When Power Becomes a Liability: How Authoritarian Politics Can Turn the Public Against Nuclear Energy
A cautionary tale from the Philippines
Apologies for the long absence of posts; I’ve been a bit at a loss about everything happening in the U.S. Now, I’m leaning into some of that tension as it relates to the future of nuclear in the U.S.
When Donald Trump was elected to his second term last November, I had a lot of people ask what I thought this would mean for nuclear. In particular, the Biden Administration had been surprisingly supportive of new and advanced nuclear, and Congress had passed important legislation - the Inflation Reduction Act and the ADVANCE Act - that were incentivizing new projects. On other issues, of course, I had a lot of concerns about Trump, but on nuclear energy I wasn’t worried.
That’s because the industry had a lot of momentum in the private sector and strong bipartisan support in Congress. The ADVANCE Act passed by a vote of 393–13 in the House and 88–2 in the Senate. In 2024. Isn’t that wild!
But in the past year, I’ve been surprised at how much the administration has done to promote nuclear energy, but also dismayed to see the technology get pulled into the broader Trump morass of chaos and corruption, threatening to erode the broad and bipartisan support of the past decade.
History shows that when major infrastructure projects become tightly associated with authoritarian leaders, public trust in the technology itself can collapse—sometimes for generations. As a prime example, we can look at what happened in the Philippines with the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
The research underlying the following comes from a report I co-authored with Kenton de Kirby when we were both at the Breakthrough Institute: “A Socially Sustainable Future for Nuclear Energy in Emerging Markets.” Check it out for more case studies of nuclear opposition in lower-income countries.
The Marcos Case: Nuclear Power as a Symbol of Authoritarianism
In the Philippines, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant stands as a cautionary tale. Conceived and pushed forward under Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s authoritarian regime in the 1970s, the plant was meant to symbolize national modernity and technological progress. Instead, it became emblematic of cronyism, corruption, and democratic exclusion.
The Marcos government centralized decision-making, suppressed dissent, and excluded the public from meaningful debate about cost, safety, and necessity. Allegations of corruption surrounded the project, just as public trust in state institutions was already on the decline. When the dictatorship fell in 1986, nuclear power didn’t just lose its central champion—it inherited the regime’s moral and political baggage. The Bataan plant was mothballed just two months later (Chornobyl was the final straw). In addition, the entire concept of nuclear energy became politically toxic in the Philippines for decades (some might say “radioactive”?)
The post-Marcos government even filed a civil lawsuit against Westinghouse, claiming the company had bribed the Marcos administration with $26 million to get the contract for the plant. In 1993, a jury cleared Westinghouse of any involvement in such a scheme. But the association of nuclear with a corrupt regime remains.
Notably, the democratic transition did not rehabilitate nuclear power’s reputation. Instead, democracy amplified public rejection. Nuclear was no longer seen as a neutral energy option; it was seen as a symbol of past authoritarian overreach.
Why Authoritarian Endorsement Can Backfire
This pattern is not unique to the Philippines. When a technology becomes strongly identified with authoritarian leadership, several dynamics tend to follow:
Loss of Procedural Legitimacy
People may accept difficult or risky technologies if they believe decisions were made transparently, inclusively, and fairly. Authoritarian governance strips away that legitimacy. Even good outcomes are viewed with suspicion if people feel coerced or excluded.Symbolic Contamination
Technologies become symbols. Under authoritarian regimes, they often come to represent arrogance, elite control, and disregard for ordinary people’s concerns. After political change, rejecting the technology becomes a way of rejecting the regime’s legacy.Delayed Democratic Reckoning
Authoritarian systems can suppress opposition temporarily, but they also defer it. When political space opens, public backlash can be sharper and more fervent—turning skepticism into outright rejection of a whole class of technology.Trust Deficit That Persists Across Generations
Once a technology is framed as “the dictator’s project,” subsequent advocates must overcome not just technical objections, but historical memory and moral resistance.
For nuclear power—which already faces challenges around cost, complexity, and risk perception—this dynamic is especially dangerous.
A similar case unfolded in Taiwan, where the nuclear program expanded rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang (KMT). Nuclear plants were associated with a top-down technocratic development model in which local opposition had little influence.
As Taiwan democratized in the late 1980s and 1990s, anti-nuclear activism became tied to broader democratic and environmental movements. Opposition to nuclear power was partly opposition to the old authoritarian political system. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) adopted anti-nuclear policies as part of its political identity.
When President Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016, her government formally committed to a nuclear phaseout by 2025. The first of its six operating reactors closed in 2018, and the last shuttered in 2025, as promised.
