It's not a perfect analogy but I see Trump and his cronies as a "fuck shit up" contingent- they seem to genuinely enjoy making their enemies unhappy by breaking things, regardless of the societal cost of their actions.
At the meetings I attended the furious debate was whether we allowed a volunteer group cook food in our kitchen to feed homeless people. The interesting thing about this debate was that to make a decision, you had to have a position on what the coop was, Was it cheap housing for students, or was the cheap housing something that emerged from committing to a practice of cooperative behaviour?
Supporting the volunteers cooking in our kitchen came at a cost, many volunteers were homeless, some had mental health issues. I felt it was morally right to let them use our kitchen, And I know that for this I did get labeled by some as pursuing chaos as performative social justice points and to upset opponents, But from my perspective I sincerely believe it was the right thing to do.
When parallels like this are revealed, it really makes me wonder how the orange cult people and I ended up on such different paths, both as a response to dissatisfaction with the status quo, why have the stories they’ve been told resonated with them when they seem so inauthentic to me, and why is the more progressive ideology that seems reasonable to me so distasteful to them
Was this co-op perhaps Barrington Hall? I had good friends that lived there while at UCB. To my young eyes it was absolute anarchy.
True, but that is not their intention.
They perceive no value from "soft power" stuff like the NIH and to a large extent consider it to be (part of) the enemy.
And most of their voting base really doesn't understand a single thing about the NIH. I mean, truly: the average American doesn't know what that program even is. Other than occasionally getting roasted for funding some ridiculous-sounding project like studying depression in chickens or something.[1]
So the only real "win" here for the new ruling party is to burn it down and then brag that they saved "the American taxpayers" $XYZ billion dollars.
(Which will wind up directly in the hands of the rich via tax breaks, and by definition can't really benefit poor people because they already pay little tax)
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[1] Most of the time these "ridiculous sounding" programs are actually pretty relevant and/or useful if you look into them.
Granted, I fear the folks in charge now DO know better and the side effects are intentional ... but I wonder if it would be possible to pick someone and get it reasonably right.
They want to get rid of any pandemic scaremongering too. Peter Hoetz said that Bird Flu will start once the trump administration takes office for example.[1]. Hoetz who is a major figure in the vaccine research industry said that "starting January 21st we've got some big stuff coming down the pike starting with H5N1..." and after the Fauci pardon anything is possible.
The bird flu outbreak had been behind a lot of food inflation. I wouldn't put it past people on the radical left who want to hurt the Trump administration to hype the bird flu pandemic to drive up food prices through mass culling of livestock.
[1] https://x.com/TaraBull808/status/1865026704504426860?t=hZnEk...
In a minority most likely. Not even close to alone.
> Peter Hoetz said that Bird Flu will start once the trump administration takes office for example.[1].
No. He said we have big picture stuff coming down the pike starting January 21. Like a flu wide spread in birds already, that jumped species already, that could develop human to human transmission. He framed it clearly as a present danger the incoming administration would inherit. Even without the removed context about Kennedy's claims no vaccines are safe and effective and vaccines cause autism.
> The bird flu outbreak had been behind a lot of food inflation. I wouldn't put it past people on the radical left who want to hurt the Trump administration to hype the bird flu pandemic to drive up food prices through mass culling of livestock.
Whoever the radical left are, they don't decide about culling livestock. What agenda do you think was behind the culls driving up food prices before the election? And do you expect tariffs and deportations to lower food prices?
Fundamentally a civilized society cannot tolerate bureaucracies that act like they did during COVID. Fauci is gone now but unfortunately the NIH as an institution is deserving of any and all damage Trump does to them. Frankly if I were in his shoes I'd be going much further than mere freezes.