In the United States of America, once free country, a beacon of democracy and human rights, what was once called academia, science and public health is currently being dismantled into its constituent parts and blown apart. Make America Great Again (MAGA) and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) are literally dismantling the public health system and destroying academic freedom.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many naively hoped that it would make people who do not trust vaccines aware that vaccines are important and can reduce the risk of getting sick, and that the victory of science by finding vaccines would silence the anti-vaccine and anti-scientific narratives spreading on social networks. I was one of the few at the time who had the opposite opinion – that the pandemic would increase mistrust and strengthen anti-science narratives.
In the texts from 2022, I described the money flows through which various American libertarian, neoconservative and fundamentalist Christian organizations, think tanks and foundations finance the spread of disinformation about COVID-19, therapies, vaccines, ivermectin, and even climate change. Organizations like the Heritage foundation (yes, the same one that created Project 2025, the scenario of which we are now watching unfold step by step, building from the US Gilead), the Cato Institute, the Koch Institute, the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), the Ayn Rand Institute, the right-wing organizations of doctors Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and America's Frontline Doctors (AFLD) are spreading the most terrible misinformation about infection, therapies and vaccines, putting millions of people at risk.
I also wrote about the Great Barrington Declaration, another ultra-right fabrication that has also infected our region. For those who do not know, did not follow, this declaration is an open letter, a controversial document published on October 4, 2020 in the city of Great Barrington, Massachusetts (USA), during the COVID-19 pandemic.
His basic message was that the pandemic should be dealt with through “focused protection” – i.e. isolating and protecting the most vulnerable (the elderly and chronically ill), while the rest of the population would be allowed to live almost normally, so that the virus would spread quickly and create the so-called natural collective immunity. The authors argued that this would reduce the harm that, according to them, lockdowns cause: economic losses, deterioration of mental health, delayed treatment of other diseases, etc.
Main authors (all are epidemiologists or public health experts): Dr. Martin Kulldorff – then professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Sunetra Gupta – epidemiologist and professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya – professor of medicine and economic policy at Stanford University.
The declaration was supported by the libertarian think-tank American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), which opposed strict lockdown measures. This connection was one of the reasons for criticism, because AIER has an ideological agenda against state regulations. It is an ideological document that advises the sacrifice of those who are weaker. A de facto call for genocide. The fact that epidemiologists are behind this document, and we, as we should trust experts, even epidemiologists and medics from very respectable institutions and universities, does not play much of a role here. Empathy and emotional intelligence should play a role in trust. So, it is an open letter that recommended the spread of the virus for the sake of preserving the economy, and the sanctity of neoliberal merchants of dead souls, in which they did not care that those closest to you will die because they are older, because they have some disease, how long people will have covid… The most important thing was that the economy works. The fact that someone can't come to work or will come sick and infect the people around him, that didn't matter to these demagogues. It was a purge, a license to clean up the weak, who do not fit into the eugenic concepts of the fascists. If you get sick and die – you were useless anyway. You're useless anyway. You are not strong. We don't need you in capitalism. You can't produce. If you have any risk factor, hereditary or chronic disease – you definitely do not fit into the eugenic order.
Guess what happened? The aforementioned Jay Bhattacharya, the co-author of this fascist pamphlet that caused the death of many innocents, especially the elderly, has become the 18th Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the MAGA/MAHA regime of Donald Trump who is fulfilling the steps of Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a comprehensive conservative plan – a guide to the transition – created by the Heritage Foundation, an influential right-wing think-tank in Washington. The document of about 900 pages contains strategies and proposals for a strong reorganization of the federal government, proposed by a potential Republican presidential candidate, most often in the context of a possible second term of Donald Trump.
