The opening months of the Trump administration represent a historic disruption to America’s scientific agencies. Staff have been fired or reassigned in the name of efficiency, resulting in chaos. Grants have been canceled mid-project for featuring the wrong words. “Pauses” and “reviews” are designed to block spending, in the hope that Congress will make the current impoundment of funds a baseline for permanent disinvestment. While the scientific community waits to see what the new normal will be, the Trump administration has a plan to institutionalize a much more politicized structure of control over government broadly, including both public scientific investments and the use of scientific knowledge in policy actions.