedly much of this order will be challenged by some pretty powerful institutions and lawyers. Unfortunately, my confidence in the supreme court to uphold the fairest or least destructive interpretation of the law is at an all time low.

wat100003• 12 months ago

I know someone who lost their job in the recent cuts. They worked for a nonprofit funded by the government, and the funding was eliminated. It was challenged in court, and the government lost. They were ordered to restore funding. The person in charge of the funding just... didn’t pay. Legal or not, the money remained in the government’s accounts rather than the nonprofit’s, and the nonprofit shut down.

Until we have actual penalties for the people in charge, it doesn’t even matter whether the courts uphold this stuff or not.

spencerflem• 12 months ago

I believed this too but the last few months we’ve seen powerful institution after institution just kinda give up or not even try

stouset• 12 months ago

What does “legal” even matter when you ignore lower courts, stop them from being able to issue injunctions, and have the Supreme Court in your pocket?

This last election was the end of American democracy.

SubiculumCode• 12 months ago

This is extremely disappointing, and worrisome. Science is hard enough without this bull

CalRobert5• 12 months ago

If European leadership has even half a brain cell this could be the catalyst for enormous growth in European science. But they’d need to act fast.

nixass• 12 months ago

Not until decision makers in Germany exchange ideas through fax machines first

CalRobert5• 12 months ago

Well it’s an upgrade on chiseling out woodcuts at least.

whazor• 12 months ago

There are luckily other countries in EU outside of Germany.

jimt1234• 12 months ago

China enters the chat.

CalRobert5• 12 months ago

True, they won’t pay PhD’s €28,000 a year either.

nikanj2• 12 months ago

EU will not act on this unless the bill also includes provisions to support hobby horse manufacturing in eastern romania

random32• 12 months ago

You seem to be frustrated about Romania (which has an east but not a formal eastern region designation as in Eastern Europe - are you conflating the two?) - but can you elaborate on your frustration?

layer8• 12 months ago

They have already been acting: https://www.daad-brussels.eu/en/2025/05/26/choose-europe-a-n...

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs#european-funding-initiati...

Yizahi3• 12 months ago

It is easier for politicians to do nothing, safer and ensures future election win. If someone would say anything serious about inviting those scientists, then his opponents would immediately capitalize on this by shouting from every paid tiktok shill, how he is taking European's jobs and inviting bad immigrants.

remify• 12 months ago

The EU don't act fast. It act slow and steady, it's not perfect but it sure is better then whatever is happnening the other side of the Atlantic.

dyauspitr• 12 months ago

I have no respect for republicans. Very hysterical people.

yoyohello13• 12 months ago

I truly cannot understand the people that support this administration. I know I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to defund education and healthcare while simultaneously running up the national dept to pay for a private police force loyal only to the president. I used to think there was some way to bridge the divide, but I just have no patience or respect for the other side anymore.

NicoJuicy• 12 months ago

But JD Vance using the military so he can have high water while Kayaking for his birthday is ok

Wtf US

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/06/jd-vance-ohi...

bananapub• 12 months ago

it truly is astonishing how idiotic or malicious so many of the posters on HN are in the face of this.

yes, actually, it is bad if a bunch of racist lunatics are personally in charge of things, and increase their personal power to make arbitrary decisions based on their stupid hobby horses or deeply dumb opinions.

yes, actually, this is different to when Biden or Obama or Bush presided over a functioning government, that had people you may or may not disagree with having some influence on things, this Trump Reign system is personalised autocracy.

yes, actually, it is bad if the government's sole agenda is "implement dumb ideas from dumb people" and "fuck the left/non-whites/immigrants/scientists".

it's especially dumb to be so unaware of why the world is so good now. it's not luck, it's centuries of hard work by our ancestors. why don't 50% of children simply die? because of medical research, healthcare, food subsidies, etc etc etc. why does the internet exist? because the US government funded a dumb thing for a while then a lot of other people and countries spent a lot of money and effort to make it this.

BrenBarn5• 12 months ago

If an executive order can put grants under political control, they were already under political control. We just didn't know it.

That is the case with so much of what is happening now. If these things are possible, the system was already broken.

mmustapic• 12 months ago

You can’t make an unbreakable system, or, at least, it’s very difficult.

The problem is that a big percentage of the population is ok with this, and in that case it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal or not. There is a reason why, even if allowed, governments didn’t do these kind of things: population didn’t want it.

BrenBarn5• 12 months ago

Unless that "big" percentage is an outright majority of the citizenry --- not a majority of congressional districts, not a majority of electoral college votes, not a majority of the votes in the last election, but an outright majority of the actual desires of all citizens --- then the system is broken. I'm pretty sure that is not the case; it's at least debatable. But the problem is that we've bought into a system that says that doesn't matter.

jjav• 12 months ago

In software terms, there has been a vulnerability in the constitution all along, it just had not been exploited until now.

The three branches of government are supposed to be checks and balances against each other. But turns out two of the three don't have any actual power to enforce their mandates. This has worked as long as the three branches grudgingly respected each others role. But now that the executive branch simply decided to ignore the other two whenever convenient, turns out there is no recourse.

threatofrain• 12 months ago

The GOP has majority in the Supreme Court and in Congress. It's not like there's a conflict of power. There's no disagreement going on.

burnt-resistor3• 12 months ago

It was already known by some, but not specifically, publicly elucidated or characterized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_Loophole

Future people must endeavor to split up power even more, make more functions more independent and shielded from political manipulation, and prevent the rich from monopolizing and corrupting political office, government, mass media distribution, and journalism.

