The Chair symbolThe Missing Seat

America Is Giving Away Its Future

Canada did not steal America’s scientists. America made leaving look reasonable.

DEMOCRACY & GOVERNMENT · SCIENCE & INNOVATION · PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

Canada recently announced more than $541 million in funding to recruit researchers from around the world. The first round includes $504 million for 64 major research chairs and another $37 million to help Canadian institutions recruit 63 emerging research leaders.

The article that brought this to my attention describes the program as Canada raiding America’s greatest minds. That makes for a hell of a headline, but Canada did not break into American laboratories and steal anybody. It offered accomplished researchers money, professional stability and respect at the same time the Trump administration was making scientific work in the United States less stable, more political and increasingly difficult to plan.

Canada saw an opening. America created it.

This is only part of what happens when a country refuses to demand accountability. Decisions affecting research, public health, civil rights and the federal workforce have been playing out behind the scenes while America watches the yellow brick road erode, brick by brick.

The question is no longer whether Trump’s decisions produce entertaining headlines. The question is what the country is losing while everybody is watching the show.

America paid to build what it is now tearing apart

The United States did not become a scientific leader by accident. Taxpayers spent generations supporting universities, public laboratories, medical research, space exploration, public-health programs and the education of scientists from America and around the world.

That investment produced medicines, medical imaging, weather forecasting, agricultural advances, technology, patents, companies and national-security capabilities. It also created an environment where talented people believed they could build serious careers.

The system was never equally open to everyone. Black researchers, women, immigrants and other excluded groups were often denied funding, positions, recognition and ownership of their own work. But the public research system still became one of America’s greatest national assets.

Then the second Trump administration began treating large parts of that system as though they were political enemies hiding inside the government.

A peer-reviewed analysis found that the National Institutes of Health terminated 2,291 active research grants in 2025, withdrawing approximately $2.45 billion from projects that had already been funded. Some terminated National Science Foundation awards were later ordered reinstated after legal challenges.

The administration also proposed reducing the NIH’s total program funding from approximately $46 billion to $27.9 billion for the 2026 budget year. That was a proposal, not a final congressional appropriation, because Congress still controls federal spending. But a president’s budget tells us what an administration wants to protect and what it is willing to sacrifice.

At the same time, Canada created a $1.7 billion initiative specifically designed to attract researchers and strengthen its scientific capacity.

That is the receipt.

America spent years and billions of dollars developing institutions and talent. The administration introduced instability, canceled grants and proposed enormous funding reductions. Canada offered researchers a place to continue their work.

American taxpayers may have financed much of the education and professional development. Canada may receive some of the discoveries, businesses, students, patents and tax revenue that follow.

That is not Canada robbing America.

That is America robbing itself.

Scientists and public servants are not replaceable furniture

When a leading researcher leaves, the country does not lose only one employee. It can lose that person’s research team, students, partnerships, future discoveries and the companies that might eventually grow from their work.

Scientific knowledge depends on relationships, specialized equipment, institutional memory and years of experience. A government cannot drive people away and then assume it can order identical replacements after the next election.

The same problem extends beyond science.

The Government Accountability Office reported that nearly 378,000 federal employees left government during 2025, while approximately 127,000 were hired. Most major agencies lost more than 10 percent of their workforce, and several lost more than 30 percent.

Some people will hear that and celebrate because they believe the government was too large.

Fine. Then show us the complete receipt.

Which jobs were unnecessary? How much money was actually saved? Which services improved? What work stopped being completed? What expertise disappeared? What risks increased? Who benefited and who now carries the burden?

Smaller does not automatically mean better. A broken government certainly spends less on the work it can no longer perform, but that is not efficiency.

Efficiency means eliminating waste while still producing the result the public needs. It does not mean breaking the machine and celebrating because the broken machine uses less electricity.

First weaken the institutions, then weaken the people watching them

The administration did not only reduce personnel and programs. It also attacked parts of the government responsible for investigating the government.

Inspectors general are independent watchdogs inside federal agencies. They investigate fraud, waste, abuse and misconduct.