Project 2025 envisages a significant strengthening of presidential powers, including the dismissal of “liberal” civil servants and their replacement by loyalists who share a conservative agenda. On foreign policy, the document lists China as the biggest threat to American security and prosperity, and advocates nuclear buildup, new missile development, and reconsideration of limits on weapons testing. On the social front, he emphasizes the restoration of the traditional family, the abolition of federal support for reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, diversity and inclusion, as well as the ban on pornography and the control of platforms that spread it. As part of the transition strategy, the plan includes the creation of a database of conservative cadres and their training through the “Presidential Administration Academy”. American higher education institutions and public health are the beneficiaries of the project here.
And not only that, in this evil regime, the Minister of Health became Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., RFK, a heir of the line of those Kennedys, only this Kennedy is from Temu. A man who has absolutely no medical education, is a lawyer, participates in lawsuits for damage caused by vaccines, the American Jagoda Savić, today decides what is and what is not healthy, makes decisions concerning the health of some over 300 million residents of the USA.
So, this is a man who was infected with a worm in his brain, who was addicted to hard drugs and used steroids, and who now decides on medicine and public health policies in the USA. So far in his mandate, he fought against glucose-fructose syrup, especially the one in Coca-Cola, against vaccines and against health. He managed to destroy the Advisory Committee on Vaccines (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and currently there is no one in the US who gives reasonable advice on immunization. It is likely that the current, pro-science oriented board members will be replaced by lysenkoid regime like those from America's Frontline doctors. Pierre Kory, Ryan Cole and the like are eligible for the regime.
Then in August 2025, RFK decided to cut off $500 million in funding for 22 projects related to mRNA vaccines – the latest vaccine technology, on which some Covid-19 vaccines are based. Otherwise, this technology could have provided safer and more adequate vaccines for some other diseases.
RFK demanded that Danish scientists retract the study on how aluminum adjuvants are not related to neurological disorders and allergies in children. Without medical and biological knowledge, he criticized the 2025 study with MAHA rhetoric because it does not correspond to the MAHA agenda. Danish scientists responded, and Annals of internal medicine, the journal where the study was published, refused to retract the study.
These people want to bend the entire world, truth and facts to fit their vision.
At the beginning of August 2025, there was also an attack on the CDC premises in Atlanta. On August 9, 2025, there was an armed attack on the headquarters of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, in which a police officer and the attacker himself, Patrick Joseph White (30), was killed. According to authorities, White believed that the coronavirus vaccine had caused his health problems and became obsessed with it, which led him to shoot at an institution that is often the target of conspiracy theories and misinformation about the pandemic.
Five weapons were found at the scene, four of which were long-barreled and one with a scope, and his father had reported earlier in the day that he was suicidal. An investigation revealed that the shooter was in a serious mental state and had recently sought mental health help, but had not made any threats to the CDC prior to the attack. The attack drew strong condemnation from health care professionals, who saw it as a tragic consequence of the spread of misinformation and growing hatred of public health institutions.
In July 2025, the federal government dropped charges against Utah plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, who was accused of rejecting COVID-19 vaccines, giving children saline instead of vaccines and selling falsified vaccination certificates. US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on the X social network that the charges were dropped at her behest. Moore and the other defendants could have faced up to 35 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the government and other crimes, and the indictments were filed while Joe Biden was president. So, the swindler who abused his power and at the same time as a plastic surgeon had no right to have anything to do with vaccines, who participated in the spread of disease and endangering public health and endangered the reputation of vaccines, was rewarded.
Before all of this, President Trump halted external communications at several agencies, including the CDC and NIH, at the time of the spread of bird flu and plague. The Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are under pressure.
On August 12, Trump appointed economist EJ Antonio of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after firing the previous director over weaker-than-expected employment data.
“Our economy is booming and EJ will make sure the numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” he posted on Truth Social.
Earlier in August, Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntire, accusing her of “fixing” employment data to paint him in a bad light, drawing sharp criticism from economists from across the political spectrum.
The White House is teaming up with PragerU, the libertarian/conservative propaganda channel revived by the Koch brothers, about which I have already written. Soon, instead of PBS, it will be the official educational channel for children and adults, that is, a means of mass brainwashing and the spread of misinformation.