BrenBarn5• 12 months ago

The idea of branches of government being checks and balances against one another was never a good idea. A major problem is that the constitution doesn't actually encode any requirement that government represent the interests of the people, and gradually we've moved to a system where we're told what we're supposed to support is "the constitution" rather than any actual principles. It's all about supporting certain arbitrary procedures and content-free mechanisms.

sporkland• 12 months ago

The founding fathers didn't see the corrupting influence of political parties on the separation of powers. It's covered quite well in this SMBC related comic: https://www.lawsandsausagescomic.com/comic/101

qcnguy2• 12 months ago

If it's government funded it was indeed always under political control, just that some prior politicians chose to let it drift.

Having politicians exercise more direct control over this type of spending is good and as it should be. The concept of people taking money via force from other citizens yet answering to nobody is dystopian. The sort of people who support this idea are often, it seems, those who suspect their ideas and plans are so deeply unpopular that people could not be easily persuaded to fund them directly.

exasperaited4• 12 months ago

If it's government funded it was indeed always under political control, just that some prior politicians chose to let it drift.

Right, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is under executive control? Is it not the case that Congress usually decides, one way or another, where the money goes, and it's the executive's job to see it does?

exasperaited4• 12 months ago

All political systems, no matter how well-designed, function largely on the basis of norms. Norms are why the UK's political system is fundamentally stable; norms (like "loyal opposition") were what kept the US system stable. It is not possible to design a system that works when people don't act like they want it to.

It has always been my impression from a distance that Americans believe the federal system was perfectly designed and is inherently robust, when in fact there have been concerns from day one about what would happen if it fell into the hands of a leader who didn't care for the law.

And that's where you are now.

But re: the executive orders, actually it is not clear that they can do this. As with many of Trump's EOs it may simply be illegal because -- newsflash -- Trump is a crook and he has no intention of following the law if it limits him.

This is a man who tried a coup and who has broad immunity for anything he does that even looks like governance, so why would he let a little thing like the law trouble him? It didn't bother him when he exported people to El Salvador without due process. It doesn't bother him that his "emergency" tariffs almost certainly lack a legal basis.

I don't think the good faith reasoning about the system being broken by design really matters: the USA is falling victim to an accelerated Hungary-style fascist restructuring.

Nixon looks like a boy scout by comparison.

antonvs3• 12 months ago

Ah, so a party official must approve the grants?

Trump has been learning from Winnie the Pooh. How very Communist of him.

jaybrendansmith2• 12 months ago

How would any of his actions, if looked at objectively, differ from the actions of one who was charged with the complete destruction of the United States of America.

exasperaited4• 12 months ago

He doesn't want to destroy the USA. Well not quite.

He does want to fundamentally change it into an domestic empire -- a monarchical executive ruling over vassal states that have their own governments but must pay tribute.

Well... he wants it to look more like a mafia arrangement because he was jealous of those guys back when he had a mafia lawyer in the 1970s. He likes to pressure people to do him little favours in return for protection (which is literally what he was impeached for the first time). He thinks he can direct industry to do what he wants (and it looks like industry kind of agrees). It is clear he intends to meddle in state law.

They, the people around him, believe in what amounts to a unitary executive that converges on a form of monarchy. It's more or less central to the belief structure of a far-right guru, Curtis Yarvin (who is an ex tech guy and a nasty little racist dweeb):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin

(He explicitly uses the word "monarch")

There are many Yarvinists in the executive branch. There are also many in the AI community, and Musk consulted Yarvin about The America Party.

Asserting control over academia is a Yarvin thing (and also a Viktor Orbán thing, because the model here is Hungary, quite deliberately, which is why e.g. Tucker Carlson and CPAC hang out there). That is what is going on here. They are injecting the executive into every part of academic life.

jaybrendansmith2• 11 months ago

Yes, not quite. But all that would obliterate the idea of the good ol' USA quite well: "I see a new nation ready to take its place in the world; not an empire, but a republic; and a republic of laws, not men."

jonnycomputer• 12 months ago

Hey, and what will stop these political appointees from terminating grants because the scientists publicly support Democrats? or criticized Trump's public policy? Or called Stephen Miller a Nazi?

And so now, I have to police my free speech and participation in the public sphere because I'm afraid someone might choose to nuke the lab. That's some bullshit there.

dragonwriter2• 12 months ago

Hey, and what will stop these political appointees from terminating grants because the scientists publicly support Democrats?

Vigorous adherence to the First Amendment by the Administration and, failing that, vigorous enforcement of it by the federal courts.

More seriously, nothing, and that’s the point.

user____name• 12 months ago

I wonder what the democrats are going to do when their midterms fail and their hats are out of rabbits.

Schmerika• 12 months ago

Lament the state of things, blame Republicans and third party voters, take more money from fossil fuel and AIPAC, do a bit more insider trading, and ask us all for more money because they're totally going to protect abortion rights and stop ICE this time.

An arms embargo vs Israel would be wildly popular among Dem voters - but don't ask campaign staffers about it unless you want to be marked as "no response" [0].

0 - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/uncommitted-le...

New executive order puts all grants under political control

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