They certainly don't know how to do this stuff with any sort of grace or subtlety but perhaps more importantly... they don't care to. They perceive no value fr

They certainly don't know how to do this stuff with any sort of grace or subtlety but perhaps more importantly... they don't care to. They perceive no value from "soft power" stuff like the NIH and to a large extent consider it to be (part of) the enemy. And most of their voting base really doesn't understand a single thing about the NIH. I mean, truly: the average American doesn't know what that program even is. Other than occasionally getting roasted for funding some ridiculous-sounding project like studying depression in chickens or something.[1] So the only real "win" here for the new ruling party is to burn it down and then brag that they saved "the American taxpayers" $XYZ billion dollars. (Which will wind up directly in the hands of the rich via tax breaks, and by definition can't really benefit poor people because they already pay little tax) ---- [1] Most of the time these "ridiculous sounding" programs are actually pretty relevant and/or useful if you look into them.