Trump removed numerous inspectors general. A federal court later found that the administration had violated federal notice requirements, but the judge did not return the dismissed watchdogs to their positions.

Think about that transaction.

The government acted unlawfully. A court recognized the violation. The people removed through the unlawful action remained removed. The administration kept much of what its unlawful action accomplished.

That is the difference between identifying a violation and delivering a remedy.

It also explains why government accountability cannot depend entirely upon courts. A judge may declare that something was wrong without restoring what was taken, repairing the institution or preventing the administration from benefiting from the violation.

Congress is supposed to provide another layer of accountability. It controls appropriations, writes laws, holds hearings, issues subpoenas, confirms officials and investigates executive conduct.

But those powers matter only when Congress uses them.

This is why the public demand cannot merely be, “Please behave better.”

Congress must investigate which programs were cut, what evidence justified the cuts, who benefited, what the country lost and what it will cost to rebuild. It must protect inspectors general, lawful appropriations and career employees from political retaliation.

A president should not be able to create permanent consequences faster than Congress can schedule a hearing.

Black America has seen this mechanism before

Trump’s administration has not merely reduced government in general. It has weakened institutions created to protect people against discrimination.

Human Rights Watch reported in 2026 that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division had lost approximately 75 percent of its attorneys. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights moved to lay off nearly half its staff and closed seven of its twelve regional offices. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission fell to its lowest staffing level in more than forty years.

Those are not symbolic offices. They are among the places people turn when they experience discrimination involving voting, education, employment or housing.

The administration says it is protecting merit and ending illegal discrimination. That claim should be tested against what the government actually does.

If the administration removes the lawyers and investigators responsible for examining discrimination, who protects the person who was genuinely discriminated against? If laws created to protect excluded communities are redirected against programs meant to address documented exclusion, while enforcement involving systemic discrimination collapses, who gained protection and who lost it?

The law can remain printed on paper while the people capable of enforcing it disappear.

Black Americans know that trick.

We have repeatedly been promised rights without enforcement, protection without access and remedies that disappear behind procedure. We have watched institutions recognize an injury while refusing to repair it.

This administration has pushed Black America backward, and that atrocity deserves its own complete editorial. But the rest of the country needs to understand something quickly: machinery tested against Black people rarely remains confined to Black people.

When government learns that it can weaken one group’s protection without serious consequences, it learns how to weaken everybody’s protection.

America’s reputation was always two-faced

Let us be honest about America’s previous reputation.

It was never as clean as the commercial.

America presented itself as a defender of freedom while enslaving human beings. It praised democracy while suppressing Black voting rights. It lectured other nations about human rights while tolerating segregation, racial terror, unequal justice and medical abuse at home.

America has always carried two reputations: the promise it advertised and the receipt it tried to hide.

Trump did not invent that contradiction. He stripped away much of the respectable packaging.

He has made cruelty look like strength, ignorance look like authenticity, institutional destruction look like efficiency and loyalty to one man look like loyalty to the country.

The rest of the world is watching.

A 2026 Pew Research Center survey covering 36 countries found that only 23 percent, as a median across those countries, had confidence in Trump’s handling of world affairs. Thirty-seven percent held a favorable view of the United States, while 57 percent viewed it unfavorably.

The change in Canada was especially revealing. In 2022, 83 percent of Canadians described the United States as a reliable partner. By 2026, that number had fallen to 35 percent.

That is not merely an image problem. Trust affects whether countries share intelligence, build economic partnerships, send students, cooperate during emergencies and believe an American promise will survive the next election.

America’s reputation was already two-faced. Trump made the dishonest face harder to ignore.

Where are the missing bricks going?

While the public infrastructure erodes, Trump, his family, wealthy allies and political loyalists continue to operate close to enormous concentrations of public power and private opportunity.

That does not mean every business transaction proves corruption. It does not mean every policy benefiting a wealthy person is automatically criminal. Claims require evidence.

That is precisely why independent oversight is necessary.

Show us the contracts. Show us the payments. Show us who received access. Show us which foreign interests were involved. Show us what government decision followed. Show us whether public authority increased private wealth.

