As you've said, the problem is perception. Our academic and scientific research institutions are one of the pillars holding up our economic empire, supporting our extremely high standard of living.

We can rationally discuss the replication crisis, perfunctory DEI rituals, overgrown humanities departments etc. But as I said, at the moment these concerns are being used to empower a madman who is not looking to reform but rather wholesale destroy them (and at best, install his own flavor of Lysenkoism into what remains), to cripple our country.

We are long past the political point where the criticisms are doing anything productive, and as I said it is time to pull up out of the destructionist movement. And yes, the pisser is that if we successfully save our institutions, then these concerns will be taking a back seat for quite some time, having had their political capital exhausted. See also freedom of speech and every other lofty ideal put on the bad faith bonfire by the destructionists. If we had wanted to avoid this, then we needed to pull up much sooner from the easy answers of destructionism.

Reminds me of the one bit of memorable insane 'logic' I heard once blaming Kinsey for the rise of Adolf Hitler by claiming 'sexual depravity' of recognizing LGBT was somehow responsible. Ignoring that even if the reaction was literally true in causation it would still be the fault of Germans who considered 'uncomfortable knowledge about sexuality' as more objectionable than fascism.

There's no amount of border security that is enough for the xenophobic right. As long as they see brown people in our communities there's reason enough to claim there's open borders any time a democrat is in power. Regardless of the fact that the US Mexico border is one of the most militarized borders in the world regardless of if Obama, Joe Biden or Trump is in office.