Who needs doctors, scientists and academics? Which public education system functions without committed teachers and didactic independence? A minority currently in power in the United States appears willing to pay for it.
Political polarization in the US was not invented by Donald Trump. Its most recent version harkens back to the Republican Party’s behavior during Bill Clinton’s presidency in the 1990s.
But the Trumpist streak of the ultraright has by no means lost momentum after the coup attempt on January 6, 2021, but is leading to longterm consequences in the American federation. In recent years there have been signs of a wave of internal migration and a brain drain from states whose legislatures have passed laws that are too extreme for the majority of the electorate.
Public school teachers and there is a shortage of teachers in this country are retiring early because the lowpaying profession these days in some states requires facing fanatical neoPentecostal parents who want to censor curricula and generous support from those same interest groups are financed to equip the judiciary with ultraconservative judges.
A once peaceful profession, that of librarians, now requires a degree of paranoia, as campaigns to ban classic books make professionals prime targets of demagogues like the Boeotian Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose precampaign for the presidency has not even been canceled has high heels that he hides in his boots manage to emphasize him.
Applications for residency training in obstetrics, a specialty already experiencing a physician shortage, fell by more than 10% in states that recriminalized abortion, helped by the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision became. It is still too early for this. We need to study the demographic and economic consequences of this decision, but it is known that reproductive health clinics in neighboring states can hardly cope with the influx of patients. A third of American communities have no maternity hospitals, a sign that the Christian right prefers to protect fetuses rather than born children.
A recent survey of university professors in Republicanmajority states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas found that twothirds recommend that their colleagues not pursue academic research in those states and that at least a third are actively seeking employment in other states looks for conditions.
Donald Trump was elected thanks in part to a brain drain from states with large rural areas and postindustrial decline. This week, the new speaker of the House, a man who calls abortion the “American Holocaust,” complained that the Republican Party is unable to attract more collegeeducated voters. Mike Johnson of Louisiana blamed Democrats, who he said controlled science and specialized in brainwashing.
More and more representatives and senators will throw in the towel and forego reelection. Of the 37 who have already decided not to run, the majority are Democrats, but the motivation appears to be bipartisan. Republican Rep. Ken Buck explained why he wants to return to Colorado. He’s full of normalizing lies in Congress and playing the villain as he challenges colleagues on the bench who describe January 6, 2021 as a tourist visit to the Capitol.