Samuel Cohn

I am very happy with the success of the Democrats in the election and hope that it will produce a firewall against further abuses of power, appointments of unqualified officials and judges, etc. Beyond this, I think there are some very good signs about American politics. 1. The election of four Black governors, including two in the South, the first female Native American governor, the first Muslim senator, the first Hispanic governor of Texas, and possibly the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction, and the first male openly gay senator collectively represent a huge advance. These outcomes reflect something very healthy about the evolution of the political leadership of the United States towards reflecting our diverse society. This is true whatever one thinks of the people elected. And is suggests that some stereotypes about the prejudices of voters (including my own) warrant updating. 2. Some of the truly vile candidates in this election were defeated. It matters that limits emerged on the willingness to vote for someone because of party affiliation, something that had obviously deteriorated over the last decade. Obvious examples: Ken Paxton and Vivek Ramaswamy. (It is disappointing that Tommy Tuberville, who is equally disgusting, was elected governor of Alabama. I think the same of Mike Rogers' defeat in Michigan. The overt Islamophobia his campaign needed to be repudiated. Special mention should be made of collapse of Bo French in polls and subsequent defeat for Texas Railroad Commissioner once his despicable attack on ethnic South Asian students at UT Austin went viral. 3. With the exception of Rogers, defeated GOP candidates (including the two I singled out) promptly conceded defeat and have followed the good norms of the past. Claims of fraud have scarcely occurred. This is enormously important given Trump's undermining of confidence in election outcomes through appalling lies.

The End of US Scientific Preeminence This action is one of several that endanger American scientific and technological dominance. The damage comes in four distinct ways. 1. Degradation of the Effectiveness of Science Funding. Control over NIH is consistent follows the document Science: New Golden Age issued by the White House Science Advisor Michael Kratsios. Politicization of funding in the way envisioned gives bureaucrats and political appointees authority rather than scientific experts. This is how mRNA research gets derailed, short run advances become prioritized over longer run advances, and applied science is prioritized over theoretical work who payoffs may be far greater. 2. Degradation of US Universities. The various attacks on American universities, be it overall reduction of research funds from the Federal government, efforts to reduce overhead percentages, punitive funding cuts, all will reduce the quality of science for the obvious reason-lower resource input, low research output. 3. Degradation of the Talent in the Scientific Community. The actions by the Trump administration to reduce F-1 visas, threats to reduce H1-B visas, implement $100,000 OPT fees, limit the number of years foreign national can study in a given program, will all reduce the flow of talent to the United States. As China's scientific establishment grows, the comparative attractiveness of the US to international talent is already under threat. Europe's potential to do the same is vast. When 2/3 of Silicon Valley employees are foreign born, these policies are madness. 4. Degradation in the Effective Development of Domestic Talent Attacks on diversity policies at US institutions are also harmful. Chang-Tai Hsieh, Chang-Tai, Erik Hurst, Charles Jones, and Peter Klenow, in "The Allocation of Talent and U.S. Economic Growth." Econometrica 2019, concluded somewhere between 20%-40% of US economic growth between 1960 and 2010 involved improved allocation of women and African Americans along comparative advantage lines. Whatever putative inefficiencies are alleged to be associated with DEI and affirmative action policies is dwarfed by the magnitudes of more efficient matching that were found.(There is remarkably little evidence on this. The best evidence wrt efficiency is by Peter Ardiciacano on effects of affirmative action on STEM majors. The finding does not imply AA inefficient per se, but that universities need to account for difference in skills at time of admission in constructing programs, but that is a separate matter.) As for the current outstanding state of US science, I am remind of this "Often, the outward and visible material signs and symbols of happiness and success only show themselves when the process of decline has already set in. The outer manifestations take time—like the light of that star up there, which may in reality be already quenched, when it looks to us to be shining its brightest." Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks