Academic experts have enriched presidential administrations by discouraging bad policies from gaining traction beyond the corridors of the White House. Unfortunately, based on his forming a policy staff led by twenty-one Fox News or Fox Business alumni, President Trump has shown little interest in academic experts.
Fortunately, academic experts are free to assess the administration’s policies and to educate the public about them. Thus, despite Trump’s disregard for intellectual expertise, the ability of scholars and practitioners outside of government to analyze proposed administration policies can crystalize their flaws for the public and can possibly influence even the Trump administration to reconsider some of its worst policies.
However, experts in economics, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, political science, and law have not made much headway in convincing the public about the costs of the administration’s anti-intellectual attitude. Economists and physicians have provided critical insights on Trump’s policies, but the administration has been able to defuse them with little effective pushback. Psychologists and psychiatrists have provided troubling insights about Trump’s mental health and its implications for the nation, but those concerns have not translated into public opposition to Trump’s policies. Finally, political scientists and lawyers have described the political and legal issues surrounding Trump’s policies, but they also could further help politicians who oppose Trump by explaining why the administration garners political support despite its chaotic and shoddy approach to policymaking and they could better explain to the public why Trump’s policies and behavior threaten democracy.
Economists wasted no time in warning the public about the effects of Trump’s tariffs by taking on the administration’s economists. Greg Mankiw, former Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) Chairman under President George W. Bush, exposed National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett’s false claim that tariffs increase GDP by pointing out that tariffs cause the dollar to appreciate, which reduces US exports, increases other imports, and reduces GDP. Jason Furman, former CEA Chairman under President Joe Biden, correctly interpreted CEA Chairman Stephen Miran as making a heroic argument that tariffs can work out well if the US can control all foreign economic policies. And several conservative and centrist economists blasted Counselor to the President Peter Navarro’s bogus claim that tariffs are tax cuts. Yet despite nearly unanimous and bipartisan opposition to Trump’s tariffs from academic and private economists, polls indicate that economic expertise has yet to resonate with some 40% of the public who approve of tariffs.
Economists also uniformly oppose Trump’s order that regulatory policies should not consider the economic cost of climate change. Jeffrey Clark, the acting administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs justified the order by doubting the scientific consensus that pollution from transportation and industry is heating the planet. The public tends to believe in climate change because it experiences its impacts, but it has not indicated opposition to the administration’s climate change denialism.
Trump’s advisors have made absurd medical claims and allowed Trump’s absurd medical claims to stand unchallenged. For example, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., US Secretary of Health and Human Services, has repeatedly made false claims about the harmful effects of MMR, COVID-19, and other vaccines and dismissed their benefits to public health. Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, refused to denounce Trump’s claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.” Prominent medical researchers and practitioners have spoken out against the potential harm that could be caused by false medical claims coming out of the White House to little avail, because polls again indicate that the public’s attitude toward the efficacy and use of vaccines and the seriousness of COVID is aligned with their belief in Trump’s unsubstantiated opinions on medical matters.
Drawing on their expertise as a psychologist and psychiatrist, respectively, Mary Trump and Brandy X. Lee raise serious concerns about Trump’s mental health, which is shared by approximately 50% to 60% of the public. Still, a notable fraction of the country is willing to turn a blind eye to the implications of Trump’s mental health for the soundness of his policy prescriptions. The public has seen rambling and nonsensical Trump comments on the news or social media, for example, but seemingly remains unconcerned by their implications for governance.
Political scientists and lawyers must do more to spur public opposition to Trump’s behavior in office and his policies. Political scientists have described the political issues surrounding Trump’s policies. However, they have yet to explain—meaning they have not advanced a credible theory supported by evidence—why Trump has attracted and maintained political support; thus, politicians who oppose Trump and his policies are often flying blind.
To be sure, some lawyers are opposing Trump’s policies in court, although disappointingly, other lawyers are defending them. Legal scholars must explain to the public the effects of Trump’s contempt for divided government and the rule of law to make it clearer why Trump’s behavior and policies could do enormous and irreversible harm to the country.
The rise of Trump and the MAGA movement has coincided with anti-intellectual attitudes that are reflected in the public’s declining trust of and low confidence in academics and skepticism toward intellectual institutions. Trump has therefore felt emboldened to threaten to curtail tax exemptions for universities, research organizations, and private foundations; reduce financial support for universities and individual researchers; and cut student loans and visas.
Academics must recognize the existential challenge to their enterprise and make a concerted effort to convince the public, using concrete examples, that intellectual expertise and evidence-based ideas are essential for America’s technological and economic advancement. Trump’s self-promotion, frequent mistruths, and confabulations have been ridiculed, but they have been effective. Academics must work with experts to better market their expertise to the public. They may feel such efforts are demeaning, but they should feel that not effectively countering a policy agenda of trade protection and hostility toward protecting the environment, human health, and students’ education is more demeaning.
