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“Suicide of a superpower� is underway, to quote Max Boot in a recent Washington Post column.

Trump’s attack on universities and other government-funded research programs is surrendering America’s most powerful weapon, our scientific ability. With the help of scientists from abroad (immigrants like Einstein who spent the rest of his career as a physics professor at Princeton), the University of Chicago, Columbia, and Berkeley were major players in developing the atomic bomb that made us a superpower in the first place.

Not only have our scientists given us satellite radio, smart phones and the internet, which we rely on in Talbot County, they have also given us missile shields, drones and other smart weapons. Future conflicts will be fought with high-tech systems — not yesterday’s weapons — and we must keep up with their development.

I can understand a certain amount of animosity toward the stereotype professor or scientist, but I can’t understand why one would want to harm our research programs and universities, which are the envy of the world. We need to urge Andy Harris and other Eastern Shore leaders to push back against Trump’s terrible mistake.

RALPH MEYER

Easton