America’s War on Knowledge and Its Consequences
The U.S. is turning against intellectualism: defunding education, silencing experts, and risking decline. Can a nation thrive without knowledge?
The War on Intellectualism and the Fracturing of a Nation
History often warns us, but rarely do we listen.
During China’s Cultural Revolution, the country turned against its intellectuals. Universities were gutted. Professors were dragged from their homes, publicly humiliated, and, in many cases, beaten or killed, not for political dissent but simply for belonging to the wrong class. Schools shut down, and generations of students were sent to work in the countryside, deprived of education.
This was not a momentary purge, it was a systematic dismantling of knowledge, a rejection of expertise in favour of ideological purity. More than a million people died, not because of their beliefs but because the state demanded conformity, and even loyalty was no protection from the tides of destruction.
Some would argue that drawing parallels between China’s Cultural Revolution and what is happening in the United States today is an exaggeration. Yet, as academic institutions are defunded, professors are targeted, and entire fields of study are branded as dangerous, one has to ask: What happens to a society when it turns against its intellectuals?
The United States’ Assault on Knowledge
In the past decade, and especially in recent years, the United States has begun a steady retreat from intellectualism. Universities are losing funding. Research grants are drying up. Entire disciplines, climate science, gender studies, and history, are being discredited by political leaders who view them as threats rather than assets.
Words like diversity, equity, and climate change are being erased from curricula. Entire academic fields are under attack, not because they lack merit but because they do not align with the dominant political ideology.
The push to abolish the Department of Education, once a fringe talking point, has entered mainstream discussion. If successful, it would leave the country’s educational system fractured, underfunded, and entirely vulnerable to ideological control by individual states.
This is not a sudden shift. The decline of intellectualism in the United States has been unfolding for decades. Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 book, “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, warned of a growing distrust of experts. Chris Hedges's “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2007)” explored the religious right’s war on secular thought. Kurt Andersen’s “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History (2017)” charted “magical thinking” in American culture.
None of this happened overnight. But we are now reaching a critical point.
The Seeds of Nationalism and the Breaking of a Social Contract
The United States has long defined itself as the greatest nation on earth. But what happens when a country built on exceptionalism finds itself facing decline? When its citizens can no longer reconcile their self-image with reality, the fractures deepen, and the blame shifts inward.
For decades, American foreign policy exported chaos in the pursuit of power. Now, that chaos is turning inward. The lines of conflict are no longer between America and its adversaries but within its borders. The distrust of institutions, the vilification of expertise, and the purge of dissent are not isolated events but symptoms of a society that no longer believes in itself.
Moderate Americans lament the rise of authoritarianism, insisting that this is not who they are. But history suggests otherwise. The desire for autocracy has always existed in the United States. The difference now is that there is a political figure capable of uniting those who historically felt powerless and disengaged.
Trump did not break America, he revealed what it already was.
When he mocked the late war hero and Senator John McCain, conservatives did not turn away. When he bragged about sexual assault, millions still voted for him. When his supporters stormed the Capitol, lawmakers hesitated to condemn them. When he pardoned the very people who carried out political violence in his name, his influence only grew.
There is no bottom. The slide will continue as long as there is a willing audience.
America’s Decline and the Rise of the East
While the United States dismantles its institutions, China is doing the opposite.
It is pouring billions into artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and scientific research. It is attracting the world’s top minds, including American researchers who see no future for themselves in their own country. It is solidifying its political control while strengthening its technological dominance.
This is not about left or right. It is about whether a nation that turns against its intellectuals can remain competitive in a world that demands expertise.
If the United States continues down this path, it will not be China that defeats it. It will be its refusal to evolve.
The Fight for America’s Future
There are two possible futures for the United States. One in which it reverses course and embraces knowledge, or one in which it accelerates its decline.
Look to Hungary, not China, for a glimpse of what may come.
Hungary, under Viktor Orban, has become an electoral autocracy, where elections continue, but democratic institutions are hollowed out. The European Parliament formally declared in 2022 that Hungary could no longer be considered a full democracy. The same forces are at work in the United States: courts being packed, media being consolidated, elections being undermined, and academic institutions being purged.
And yet, the warning signs are ignored.
Hope and Resistance in an Era of Decline
For those who still believe in a different future, the challenge is clear. It will not be enough to wait for Trump to disappear. This is not about one man but about an entire movement that has been decades in the making.
The fight will be long, but it is not yet lost.
For those who recognize what is happening, the task is to preserve knowledge wherever possible. To support independent journalism. To invest in education. To ensure that history is recorded truthfully, so that future generations will know how and why the decline began, and, perhaps, how it might one day be reversed.
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