This 1938 pro-science manifesto defended democracy against fascism | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | May, 2025

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In 2019, with Hurricane Dorian bearing down on the Florida coast, the official NOAA predictions (in white) were edited with a sharpie to incorrectly align with previous Donald Trump statements (that were factually inaccurate) about the potential path of the hurricane to include portions of Alabama, which was never at risk. It was an amazing “test” of whether loyalty to the truth or to a particular individual was more important, showcasing the difference between actual science and science that has been infiltrated and polluted by politics. (Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

As democracy recedes and fascism rises in the USA and around the world in 2025, history provides a lesson in how science can fight fascism.

Here in the United States in 2025, our society has endured a series of attacks on science, health, and the civil service in our country as never before. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees, after being stripped of their legal protections from political firings, have lost their jobs over the first ~100 days of the second Trump administration. Hundreds to thousands of workers, including many scientists, have been terminated — without cause — from their jobs at federal agencies such as:

the US Forest Service, which protects us from wildfires,
NOAA, which monitors our climate and coastline,
the Department of Education (which is likely to be closed entirely),
the National Nuclear Safety Administration, which safeguards our nuclear power plants, weapons, and waste storage,
the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control, which are presently fomenting the largest vaccine-preventable disease outbreak in the USA in the 21st century,