> The institutions under attack are universities, data repositories, libraries, archives, statistical agencies that have earned their legitimacy through decades of transparency and authentication of verifiable information.

To be absolutely fair: a lot of these institutions also lost legitimacy by aligning themselves with one major political faction and alienating the other. Politics is more than elections and legislative debates, and that was a major political blunder on the part of those institutions. Some of the stuff Trump's done (like to the BLS) is egregious, but the universities have spent so long being outspoken bastions of the left that they should have realized the right would someday be in power decide to send the money they'd been getting elsewhere.

Infrastructure should aim to be bland, try to stay on the lagging end of controversies, and aim for universal support. Trying to use it to win some controversy just makes it vulnerable.