On March 28th, millions of people across the country will turn out at local events in support of the latest No Kings mobilization, challenging the authoritarian overreach of President Trump and his appointees. Scientists have a crucial role to play in this effort. A shared commitment to facts and knowledge, produced independently from political interference, is critical to democracy—and worth fighting to protect.
As the United States slides into competitive authoritarianism, control over scientific data has become an important lever of power. Authoritarians manipulate, censor, and cease collection of data to control the public narrative, suppress dissent, and advance propaganda in support of their self-serving policy goals. A functioning democracy, however, depends on the ability of its citizens to make informed decisions. A shared commitment to knowledge and facts, produced independently from political interference, is critical to maintain democratic decisionmaking, sustain public trust in institutions, and enable society to make progress on the world’s biggest challenges, including climate change and public health. A shared reality, built on facts and evidence, helps people evaluate policies and hold leaders accountable for the results. Reliable data is foundational for informed policy-making and countries with the best official statistical systems have been found to be the most democratic. Without transparency and accountability, public trust is eroded and government decisions lose legitimacy. And without a commitment to the truth and the public good, government decisions are made based on ideology or the demands of powerful interests allied with the regime, empowering a few wealthy insiders at the expense of the rest of us.
Since the Trump administration took power on January 20th, 2025, the president and his appointees have launched at least 536 attacks on science. This litany of assaults includes terminating or freezing 7,800 research grants, cutting or forcing out tens of thousands of federal scientists, proposing science budget cuts of 35%, endorsing conspiracy theories, using fear and intimidation to stop scientists from speaking to the public, and publicly extorting universities whose work ran counter to the Trump political agenda. They have also used disinformation to weaponize bigotry against immigrants, transgender people and other vulnerable communities to justify their extreme agenda, with a severe cost to the rule of law and to human lives here and abroad. These are classic techniques authoritarian regimes use to maintain their grip on power.
Scientists and their work are at risk from the administration’s actions—but they also have the standing to push back against these abuses of power. The vast majority of Americans—77%—trust scientists to act in the public’s best interests, according to a poll released in January 2026. Scientists as a group have higher levels of public confidence than many other groups, including business leaders and elected officials. Scientists can and should leverage this unique trust to help defend democracy.
In just the first two months of 2026, President Trump and his allies have distorted facts and silenced the best available science in ways that threaten democracy and make all of us less safe. They have discarded the best-available evidence by repealing EPA’s endangerment finding; elevated vaccine pseudoscience as national policy; and politicized voter data to unfairly influence future elections.
Climate-change denial
Their repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Endangerment Finding, which legally established that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, is a particularly egregious case in point. This finding has been a key scientific basis for climate regulation and supported by decades of scientific consensus and a Supreme Court ruling. While the White House trumpeted it as the largest deregulatory action in American history, many scientists recognize it for what it is: a handout to the oil and gas industry and billionaire polluters at the expense of public health. Trump’s EPA used legal contortions to repeal the endangerment finding, wrongly suggesting the EPA lacks statutory authority to regulate climate change under the Clean Air Act. We at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) have joined a lawsuit against the EPA and their complete dereliction of the agency’s mission to protect people’s health and its legal obligation under the Clean Air Act.
This repeal came after a January 2026 ruling by the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts that the Department of Energy under Trump violated federal law by convening a secret meeting of climate change contrarians (UCS was also part of that litigation). The secret group was tasked with developing a slanted report on climate science as a way to target the endangerment finding. This secret group was hand-picked by the Trump administration to explicitly manufacture “scientific” justification for EPA’s actions. Members included a former BP Chief scientist with a public record of diverging from scientific consensus. While the oil and gas industry has spent decades repeatedly using pseudoscientific arguments, selective uncertainty, and manufactured doubt to undermine public understanding of climate change and delay regulatory action, the current Trump administration has essentially elevated these tactics to official government policy. The court ruled the secret group functioned like a federal advisory committee but did not adhere to the legal requirements of the Federal Advisory Committees Act.
In January 2026, the EPA departed from scientific precedent by stating they will no longer include the impact of pollution on people when they conduct cost-benefit assessment for pollution standards. Decades of scientific data has shown the irrefutable health benefits of reducing pollution, but the new EPA regulatory method stopped putting a dollar amount on the value of human lives saved from reduced pollution and will only quantify the economic cost to the polluter, thereby favoring the interests of polluters over people. This mimics patterns seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, when authoritarian regimes were found to manipulate, suppress, distort, and avoid collecting health data that challenged their rule.
