Dr. Jessica Knurick has done a great job IMO breaking down how authoritarian governments co-opt science to their own ends and end up destroying it in the process. Here is one such article, https://open.substack.com/pub/drjessicaknurick/p/the-authori..., but she has lots of posts and short form videos explaining the topic.
Another example, aside from Lysenko, is Elena Ceausescu. Basically used her position of power as wife of the authoritarian figurehead to enforce her own version of scientific reality.
This quote in particular struck me as way out there.
“Maybe one way to say it from the administration's perspective,” Stassun says, “is that this group of presidential appointees was advising the Congress to not follow the president's wishes."
they're almost certainly going to replace all the board memebers with political loyalists. the board members served six year terms specifically so they'd span multiple administrations and stay independent.
firing them all at once lets you stack the entire board with people. it's not about making science better, it's about removing the people who'd say no.
That works... for the duration of this administration. Given the precedent, though, there's no reason for the next president not to fire all the new ones and replace them again.
The current administration does not appear to care at all about what the next administration will do, which should terrify us. It's like a kidnapper who doesn't seem concerned with you seeing their face.