Nobody Expected the MAGA Inquisition

But it’s here, and will destroy American science

The trial of Galileo

It was obvious, if you thought about it, that the second Trump administration would be hostile to science and intellectual endeavor in general.

After all, look at some key elements of the MAGA coalition. Fossil fuel interests don’t want anyone studying climate change. Conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones make much of their money selling quack medical remedies, which makes them hostile to conventional medicine. (And partisan orientation became a key factor determining whether people were willing to be vaccinated against Covid.) Practitioners of voodoo economics don’t want anyone looking into the actual results of cutting taxes on the rich. Nativists proclaiming an immigrant crime wave don’t want anyone examining who commits violent crimes. And so on.

Even so, the extreme nature of the assault has caught almost everyone by surprise. American scientific leadership and the prestige of our research universities are key pillars of U.S. power and prosperity. Corporate America certainly understands that our scientific and educational institutions contribute to its bottom line. So you might have expected even MAGA enthusiasts to be a bit cautious about killing this particular golden-egg-laying goose.

You would have been wrong. Everything points to an effort to effectively destroy U.S. science — not gradually as part of a long-term plan, but over the next year or two.

Start with the money. The preliminary budget the Trump administration released last month called for a cut of almost 40 percent in funding for the National Institutes of Health, more than 50 percent in the budget of the National Science Foundation, the virtual elimination of federal spending on climate and ecological research and a drastic cut in NASA’s research budget. All of this was for fiscal 2026, which begins in October — that is, something like half the federal government’s financial support for science would be eliminated within a few months.

Then there are the attacks on elite universities. First, the administration in effect demanded control over Harvard’s hiring and its curriculum. The university has refused, and has faced a series of attempted punitive actions, most recently a proclamation that the administration will refuse to issue visas for international students trying to attend Harvard and possibly revoke the visas of student already there.

And the administration is threatening to revoke Columbia’s accreditation, which is not a power it legally has, but these days, who knows?

Finally, there’s what clearly looks like an attempt to politicize whatever scientific funding remains. Medical journals have received threatening letters from the Justice Department. An executive order issued May 23, titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science,” purports to be about restoring “scientific integrity,” but would give political appointees the right to “correct scientific information” and to “forward potential violations to the relevant human resources officials for discipline.”

And can you think of a group you’d trust less to “correct” science and decide who to discipline than Trump and his people?

As an open letter signed by thousands of scientists says, there are obvious parallels between what the Trumpists are trying to do and the corruption of science by past totalitarian regimes.

So it’s clear what they’re doing. But why, given how devastating this is likely to be even in financial terms? If you’re a talented foreign researcher or student, why would you come to America given what’s happening? What will happen to U.S. technology and global leadership when the best people, even if they’re allowed in, are afraid to come here?

One answer is that key MAGA figures really don’t believe that we need foreigners. Steve Bannon has suggested that Asian immigrants working in Silicon Valley constitute “unfair competition,” that they’re taking the “high-valuated tech jobs” that should be going to people born in America. Trump has complained that international students at Harvard are harmful because “we have Americans who want to go there.” I would say that neither Silicon Valley nor Harvard would be what they are without being able to attract the world’s best talent, but they clearly don’t agree.

Even if they were right (they aren’t), however, science can’t flourish without government support. Research is the classic example of a “public good” that won’t be undertaken by private firms seeking profit. And if you combine huge funding cuts with an environment in which scientists are essentially told what conclusions to reach, that’s pretty much the end of science in America.

And maybe MAGA is OK with that. Science has this awkward tendency to tell you things you didn’t want to know and give you answers you didn’t want. The Trump administration may pretend to want better science, but at a fundamental level MAGA dislikes and distrusts the very idea of science.

And sooner than many imagine, there won’t be much science in America for them to complain about.

MUSICAL CODA

Not actually about space science, but whatever