Let’s be clear: this executive order doesn’t revive American science—it repurposes it for ideology. Behind its poetic invocations of Edison and Armstrong lies something far more dangerous: a not-so-subtle attempt to reshape scientific inquiry into a tool of political obedience.

Trump's version of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is not about discovery. It is about discipline—disciplining minds, disciplines, and dissent. With every lofty phrase about “unleashing innovation,” he’s really narrowing the field of acceptable thought. This is not a love letter to scientific brilliance; it’s a warning shot to any scientist who dares challenge his worldview.

He rails against “ideological dogmas,” but make no mistake: this entire order is one. It paints equity, inclusion, and academic freedom as threats to innovation—as if the very act of recognizing diversity in science is somehow stifling progress. That’s not protecting the scientific method; it’s gaslighting the community that built it.

Trump doesn’t want science that explores uncomfortable truths. He wants science that obeys. Science that sells. Science that conforms to his vision of America: nostalgic, hierarchical, and scrubbed clean of the complexity that real innovation requires.

And let's not ignore the symbolism of revoking Executive Order 14007—an order that emphasized transparency, broad participation, and integrity in science. In its place, Trump installs a council co-chaired by a “Special Advisor for AI & Crypto,” signalling his real priorities: not ethics, not collaboration, not public good—but power, profit, and control.

Trump’s order dresses itself in the language of progress, but its subtext is unmistakable: if science won’t serve the state, it will be sidelined. If your research highlights climate change, racial disparities, or public health failures, prepare to be labelled "ideological." If you seek a more inclusive STEM pipeline, you're now a threat to “excellence.”

This isn’t a return to American greatness. It’s the McCarthyism of the microscope. It is surveillance disguised as strategy, and it reveals Trump’s deepest insecurity: that truth cannot be tweeted, branded, or bullied.

Science doesn’t thrive under fear. It thrives under freedom. But this executive order isn’t about asking better questions. It’s about silencing the ones that make the powerful uncomfortable. And for that, it deserves to be called what it is—not a vision for American innovation, but an insult to the very spirit of inquiry it pretends to honour.