A Republican senator recently requested an investigation into Trump family business dealings and possible foreign influence. That is what oversight should do: obtain the records, examine the transaction and let the evidence answer the question.

But if the watchdogs are removed, career experts are pushed out, Congress refuses to investigate and courts recognize violations without reversing their consequences, who will produce the receipt?

That is how possible corruption and favoritism become difficult to prove. Not necessarily because nothing happened, but because the institutions capable of discovering what happened were weakened before the public demanded the answer.

The Supreme Court cannot remain outside the audit

The Supreme Court did not cancel these research grants or design Canada’s recruitment program. Responsibility must be placed where the evidence shows it belongs.

But the Court helps determine how much room presidents have to act, who can challenge executive misconduct, whether officials receive immunity, whether an injured person has standing to sue and what remedy remains after the government violates the law.

That makes the Supreme Court part of the accountability structure.

Judicial independence matters. Congress cannot simply order justices to decide cases differently.

But independence cannot mean freedom from enforceable ethics, financial transparency, recusal requirements, congressional investigation or public examination of the Court’s consequences.

The Supreme Court does not need a political master. It needs democratic boundaries and meaningful accountability.

So does the presidency.

The strongest argument on the other side

Trump’s defenders argue that the federal government had become bloated, universities had become ideological and research grants contained waste. They argue that unelected bureaucrats had accumulated too much power.

Some of those concerns can be legitimate.

Government programs should not continue forever merely because they already exist. Universities should disclose foreign funding. Fraud should be punished. Research grants should be reviewed. Agencies should explain what they fund and why.

The administration has also promoted selected scientific priorities, including artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum research.

Then measure the complete result.

Did scientific output improve? Did necessary services continue? Were terminated projects reviewed individually? Were grant decisions based on research quality or political language? Did patients, students and communities lose protection? Did foreign competitors gain talent America had already trained? Did independent watchdogs remain strong enough to examine the administration’s claims?

You do not prove that you removed politics from science by giving political officials more power to decide which scientific questions may be asked.

And you do not make government efficient by removing the people who understand how it works before determining which work still needs to be done.

Pull Up a Chair

So, America…

None of this is surprising anymore.

That may be the most disgusting part.

But it was possible. It is happening. And it will remain possible as long as the Supreme Court escapes serious oversight and Congress refuses to use the constitutional power it still has.

Congress, take back your power.

Control the money. Protect lawful appropriations. Hold public hearings. Defend independent inspectors general. Demand records. Require meaningful conflict-of-interest disclosures. Protect career experts from political retaliation.

When a court finds that an administration acted unlawfully, investigate whether the remedy actually reversed the damage.

And America, elect more decent human beings to Congress. What the hell are we doing?

Trump and his administration have not only pushed African Americans backward in time. They have dragged the entire damned country backward.

Black Americans have been forced to struggle, survive and remain strong for more than 400 years.

But white America?

The jury is still out.

Will enough white Americans defend democracy when losing it begins to cost them too? Will they defend scientific research when the missing treatment could have saved someone they love? Will they defend competent government when nobody answers the phone after a disaster?

Will they finally understand that the machinery used against Black people never stays neatly confined to Black people?

Unless we act together, while also giving African Americans the repair, protection and justice we are owed, this will continue to get worse, not better.

America is not merely losing scientists. It is giving away knowledge, trust, public capacity and pieces of its future.

We are sick and tired of being sick and tired of the endless dumbfuckery, corruption and inequality.

Periodt.

Who is missing?

The scientists whose work became a political target. The patients who may never know which treatment disappeared with a canceled grant. The communities losing civil-rights protection. The public servants removed before they could document what happened. The taxpayers who financed the system but were never asked whether they wanted it dismantled.

Ally = Action. 🪑

Sources & Receipts

Verification Notice

This editorial distinguishes documented government actions and published findings from argument, interpretation and opinion. The Canadian funding figures come from the Government of Canada. Federal workforce figures come from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. NIH termination estimates come from published research using available grant records. The Trump administration disputes many criticisms of its policies and argues that its actions are intended to eliminate waste, restore merit and strengthen selected areas of American science. Those claims are included and tested against the documented consequences described above.

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