Federal Grantmaking Gets a Christofascist Glow-Up

Read my zero star review of the new Executive Order

Yesterday’s Executive Order (EO), Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking, is simultaneously some of the most vicious, depraved, and illegal bullshit to be issued in the Trump administration’s War on Science, but also a very stupid self-own for America. If enacted, it will devastate science, health, and the economy. It is blatant theft of Congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds and an attempt to further undermine democracy at the expense of America’s global standing and the well-being of its people. The consequences will be disastrous for America and the world.

To make a long and miserable EO short, it proclaims that all scientific review and grant award decisions will now be overseen by political appointees, who will screen for forbidden “anti-American ideologies” and “far-left initiatives” like diversity, equity, and inclusion. What’s more, the grant process is unfair and cumbersome, so they are planning to improve it by waiting to fund new grants until a full complement of apparatchiks are installed to review them for ideological compliance. Program officers will now be required to consult with these kommisars to determine if they contain any hint of disloyalty to the regime. Because nothing screams American patriotism like censoring scientific proposals that might undermine Trump’s autocratic rule.

If I let Gold Standard Science screw me tonight, will it respect me in the morning?

As usual, “Gold Standard Science” is invoked repeatedly. For something that is a capital S Standard, I still don’t actually know what Gold Standard Science is, so it is very difficult to respect, achieve, or implement it. The EO only says what Gold Standard Science is not: anything that remotely promotes or benefits people who are not the kleptocrats running things. Given that the EO expressly demands that there should be more racial and gender-based discrimination in the grantmaking process, I can only conclude that Gold Standard Science means science in the service of white Christian supremacy and misogyny.

This is justified by the usual laundry list of offenses that federally-funded science has committed against the God-Emperor of America. The government shouldn’t fund grants containing forbidden language about anyone who isn’t a white conservative Christian man (yes, it should). The scientific “reproducibility crisis” is the same thing as data falsification (it isn’t and the “crisis” is mostly made up). Fraud and misconduct are rampant (they aren’t). COVID was a lab leak that started in Wuhan funded in part with NIH grant money (the evidence suggests otherwise). Peer review of grant applications is biased and not rigorous (it’s very competitive and fairness and objectivity are upheld by dedicated NIH staff). Grants are awarded preferentially to a chosen few, who are also inappropriately spending federal funds to hire lawyers and technical experts to help them get grants (I have never heard of anyone retaining legal counsel to submit a grant application). Grant recipients are corrupt, conflicted, and are getting rich doing nothing except spending their grant money advancing the woke agenda (lol).

The EO also accuses NSF of issuing millions in awards to develop “AI-powered social media censorship tools.” I’d like to file a complaint with NSF because they obviously didn’t make these strong enough to silence the lies of the MAGA movement. Trump was elected thanks to widespread disinformation on social media, which continues to this day and has gotten worse. Most of the justifications offered for this radical change in policy are based on a bad faith understanding of science, exaggerations, or outright falsehoods.

There’s plenty of blame for favorite conservative boogeymen like drag shows, trans people, and critical race theory. There’s even an implicit shout out to the late, disgraced anti-Communist witch hunter Senator Joseph McCarthy, because the EO calls out an NSF grant that mentioned Marxism. At the last meeting of my NSF programmatic komsomol, my academic comrades and I were busy praising Lenin, lighting cigars with literal taxpayer dollars, and planning to use our grants to advance far-left causes like writing progress reports and studying emerging zoonotic viruses in bats. Looks like the party is over and we’re off to the re-education camps!

This directive is signed by His Magnificence Donald J. Trump, but it is unbelievable that Trump has ever written “effectuates” of his own volition. The EO is really the work of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought. Vought is supposedly a devout Christian, but it seems he’s fallen a bit behind on his gospel readings because I certainly don’t recall the part where Jesus said to ransack your national treasury to benefit the rich at the expense of the sick and the poor. But that’s what this EO is primed to do.

Mild-mannered accountant and youth pastor by day, BTK killer by night

Vought’s primary role in government is to enact Project 2025, a plan to turn America into a fascist theocratic dictatorship by disassembling the government one piece at a time and concentrating power and money within the Executive Branch. He’s been quite successful thus far. And he really hates federal grants. Last week right before the Senate Appropriations Committee was set to vote on the draft budget (which eventually passed), Vought attempted to stop funding new NIH grants for the remainder of the fiscal year by autonomous proclamation. If that happens, the funds will be returned to the Treasury. If the funds are returned to the Treasury, then the Trump administration can finalize their illegal impoundment of billions in Congressionally appropriated funds that were intended for research.

For example, the provision that “all else being equal, preference for discretionary awards should be given to institutions with lower indirect cost rates.” Indirect costs are overhead charges paid by the government to a grant awardee’s institution in addition to the costs paid for the research. They keep the lights on and support staff paid, enabling the research to occur and the grant funds to be managed responsibly. Indirect cost rates are negotiated by institutions with the federal government and average around 60%. Trump already attempted to lower the indirect cost rate to 15%, which would have caused thousands to lose their jobs and entire research institutions and teaching hospitals to close, but that was repudiated by both the courts and Congress. Still, Vought hates indirect costs as much as he hates federal grants awarded based on scientific merit. So this little gem was included both to dangle a carrot in front of institutions in red states, where indirects are usually lower, and wield a stick to whack at any institution that runs afoul of the regime.

The EO is riddled with disclaimers and language that gives Vought and the OMB the power to apply this selectively based on his unilateral judgment of whether grants, grant applicants, and grant recipients are anti-American. I don’t trust his judgment. His army of political appointees installed at granting agencies will ensure that the flow of funds to legitimate research is abolished. The work that produced 99% of all FDA-approved drugs, delivered COVID vaccines in less than a year, and returns $2.50 to the US economy for every dollar invested will all be wiped out so that a small cadre can impose their white nationalist beliefs on our nation while looting the treasury.

There is just one problem for the regime: none of this is legal. This EO is a vast overreach of Executive Branch power. The President does not actually have the authority to tell NIH or NSF how to award grants. The power to appropriate funds for a specific purpose is by law the purview of Congress. This is a critical part of the American system of checks and balances that until now enabled the US to grow into the thriving democracy that it was until Trump took the oath of office. The Trump regime does not have the legal right to do this, but they are going to try anyway. Lawsuits will inevitably be filed, but by the time this gets sorted out in the court system, all American-funded research will be demolished, both in the US and around the world. Our economy will slow to a crawl. Our health will suffer. And once it shuts down, American science can’t just start back up again at some point in the completely uncertain post-fascist future. That future won’t exist. The damage will not be undoable unless Congress does something right now.

Vought and his cronies are shitting bureaucratic nukes and wiping their asses with the Constitution. This Executive Order is egregiously unlawful. It is a flagrant attempt to kill scientific research and education and exact economic ruin in service of corruption and the erosion of democratic norms. Congress cannot acquiesce to this. They must assert their power and they must do it now.