Opinion Today: How will MAGA change science in America?

There could be radical changes, but what kind is up for grabs.

View in browser|nytimes.com November 27, 2024 By Alexandra Sifferlin Health and Science Editor, Opinion There's something very 2024 America about the emerging MAGA public health agenda. With President-elect Donald Trump naming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a former Democrat known for his vaccine skepticism — as his potential pick to lead the nation's health apparatus, we are firmly in new territory, even for Trump. Kennedy not only lacks medical credentials, he is a determined outsider when it comes to the nation's public health system. That may be a feature rather than a bug for the new administration. As Tony Mills, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, explains in a guest essay, an outsider perspective is arguably a defining characteristic of many of Trump's potential health appointees. There's a shared distrust of scientific expertise and establishment norms. "The emergent MAGA science policy agenda, driven by skepticism and anti-elitism, blends familiar conservative and libertarian ideas with a suspicion of expert power once more associated with the left," writes Mills. "The result is a uniquely American brand of populism that has the potential to fundamentally reshape national politics." Mills traces the history that got us to this point — from the decades after World War II through Covid-19. That Republicans would emerge from a historic pandemic more skeptical of achievements like vaccines — even those championed by Trump's own Operation Warp Speed — was not inevitable, but it's where we are now. This new wave of leadership could transform the country's scientific landscape, but in what way remains unknown. "Were this animus channeled into constructive policies and reforms, it could offer a needed corrective," Mills writes. "In its unvarnished form, however, it is more radical than conservative, more destructive than constructive and more corrosive than restorative." Read the guest essay: Jordan Bohannon Guest Essay The Next Four Years Are an Experiment in MAGA Science If there's a thread tying this coalition together, it's suspicion of expertise and elitism. By M. Anthony Mills Programming note: The newsletter will be off Thursday and Friday, and will return Nov. 30. Here's what we're focusing on today: Editors' Picks Guest Essay I'm a Couples Therapist. We Can Address Our Political Divide. We're in a national moment of great fear and suspicion. But the principles of psychoanalysis that can help feuding couples can also help us reconcile our differences. By Orna Guralnik More From Opinion The Editorial Board The Senate Should Leave No Judgeship Unfilled Donald Trump will try to fill every judgeship that Democrats leave open. 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