Millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump because he promised to make America great again. It is already clear that the definition of American greatness has somehow changed for some Americans.
We know how American greatness has looked and sounded in the past. During his inaugural address in 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed a global audience, saying, “My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
Within months, he created the Peace Corps, exporting American greatness to third-world countries where American volunteers provided technical expertise in education, business, civil engineering and community development.
The world saw American greatness again in 1987, when President Ronald Reagan spoke at the Berlin Wall. “We come to Berlin, we American presidents, because it’s our duty to speak, in this place, of freedom,” he said.
Directly addressing the leader of the Soviet Union, Reagan said, “… if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity … Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” And, two years later, the wall did come down.
It’s different with Trump. He is fond of authoritarian leaders — like Russia’s Putin and North Korea’s Kim — ignoring their wars against freedom. He claims Ukraine started the war with Russia, when the world knows Russia invaded Ukraine. He insults and attacks our longtime friends in Canada and Europe, whose soldiers fought beside our soldiers since the beginning of the last century.
Here at home, few institutions anchor American greatness as well as our universities and colleges. In U.S. News & World Report’s most recent global rankings of universities, 20 of the top 30 universities in the world are from the United States.
As former ambassador Barbara Stephenson recently wrote for UNC Global Affairs, our universities attract the world’s most talented people, drive innovation and problem-solving and contribute significantly to national security “by helping America retain its competitive edge over great power rivals.”
As Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber wrote in The Atlantic last week, the partnership between the federal government and America’s research universities was created during World War II by Vannevar Bush, the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
“Bush recognized that by sponsoring research at universities, the United States could lead the world in discoveries and innovations. Over time, American universities became responsible for a large portion of the government’s scientific programs, accepting tens of billions of dollars a year to perform research that would make the country stronger and improve the lives of its citizens.
“The government’s successful collaboration with American universities depended on its respect for academic freedom, which, for decades, presidents and legislators from both political parties largely observed. That freedom attracted the world’s finest scholars and facilitated the unfettered pursuit of knowledge.”
In Pittsburgh, universities and medical centers also saved the city from the collapse of Big Steel as its leaders embraced “eds and meds” as the new economic engine of the city. As research dollars have poured into the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC, Carnegie Mellon University and the Software Engineering Institute, those dollars have translated into many tens of thousands of jobs and continuing economic vitality.
Now, Trump has declared war on university and medical research funding, suspending and threatening to eliminate it. At Pitt alone, that will mean a loss of $700 million in National Institutes of Health research grants.
It is hard to understand how anyone can claim to be making America great again by destroying those things that made America great in the first place.