Why do most people in this thread assume this move intends to politicalize the NIH? I don't think the administration thoroughly thought out the consequences of this decision, but that's a typical government move. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Hard to attribute it to stupidity and lack of planning when almost every executive order signed by Trump during his first days back in office are straight out of Project 2025.
As others have said, his actions are all straight from the project 2025 playbook. Go read page 284, it's very explicit about them viewing it as politicized and wanting to fix that (read actually politicize it):
"The incestuous relationship between the NIH, CDC, and vaccine makers—with all of the conflict of interest it entails—cannot be allowed to continue, and the revolving door between them must be locked. As Severino writes, “Funding for scientific research should not be controlled by a small group of highly paid andunaccountable insiders at the NIH, many of whom stay in power for decades. The NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken.” What’s more, NIH has long “been at the forefront in pushing junk gender science.” The next HHS secretary should immediately put an end to the department’s foray into woke transgender activism."
I agree with you about this. I think it's worth calling out where the shoulder of the highway ends and the cliff begins, now that the guardrails have been (if temporarily) removed, but I'm optimistic that nobody is crazy enough to totally jam up the NIH given its importance to our economy and national security.
> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
This quote does not apply in a place where the actor has specifically promised to be malicious.
Now, you may not see their promises as malicious and that is your prerogative. But that quote isn’t applicable for a ton of people when it comes to Trump.
I would have to disagree with the criteria. More times than not, I've seen people who have promised maliciousness (AKA bullies) make really stupid decisions. It seems to go hand-in-hand in a lot of cases.
Either way, this seems like a political flip-flop, with the opposing party now putting on the tin hats. That's just the way it looks to me as an independent.
My original comment was regarding the claim that this is being done to politicize the NIH. To me, it requires the same tin hat that conservatives put on when they were making all sorts of crazy assumptions about the government's moves during Covid.
I never said you had to put on a tin foil hat to call someone malicious. I'm just saying that malicious people tend to do stupid things which have unintended consequences they didn't fully realize.
I am also an independent. I did not vote for Biden, Kamala, nor did I vote for Trump.
However, I am still able to put 2 and 2 together to see his behavior during COVID, his statements before this current elections, and the current decisions (especially regarding gender definitions) and understand what the goal of silencing the NIH (even temporarily) is.
