It's not just about finances. Trump just announced (possibly accidentally) that he's going to start deporting American citizens to El Salvador gulags: https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-says-the-us-could-de...

and they've been painting political enemies as criminals. It's pretty much the same situation as Russia/Putin but at an earlier stage of its development, and people want to avoid being the tallest grass that gets mowed.

It's good that some institutions are standing up but I don't expect it to go well for them.