The Great American Brain Drain
Trends like this are hard to get started, but they’re even harder to reverse
Elections have consequences. So do significant cuts in funding for higher education and cultural attitudes toward expertise that tend to vary from indifferent to downright hostile. America has begun to pay a price for its anti-intellectualism, and that price looks poised to dramatically increase in the future.
In response to President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, President Emmanuel Macron announced France’s Make Our Planet Great Again initiative. No doubt many Trump supporters chuckled at France’s invitation to American scientists to come to France to conduct their research. Though Macron’s initiative may have been relatively small as government programs go, it wasn’t purely symbolic.
By December 2017 France had recruited its first 18 scientists. Of those 18, 13 were coming from the United States. In May of this year, France announced it had lured six more US scientists to join the others. Trump’s tempestuous behavior during and following the G7 Summit in Quebec only serves as further evidence things in the United States aren’t likely to improve soon, adding fuel to the fire for those already contemplating departing the country.
