MAGA's attack on science is even worse than it looks
Noah Smith
· Noahpinion
· July 10, 2026 at 15:23
· ⏱ 5 min read
| Read on Substack ↗
Summary
The article argues that despite strong overall American trust in science, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party is waging an unprecedented attack on scientific funding and imposing ideological reviews, threatening the institutional engine that powered US economic and military dominance. For markets, this signals policy risk to sectors reliant on government R&D funding (biotech, defense, energy) and a potential long-term erosion of US innovation competitiveness vs. China, though the near-term impact is diffuse and uncertain.
•The US scientific enterprise built post-WWII (modern research universities, government grants, public-to-private spinoffs) is now threatened with absolute decline, not just relative loss to China.
•Pew polls from late 2025 show two-thirds of Republicans still have at least 'a fair amount' of confidence in science, and support for science spending remains high even among Republicans.
•Trump administration is cutting funding and forcing science projects to undergo ideological review by government commissars, described as an 'unprecedented and devastating attack'.
•China's rise in science is described as 'good for American science' because US scientists can use Chinese discoveries for free, but China's military applications pose a concern.
•The only group that lost trust in science is a 'smallish minority' of MAGA Republicans; overall American trust in scientists remains high, ranking above even the military.
•The author blames both sides: left-wing politicization of science during Biden was a real misstep, but right-wing claims of a crisis of trust are exaggerated and self-serving.