This is an opinion column.
I’m so ready for it. Ready for the greatness Donald Trump promised us. Ready for him to “take America into our ‘Golden Age,’” as Gov. Kay Ivey effusively declared after breaking bread with the president in Mar-a-Lago in January.
Bring it on.
One thing, though: Trump promised to make us “great again” without defining “great,” or saying exactly when we were going to be “great.” (And “great” for whom, but that’s another column for another time.) So, I’m struggling to understand the “great” he’s aiming for and how we’re going to get “great” — presuming we’ve actually ever been “great.”
As I said, I’m patient. Or really trying to be, especially with President Trump/Musk being only three weeks into a four-year gig. So, breathe, I tell myself. Patience.
Still, I have a question: Just how are the administration’s avalanche of orders, firings and threats via Elon Musk and DOGE — his Draconian government “efficiency” (elimination) mob — leading us towards “great?”
Let’s check in with Birmingham. And the city’s economic powerhouse, the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Is he making this city “great”?
On Friday evening — a cowardly time to release not-so-great news — the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s largest biomedical research funder, said it was slashing the indirect cost rate that research institutions can charge the federal government as they pursue cures for cancer, heart disease and diabetes. (Indirect costs are above the grant amount to cover facilities and administrative costs. Thus, if the indirect rate on a $100 million grant was 30%, the total payment to the grantee would be $130 million.)
The cut would be effective Monday. Not implemented gradually. No two-week notice. Monday. And it would immediately affect all sorts of jobs and research at UAB.
On social media, the NIH touted that the move would save “taxpayers” $4 billion annually. It didn’t denote how many taxpayers may also lose their livelihood (like, say, the plumber who maintains or upgrades the building where researchers work) or how many local businesses may fail when universities can no longer afford them. How the cuts may crush cities and states that pocket taxes paid by universities and use those funds to provide essential services to residents.
Or how many people — in America and throughout the world — might die if the pace of cures is choked.
So how then does this make us “great?”
Before brunch on Saturday, the biomedical community was emphatically clear about the devastation the NIH cuts will likely cause. “Many people will lose jobs, clinical trials will halt, and this will slow down progress toward cures for cancer and effective prevention of illness,” Kimryn Rathmell, a longtime cancer researcher at Vanderbilt University, told the Washington Post.
To be clear once again: That means people will die.
“I am at a loss to understand how this is beneficial to Americans,” added Maria Zuber, a geophysicist and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s presidential adviser for science and technology policy.
We’re not fooled. The NIH cut is rooted in the Republicans’ fervent anti-DEI movement and was yet another dab of whiteout amid Trump’s erasure of anything that values the nation’s mosaic. Anything that merely even acknowledges diversity, equity and inclusion. That includes efforts to expand clinical research in areas impacting people of color and the number of clinical researchers of color.
Earlier this week, the NIH suddenly yanked a grant program that supported doctoral students from historically marginalized backgrounds, according to STAT to comply with Trump’s DEI whiteout. But know this: the grants were open to all races (including researchers who are disabled or from rural or low-income areas), though somehow anti-DEI zealots still paint DEI as “Black.”
Relatedly, the National Science Foundation tabbed 10,000 grants among 50,000 for “review” because they included the words “diversity,” “inclusion,” “women,” and “race,” as reported by Science.org.
In 2021, Auburn was awarded a five-year $1.5 million NIH grant, according to the university, to “broaden participation in the sciences for traditionally underrepresented students and diversify the pool of scientists earning doctoral degrees in the biomedical sciences.” That fall, four recipients were selected for the inaugural group.
Additionally, Auburn at Montgomery received a three-year, $625,535 NIH grant to “strengthen diversity and research opportunities for faculty and students within science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) and biomedical fields,” according to the university.
How does defunding the fullness of who we are, America, make us “great?”
So, while I’m asking:
How are Trump’s vulgar verbal attacks on the predominantly Black nation’s capital making us “great?”
How is Trump gutting the prestigious Kennedy Center board and naming himself as chair making us “great?”
How does firing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission commissioners and attorneys make us “great?”
How does revealing the names of Justice Department employees who worked to uphold the rule of law by handling cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol make us “great?”
How does handing to Musk American citizens’ personal security and financial information, and the PIN to the U.S. treasury, make us “great?”
How does flunking and flushing the relatively small Department of Education make us “great?”
How does putting USAID in a chokehold and halting foreign aid (though billions are spent with American companies on American goods and services) make is “great?”
How does annexing Greenland, wait, the Panama Canal, oh, sorry, Canada and, oh yeah, the colonization of Gaza make us “great?”
How does the mass deportation strategy that will likely crush several U.S. industries — including Alabama’s biggest industry, agriculture — make us “great?”
Hold on. Maybe a new, garish $100 million ballroom in the White House will make us “great” again? Please.
Indeed, which way is “great,” and are we heading that way? Because researchers, faculty and administrators at universities throughout Alabama are quaking right now. Are they quaking in anticipation of being “great”? Or maybe in shock at the possible bloodshed caused by NIH’s slashing?
Will our Alabama Republicans in the U.S. Senate (well, maybe one of them) and Congress lead us toward true greatness for all, or sit on their loyalist tushes as our state suffers?
“You’re either pro-Alabamian and American health or you’re not,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin told my colleague John Archibald in reaction to the NIH cut. “ There’s no in-between here.”
I’m really trying. In this life season, I’m really trying to be more patient.
I’ve long believed all things work together for good, and good things—progress, achievements, change — often take time. Sometimes lifetimes.
Great? It certainly doesn’t happen overnight.
But what ‘great’ are we aiming for?
I don’t see it. Not yet.
