Derek Lowe tells it like it is

 This. I'll give you some pull quotes but read it.

 The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands.

That’s it. That’s the story. They are naturally not putting it in those words, but instead talking about “gold standard science” and the “reproducibility crisis” and funding “bold inquiry” for “transformational breakthroughs”. This is all bullshit . . .

 Arguing with [presidential science advisor] Kratsios (or any of the other Trump officials) about whether there has been a slowdown in scientific discovery or innovation, about the particular funding methods that have been in use, or about which particular areas should receive more or less federal support is a pointless waste of time. That’s what they want people to do, to chase after those bouncing balls of policy and reform, while the real work continues - and that real work is what I stated in the first paragraph. 

People who read about these ideas and who actually support these proposals grievously misunderstand how scientific discovery actually works, and they misunderstand the differences between basic and applied research as well. I am not going to try to teach them any of those things today, because that’s not the issue here. . . . These people want money and they want power and they want revenge, and no amount of evidence or reasoned argument is going to slow them down. Save your breath. 

I'm working on an essay that tries to explain in a nutshell what science is all about and how you should legitimately come by your beliefs, given that you can't possibly be an expert in everything. Obviously the people who vote for clownish demented psychopaths aren't going to read it, however, so Lowe is right. Sure, make your reasoned arguments, try to educate people who are willing to listen, but this is about politics, about raw power. It isn't a debating society.