Sowing distrust on public health
Trump and his allies are also manufacturing and elevating health pseudoscience to serve their political goals. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), led in this administration by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr., has distorted scientific evidence, cited non-existent studies, misrepresented research, and elevated politically predetermined conclusions in ways that violated principles of scientific integrity. A letter issued by the American Academy of Pediatricians and signed onto by five organizations noted that HHS misrepresented scientific consensus and prioritized opinion over evidence about care for transgender and gender-diverse youth. One analysis for HHS’s so-called ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda cited fabricated studies and drew incorrect conclusions. Some of the most high-profile pseudoscience under RFK Jr.’s HHS has related to vaccines. HHS political leaders canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine R&D funding and publicly (and falsely) claimed mRNA vaccines were “under‑tested” and associated with “mounting adverse events.” RFK Jr. has installed prominent vaccine skeptics in roles meant to protect human health. Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), charged with keeping the public safe from epidemics, has inexplicably stopped updating vaccine databases, which can undermine evidence-based medicine and public trust. Removal of vaccine recommendations under RFK Jr. echoes “soft eugenics”: the idea that there should be limits to what health services should be provided by the government, that nature should be allowed to take its course, and the strong and most deserving will survive. This attitude showed up in the “herd immunity” theory put forth by opponents of COVID public health protections. These sorts of actions by HHS under Trump and his enablers have led more than 1,000 current and former HHS staff to demand RFK Jr.’s resignation.
Targeting elections and the right to vote
The Department of Justice (DOJ) under Trump has also weaponized science and data against democracy. Since mid-2025, DOJ Attorney General Pam Bondi has demanded that Minnesota turn over highly sensitive unredacted voter data, including voter lists with dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, and partial social security numbers. After federal immigration officers shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January 2026, Bondi sent a letter suggesting that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees immigration agencies, could reduce their operations in the state in exchange for the voter data, in addition to other demands. The federal government has demanded voter records from 44 states even though they have no legal authority to do so.
In January 2026, federal agents seized voter records, ballots, and election materials from Fulton County, Georgia, related to the 2020 election. The government’s stated reasons for the investigation and seizure of voting materials have been debunked by dozens of courts. The timing of the seizure of voter materials in the months before the 2026 midterms is another example of using voter data to impact public confidence in elections and justify restrictive voting policies. The physical presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), during the search and seizure at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center also caused serious alarm among election officials. The DNI oversees foreign intelligence agencies, not the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that conducted the search warrant. Gabbard’s visit created bipartisan concern regarding the rule-of-law and the security of elections data. Election experts note that, in the context of the Trump administration’s rhetoric and actions, this visit can be seen as a visible federal presence meant to intimidate or chill participation. These events demonstrate how data can be used to manufacture doubt in future elections, give election deniers ‘data’ to push false claims, justify large-scale removal of voters from voter rolls, intimidate election officials, and chill voter participation through fear and confusion. Such tactics are hallmarks of how authoritarians seek to corrupt elections.
We can take action
If you have ever taken a first aid course, you know the idea that the first step to responding to an emergency is to recognize there is an emergency. To prevent further democratic backsliding, scientists can help the public and major institutions recognize the threat to democracy, a tactic proven to stopping dictators in South Korea, Brazil, and Poland. While resistance to authoritarianism in the United States must include the courts, Congress, defending elections, and independent media, collective action is critical. Mass protests “call the bluff” of authoritarian’s fear-based narrative and they demonstrate the breadth of opposition to Trump and his political enablers, including corporations. People showing up has already worked in the past year, from the Tesla Takedown to the anti-ICE activism that helped end the federal assault on Minneapolis.
Science keeps us healthy and safe, powers our economy, and advances collective knowledge as a public good. And democracy cannot function without a shared commitment to the facts and the public good. Scientists must show up to oppose authoritarian actions and protect democratic norms by safely joining their local non-violent No Kings activities. For those of us who cannot physically show up on March 28th, you can still defend democracy with a host of other actions such as mutual aid and protecting elections. Each of us matters and can make a difference. This is what democracy looks like.