When the physicists need burner phones, that's when you know America's changed

How about this quote:

> Perhaps that’s because most of British academia still can’t get its head around the idea that the US is now an enemy, not an ally, and that the “special relationship” is yesterday’s story.

That's a bold statement. John is using language in a manipulative way. By moving the word "enemy" into a context where it is not justified (is it really war, rather than typical negotiations?), he aims to create a dramatic perspective on a thing that is not obviously dramatic. Drama is the basis of the argument. The cases he bring up do not seem to justify the conclusive dramatic language.

The US has made itself an enemy of open research and the scientific community, and the article prior to the point you quoted actually does a good job in outlining why people feel that way.

Typical negotiations don't look anything like the policies they're inacting, not like retracting research or cancelling funding on the basis of including keywords that the party deems problematic (regardless of actual content), and certainly not like threats of annexation or extra-judicial disappearances if students writing political pieces in their college magazines.

It is a bold statement and it does sound dramatic, but it's still probably an understatement if you look at what has been happening. It's honestly dumbfounding to continue to see people defending this as in any way normal.

> ... but it's still probably an understatement if you look at what has been happening.

That's exactly what I would question. Does the author look just as hard in the other direction and, with intellectual honesty, defend those cases? (should he? why? why not?...) My general sense is the "other side" may have experienced similar treatment that is now being complained about. No, I don't mean it is therefore necessarily justified. I really mean that—I do not think it is therefore necessarily justified.

If I side with any of them, either side may decide I'm no longer in the in-group. Rather than either side being right, both have the same potential for corruption, and that's the real enemy.

This is not a specific answer to the effort you offered in explaining the situation. I would have to look deeper into it.

I'm not sure what you mean by sides or directions in this case.