'Our path out': Scientist reveals key solution to stopping Trump's 'authoritarian regime'

16 October

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media on board Air Force One on the way to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 12, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

Rachel Cleetus — the policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists — recently wrote in the organization's blog "The Equation" that the "extreme harms" caused by President Donald Trump and his administration "puts us all in danger," and argued it's time to "fight back."

Scientists, she says, have had the dubious privilege of being steeped in the news, "following every twist and turn of this administration’s destructive actions."

Cleetus offered what she described as a "daunting list" of those actions, from attacks on public health and "decimating climate and clean energy progress," to "rollbacks of pollution standards" and tariffs that harm farmers and taxpayers.

Trump's "flood the zone" strategy to overwhelm and exhaust, Cleetus said, "It’s deliberately disorienting and designed to make one feel hopeless and helpless. And that’s why joining together in large numbers to speak up for democratic institutions and rights is an essential part of our path out of this dark time."

"My day job, my passion, is fighting for action to address the climate crisis," she wrote.

"I’m also focused on how we can push forward policies that instead place people’s interests at the forefront, especially the people who live in communities polluted by fossil fuels, the people who live in places around the country and the world on the frontlines of climate disasters, and the people eager for affordable clean energy and all the benefits that it brings."

Cleetus said that the rise of Trump's "authoritarian regime" has her losing sleep. "I thought I had enough to worry about already—certainly enough to keep me up at night, alarmed about where the world seems headed ... But what we face now as a nation is a greater, more urgent call to action," she said.

In addition to the climate crisis she studies, Cleetus wrote that what Trump is doing is just as, if not more, dangerous.

"The level of cruelty, the scale of wanton destruction, the blatant violation of the Constitution and rule of law, the violence and grasp for power and money—it’s all well beyond the pale. It puts us all in danger," she said.

Her solution isn't scientific, she said, but, rather, to stand strong, reject and resist Trump's administration.

"We all have a role to play in what comes next. None of it is preordained ... We need all our democratic institutions to stand strong— Congress, the courts, the independent press ... We need big, powerful US companies to do the same," she said.

"Educational institutions must stand up to attempts to restrict their freedom and independence. Scientists must speak up for facts. Media outlets must refuse efforts to stifle independent journalism. This is what collective resistance to authoritarianism and the rise of tyranny looks like," Cletus said.

She encourages people to join a "No Kings" protest on Saturday, something her own organization will be doing this weekend.

"UCS will be there too, putting our shoulder to efforts to save science and democracy, neither of which can thrive without the other. Together, let’s reclaim the people’s rightful power in our democracy."

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