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On this fifth anniversary of the Covid pandemic, there is ample examination of what America got wrong. But what America got right was the astonishingly quick development of effective vaccines.
That effort, Operation Warp Speed, began toward the end of President Trump’s first term in the White House. He crowed about it — deservedly, because it probably saved millions of American lives. But he clearly didn’t understand the lessons of its success.
Those vaccines synthesized decades of scientific research. But the Trump administration is taking a hatchet to such experiments and scholarship now.
Those vaccines were hastened by an instant infusion of enormous federal spending. But the Trump administration is currently trying to stanch the flow of such money to organizations, including universities, that will nurture tomorrow’s most consequential discoveries.
That makes zero sense in the context of Trump’s past experience in the presidency. It’s even less logical in the context of his promise to lift the United States to new peaks of glory and make us the envy of the world.
Among our most significant competitive advantages are our scientists, our laboratories, our system of higher education. They’re a kind of superpower, their output an engine of our wealth — of frontier-expanding technology, medical breakthroughs and production innovations that enrich companies as they improve lives.
