Are we witnessing the death of expertise? Analyst Tom Nichols says the Trump administration is fundamentally incompetent. And he says there’s been a systematic erosion of expert trust for years — which is dangerous for American democracy.

anti-intellectualism was one of the main features of Hitler's nazi party

That was rather evident as a whole when conservatism went from William F Buckley to Charlie Kirk as the intellectual center.  Yikes

[The brain drain pretty much started when this administration took over](https://tcf.org/content/commentary/vanishing-advantage-the-u-s-brain-drain-has-begun/) The US's biggest competitive advantage, innovation.....pissed away. [EU is taking advantage of it by passing big incentive bills to attract these researchers](https://www.aabb.org/news-resources/news/article/2025/05/07/eu-launches--500-million--choose-europe--campaign-to-recruit-researchers)

In Trump’s administration, incompetence isn’t a bug, it’s the feature.

There's never a shortage of Americans who think they know what's best about a given topic even though they have absolutely no expertise on that topic. These people exist in other countries too but the American version is truly the most exhausting to talk to.

Two pertinent quotes… *“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”* -Issac Asimov *“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”* -Carl Sagan *The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark* (1995)

Trump hates competency because by contrast he looks even worse/more stupid than he normally does.

If the Trump administration were more competent, they'd be far more dangerously effective in effecting democratic backsliding in America.

Ive seen this movie

No shit Sherlock, Captain Obvious here.

I hope that when Trump and his cronies are kicked out in three years and is replaced with a democrat president that three things happen. One, replace each appointee and cabinet position with those that were in authority during the Biden Administration. We need to re-establish some semblance of trust and stability. They were not all perfect, but overall they were at least competent and professional. Two, rescind every damn executive order by Trump. And three, go scorched earth on the MAGA scum. Democrats need to stop trying to play nice with republicans.

Trumps goons think they know things. These people who have not studied or read up on the departments they are in charge of say things and uneducated people cheer. But it took decades to brainwash and dumb down enough people to stop asking questions. Yes, you pay taxes to fund SNAP benefits and yes you will continue to pay these taxes after politicians take SNAP benefits away from people. Hmm, where did that money go?

Look yes they hate experts but this isn’t the first time in history something like this has happened. This is part and parcel of an authoritarian government. They don’t want experts, they want loyalty. Once you see it through their eyes you start realizing the expertise hasn’t died it’s just being shunned in order to fulfill their personal desires. And yeah it’s a huge f****** problem if that wasn’t glaringly obvious in myriad other ways already

This seems like a republican problem that the rest of us have to deal with.

crazy that the party of “feelings over facts” turns out to be a bunch of f****** morons

It’s called a Kakistocracy.

Are they not a little late with this finding?

The only qualification is unquestioning willingness to sacrifice your life to protect the grifting rapist and his lies

Our educational system focuses on basketball and football and has so for decades, what did you expect? Rocket surgeons?

What was the name of that movie “idiocracy”? Are we there yet?