We are witnessing complete synchronization with the conservative agenda, Stalinist purges of the unfit, complete Gleichschaltung in the USA.
It looks like science in the US will be reduced to the science of artificial intelligence, surveillance systems for monitoring citizens and the military industry.
Another regime narrative is something that is being pushed: the origin of the virus. We will probably never know this to the end, but a lot of evidence points to a natural origin, to the fact that there was a jump from species to species. The regime does not accept this but pushes the Sinophobic narrative that the Chinese engineered the virus in a laboratory in Wuhan. This narrative further inflames hostility towards China, which has pretty much surpassed the US in the scientific sense – not in terms of innovation, but in the number of published works (not including the quality of the works). Everything that goes in the Sinophobic package is already assumed in the narrative of the origin of the virus as a product of China.
The New York Times marvels that Dr. Phil, who was so heartily pushed by Oprah Winfrey, is now on the side of the MAGA regime and supports ICE persecutions and purges. One pro-democracy Oprah. A rich woman who built her empire by pushing the same pseudoscience that today is costing not only the citizens of the USA, but also the entire world. In addition to Dr. Phil, she also pushed Dr. Oz and various pseudoscientific treatments.
The anti-scientific narrative nurtured alongside all possible conspiracy theories, alternative medicine, shamanism, raw food, raw milk, opposition to evolution as a scientific fact, vaccines, is now flourishing. The regime pushes the framework of fundamentalist Christianity, eugenics, fascism, dark enlightenment, technocratic feudalism and despotism, racial purity (Sydney Sweeney's campaign in which she has blue jeans/genes) and frantic reproduction, treating women only as an organism that gives birth to labor and military power. In this, as Phillip Roth would say, conspiracy against America, the key enemies are scientific literacy, literacy in general, science, scientists, the academic community, and then all the rest who are in the throes of human rights and freedoms.
The enemies are Colombia University, which fell prostrate blackmailed for protesting the genocide against the Palestinians. Harvard University and everyone else is a member of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy. Harvard is fighting for academic independence, but it is falling and especially falling at the outlet called Palestine. The systemic destruction of academic freedoms, the principles of humanism and the work of universities is only part of the agenda of this powerful regime. Academic institutions will be forced to kiss the ring/boot just to survive. So far, only Harvard has been ready to fight back in court, but it is not known how long it will last and what price it will pay.
Some former Harvard students are also servants of the regime.
Donald Trump relies on his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, to attack academic institutions, and he passes that role on to May Mailman, a 37-year-old Harvard lawyer. Mailman is a key figure in a strategy to pressure America's leading universities through federal funding, student visas and civil rights investigations, which has caused division among faculty and concern among students. Its aggressive tactics threaten long-term consequences for academic freedom, the admissions policies of elite colleges, and the international reputation of American higher education.
For those who are not clear about what is happening, and how this happened – this is a process that has been happening in the background for some time, and it escalated in the pandemic under the influence of the doctrine of accelerationism. This is the noise in the background that the Democrats in their arrogance did not hear. And just as arrogance ruined the Democrats, so will the arrogance, the South Park level of pampering and tyranny, the anti-scientific McCarthyism of the MAGA/MAHA regime, have its consequences. The problem is that it won't happen immediately, and there will be many innocent victims. The problem is that what is happening in the USA is reflected in the whole world, including the Balkans. The Balkans will not receive anything good, but like a frog that has seen where the horse's shoe is, it will stick to every pseudoscience and conspiracy theory, which, let's face it, mostly come from the USA.
Now it can be seen how the low level of scientific and health literacy has to do with the tendency to narrow the democratic space, how important scientific literacy is for the electorate, and how the lower level of these types of literacy leads to idiocracy and autocracy. Gleichschaltung follows, then Nacht der Langen Messer, then Götterdämmerung.
