{"id":12855186,"date":"2026-01-23T23:20:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/?p=12855186"},"modified":"2026-01-25T15:47:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:47:34","slug":"defund-science-distort-culture-mock-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/2026\/01\/23\/defund-science-distort-culture-mock-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s not just about cuts to research. It\u2019s about power.<\/em><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Joan Brugge has worked for nearly 50 years as a cancer scientist, studying the earliest signs that someone might become sick. Then the Trump administration canceled her lab\u2019s funding. The administration\u2019s attacks on medicine, culture, and education\u2014which include verbal threats and funding cuts\u2014are about more than just budgeting and bravado. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and the author of\u00a0Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.\u00a0<\/em>She argues that this effort is part of a larger autocratic project to maintain power.<\/p>\n

The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/em><\/p>\n

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Joan Brugge:\u00a0I was actually at a breast-cancer retreat. And during the coffee break, I looked at my emails to see, you know, if there\u2019s anything that I had to deal with. And I got this email from the university, and it was a real gut punch. My knees basically buckled, and I had to sit down.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Brugge:\u00a0<\/strong>I never imagined that it would be possible that funding for lifesaving research would be terminated for issues that were totally unrelated to the quality of the work or the progress that we had made in the work. \u200a<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Anne Applebaum<\/strong>: From\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>, this is\u00a0Autocracy in America<\/em>. I\u2019m Anne Applebaum. In this new season, I am asking how the Trump White House is rewriting the rules of U.S. politics, and talking to Americans whose lives have been changed as a result.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s episode examines the\u00a0administration\u2019s attacks<\/a>\u00a0on science, medicine, culture, and education\u2014a combination of verbal threats and funding cuts that look very much like an attempt to control knowledge. Maybe there\u2019s a broader goal, too: to build distrust, and, ultimately, to reshape all Americans\u2019 perceptions of reality. I know that sounds dramatic, but I spent many years writing about authoritarian regimes, and almost all of them try to undermine admired institutions, in order to radically alter the way people think.<\/p>\n

More here ><\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not just about cuts to research. It\u2019s about power. Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts Joan Brugge has worked for nearly 50 years as a cancer scientist, studying the earliest signs that someone might become sick. Then the Trump administration canceled her \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":12855188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25541,26294,45,26922,21,1,12,25391,26281],"tags":[26937,26297,1335,371,858],"class_list":{"0":"post-12855186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-biotech","8":"category-health","9":"category-appears-on-main-page","10":"category-market-news","11":"category-available","12":"category-uncategorized","13":"category-phils-favorites","14":"category-members-corner","15":"category-sciences","16":"tag-anne-applebaum","17":"tag-biotech","18":"tag-health","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12855186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12855186"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12855186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12855366,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12855186\/revisions\/12855366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12855188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12855186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12855186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12855186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}