Wherever one looks, the Administration is weakening our nation.
A major U.S. strength has been our attraction of foreign-born scientists, most famously in developing the atomic bomb first. Roughly 40% of recent U.S. Nobel Prizes in the sciences were won by immigrants or immigrants’ children. They’ve also founded more than 40% of U.S. unicorn startups.
Wanna kill that strength? Declare war on universities, drastically cut research and education funding, appoint political hacks to undermine scientific objectivity, torture some immigrants, and bar foreign scientists from the country for criticizing Donald Trump. Above all, start emulating the authoritarian governments many immigrants fled.
Most of the world is facing climate craziness. China is aggressively positioning itself to lead in developing ways to mitigate it. The U.S. isn’t. Mr. Trump says it’s all a hoax. So we’ll go slow on developing what everyone will need.
Cutting IRS enforcement jobs lets tax cheats skate free, particularly large cheats whose cases might be complex. That’ll cost more money than it saves, jacking up taxes on citizens and small businesses. And grow the deficit.
It’s a great time for crime: of 10,000 Justice Department attorneys last year, about half are gone. Judges are mocking department lawyers. While high-quality lawyers used to like the challenging work and highly competent co-workers, few qualified applicants apply now. Would you? Do an honest job, you’re fired.
It’s a great time for war. A rookie Defense Secretary is firing battle-tested top leadership arbitrarily, and hasn’t the least experience running anything, let alone our defense system. It’s especially good for cyberwarfare. In 2020 Trump fired respected, nonpartisan cybersecurity head Christopher Krebs, whom Trump had appointed, for saying the 2020 election was secure. That disrupted an important defense agency’s work, and made officials fear that speaking truth was a door to unemployment. That deters good people from applying or remaining. I’m no Commander in Chief; but if I were, I’d want subordinates telling me the truth, even unappetizing truths.
It’s a great day for poisoning air and water: the EPA has lost staff to detect, investigate, and punish violations.
Meanwhile, bizarre, inexplicable tariffs are weakening the economy. Economists can’t make sense of them, and Trump sure can’t explain ‘em. He keeps thinking foreigners pay ‘em, not us!
We’ve a huge doctor shortage. Medical education is long and costly. So part of Trump’s big, beautiful law puts an unrealistically low cap ($200,000 total lifetime) on federal graduate student loans. ($200K? But 70% of medical students have loans, the average debt load is $223,130, and 20% graduate owing $300,000+. The cap will keep lower-income students from trying. Just when we need ‘em – and we’re scaring away the immigrants.
Again, Mr. Trump isn’t solving the problem, but worsening it.
Internationally? Trump thinks unpredictability intimidates. But bizarre conduct and reneging on trade deals, and quitting alliances and climate organizations, weakens us and cedes leadership to some more trustworthy nation.
These examples of deterioration matter. Collectively, they weaken our resilience, and our government’s ability to handle crises. They limit our ability to compete globally, and impose future costs. They’ll also accentuate the dissipation of public trust in government – and teach other nations’ they can’t trust us.
Pushing people into unnecessary illnesses (and healthcare-caused bankruptcies) ultimately costs us. Yeah, the Administration loathes the very idea of helping folks with medical care, because Trump is trying to mark territory he associates with Obama. But those folks don’t just disappear.
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The above column appeared today, 16 November 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will presently be on the newspaper’s website and KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]
[It just happens too often that I shake my aging head in wonder at the sheer breadth and depth – and meanness and pettiness – of the Administration’s conduct, and how a vast amount of that conduct not only enriches Mr. Trump and punishes immigrants, ethnic minorities, and “woke” folks, but just plain weakens us: you fire top military leaders to put in pals, including a Secretary of War with no managerial experience whatsoever, you weaken our military – and perhaps guess enemies won’t notice. Tariffs screw up our economy. All the misconduct concerning the Justice Department doesn’t matter to criminals or most of us, but it sure should matter to the folks who keep screaming about rising crime rates. Etc., etc. ]
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