Europeans seem to have turned against Tesla as Elon Musk cozied up to Trump. It may be because of his role in slashing U.S. bureaucracy, although that seems strange given how overgoverned Europe is and how little the EU manages to do with so large an administrative apparatus. Maybe they just don’t like his tone, and there are arguments to be made, though it didn’t seem to bother them until he became a high-profile opponent of red tape. But suddenly, to hear the EU press tell it, all bureaucracy is good and any attempt to tame Leviathan will spell the death of science. Which, if true, means science has been overrated.

Pining for a bigger US government seems a curious cause for EU journalists to embrace, with Euronews.green saying “More tornadoes and fewer meteorologists make for a dangerous mix that is worrying US weather experts”. Although the actual piece said the remaining government ones (and it seems to assume no other kind exist) were managing to handle the unusually high number of tornadoes being reported, suggesting the problem is imaginary. And the writer in question, who’s actually with AP, doesn’t seem to have the once-usual journalist’s skepticism about the impartiality of insiders with skin in the game:

“Many former weather service employees, especially those fired by the Trump administration, remain connected to the agency’s inner workings. They describe an agency that’s somehow getting forecasts and warnings out in time, but is also near the breaking point.”

So it’s fine but not. And who wouldn’t ask someone fired by Trump whether Trump should be firing people? Talk about dispassionate.

Likewise one could sympathise with Scientific American, if one were at peace with its climate obsessions, being unhappy that:

“Under President Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate offices that track greenhouse gas emissions and regulate air pollution”

Though one might wonder if the pudding were being over-egged with:

“The move to eliminate the Office of Atmospheric Protection (OAP) and Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) by the end of the fiscal year signals a likely end to much of the agency’s climate work.”

If only. The EPA is a large outfit, and in all likelihood duplicates a lot of its work. At least so say normal people and real experts on bureaucracy. And before you accuse us of being knee-jerk dogmatists, don’t ask us. Ask this same Scientific American piece, which goes on to say that actually:

“EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will likely move programs to curb smog, soot and toxic emissions into other offices. But most of OAP’s work seems destined for the dust bin – including a program that requires the country’s biggest polluters to report their greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, EPA will create two offices within OAR called the Office of Clean Air Programs and Office of State Air Partnerships. The clean air office will ‘align statutory obligations and mission essential functions,’ according to an agency press release.”

We doubt it. But only because we’re skeptical of the efficiency and focus of giant bureaucracies, especially while praising themselves. Scientific American just assumes that efforts to reduce duplication are bad. Bad in intention, bad in design, bad in execution. (Oh, and after writing the above we Googled and Wikipedia says the EPA currently has 14,592 employees. Are none of them unneeded, wrongly assigned or inept?)

Then there’s AP moaning:

“Scientists shielding farming from climate change need more public funding. But they’re getting less”.

Really? Maybe they need more funding, though who doesn’t, or at least who doesn’t think they do? (Including us.) But given that agribusiness is huge, farming of all sorts allegedly employing over a billion people worldwide and producing $1.3 trillion in food a year or thereabouts, with the biggest 1% of farms owning or renting about 70% of all the farmland, and agricultural giant Cargill now ranked as the largest privately held firm by revenue in the United States (over $160 billion a year), surely they can pay for their own dang research. After all, they know what they need and they will benefit. Why come whining to Uncle Sam? Other than the obvious that free money is, well, free.

In the general vein of panicking about any tendency to resist state centralization of science, Flipboard somehow conjured up “Earth Day: America’s War on Climate Research”. Which is another thing the herd of independent minds seem to be stampeding on. The Economist editorialized that “MAGA’s assault on science is an act of grievous self-harm” and, to its credit, actually did state the opposing view before trying to refute it:

“Why is the administration undermining its own scientific establishment? On May 19th Michael Kratsios, a scientific adviser to President Donald Trump, laid out the logic. Science needs shaking up, he said, because it has become inefficient and sclerotic, and its practitioners have been captured by groupthink, especially on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). You might find that reasonable enough.”

Yes. Especially as the President’s measures aimed at Harvard are motivated, in significant measure, by festering unaddressed anti-Semitism there. Ah but nay, says The Economist:

“Look closely at what is happening, though, and the picture is alarming. The assault on science is unfocused and disingenuous. Far from unshackling scientific endeavour, the administration is doing it grievous damage. The consequences will be bad for the world, but America will pay the biggest price of all.”

Unfocused? Is that word meant to be bad? Would they prefer a focused assault on science? And disingenuous? Disingenuous how?

To be fair, they claim of hostility to DEI that:

“Funding has been nixed for studies that seek, say, to assess cancer risk factors by race, or the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases by sex.”

Well, we told you bureaucracy was inefficient. And to complain that cutting funding to Harvard and Columbia because they will not clean up their own act is hurting all kinds of programs at both institutions is absurd; it’s precisely why their administrations should have taken focused action themselves, and why their inability to do so suggests a state of pervasive rottenness that justifies drastic measures.

As for “disingenuous,” well, the piece sniffs that:

“More fundamentally, the claim that Mr Trump will stop groupthink is disingenuous. MAGA reserves a special hatred for public-health and climate researchers, whom it regards as finger-wagging worrywarts determined to suppress Americans’ liberties – as they did in lockdowns and school closures during covid-19. The consequence is that spending on vaccine and climate research will be gutted most viciously of all. With the stroke of a pen, officials are trying to impose new rules that tell scientists what areas of inquiry they may pursue and what is off-limits – a shocking step backwards for a republic founded on the freethinking values of the Enlightenment.”

We wonder in passing what it might represent for one founded on the traditional liberties derived from Magna Carta. Or whether The Economist knows Harvard was originally both private and Puritan rather than public and Deist.

To be fair, The Economist does admit in passing that “there is too much bureaucracy” in American science. But we indict them for making no mention of Eisenhower’s warning about allowing federal funding to dominate science, and appearing to believe that the energy, inventiveness and creativity of Americans historically have come from Leviathan, not from private initiatives and philanthropy.