And that’s a shame because Taiwan’s use of fossil fuels for electricity production has grown significantly since 2019. Gas consumption in the power sector jumped 34% from 2019-2025 despite a government target to increase renewables production. Now there is an effort to restart some of Taiwan’s shuttered nuclear plants in a move to stabilize electricity prices after successive gas crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and now Iran.
Lessons for Today: Stay Skeptical of the Strongman’s Support
After Trump announced four Executive Orders in support on nuclear energy in May 2025, the industry was understandably excited about the potential to accelerate and expand deployment of new nuclear.
But history suggests this support could be counter-productive in the long-term, reigniting an anti-nuclear movement that has waned in recent decades, particularly as concern for climate change has been a catalyst for newfound support of nuclear technologies.
For example, just a few short weeks after the four Executive Orders, Trump fired NRC Commissioner - and former Chair - Chris Hanson without cause, stoking concerns over the continued independence of the agency tasked with overseeing nuclear safety in the U.S. Soon after, as reported by ProPublica, a DOGE staffer working to overhaul nuclear regulations made jokes about babies being exposed to radiation and confidently said, “Assume the NRC is going to do whatever we tell the NRC to do.”
Bloomberg’s Businessweek did an investigative deep dive into the Koch-funded attacks on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, part of a broader deregulatory campaign of the Abundance Institute.
In a December 2025 financial deal that feels like a MAGA Mad Lib, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) - parent company of Truth Social - announced a merger with the nuclear fusion firm TAE. This raised important questions about whether the Trump Administration will be unbiased in government support for fusion technologies going forward.
This NPR story is just one example of the media stoking concern over potential backsliding on nuclear safety under the Trump Administration: “Trump’s rush to build nuclear reactors across the U.S. raises safety worries”.
You may shrug this off as the usual liberal bias against nuclear in the media, but just a few years ago, NPR was writing positive stories about the future of nuclear. And nuclear energy had strong bipartisan support in Congress. Now we see ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Frank Pallone (D-NJ), issue a warning about oversight at NRC. Earlier in January, Pallone summarized his concerns at an Energy & Commerce hearing:
I support safe nuclear energy. It’s clean, runs around the clock, and provides much-needed energy security. Democrats and Republicans on this Committee worked together last Congress to enact important nuclear energy laws, including the ADVANCE Act, a ban on importing Russian uranium, and investment in domestic nuclear fuel cycle buildout.
…Based on the Trump Administration’s actions over the last year, I am deeply concerned that it is putting American lives at risk. Let’s recap what has happened this past year. President Trump, illegally fired, without cause, the former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) – for the first time in its 50-year history. A Republican NRC commissioner resigned out of disgust for what the commission had become. Two current NRC commissioners have warned that they could be fired at any time, for any reason, if they refused to approve a nuclear reactor due to safety concerns. …
The Trump Administration issued an executive order demanding that all rulemakings from the NRC pass through the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for approval, putting Trump’s hand-picked lackies over independent commissioners confirmed by the United States Senate. … That is not how an independent agency should work.
To be clear, I am not personally worried about nuclear safety in practice. Nuclear power is very safe! What does concern me is how the public views this deregulatory effort, particularly how this leads to an erosion of public trust and social license for new nuclear projects.
Something that could have even longer lasting effects on the industry is accusations of corruption and cronyism. Below is Representative Mike Levin sounding the alarm over a brand new nuclear start-up being considered for part of the deal for Japan to invest $550B in the U.S., possibly because their CEO’s father donated $2 million to the Trump campaign?
There have been a lot of unresolved questions around this agreement, without much transparency around the structure of the investment. E.g. Investment stalled over disagreements about liability. And here is the Washington Post questioning if any of these projects will actually move forward.
Fermi America, a politically connected startup founded by former energy secretary Rick Perry, hyped plans for a massive nuclear-powered AI data center and reached a $13 billion valuation despite having no revenue. The project - which was named after Donald Trump - quickly unraveled as delays mounted, leadership was ousted, and key promises went unmet. Insiders sold shares before the collapse, sparking lawsuits and raising concerns about hype, political influence, and potential corporate misconduct.
Palantir, co-founded by long-time Trump supporter Peter Thiel, has partnered with The Nuclear Company to deploy its AI-powered software platform to optimize nuclear project construction and operations, aiming to dramatically reduce costs and timelines. Where Palantir has come under scrutiny is the use of its software to support mass deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), potentially violating civil liberties. Over twenty Democratic attorneys general have sued the Trump Administration over the Medicaid officials sharing confidential data with ICE and Palantir, including data on U.S. citizens.
These cases of potential grift get a lot of media attention, as they should, but it unfortunately distracts from the many, very real nuclear companies that have been hard at work commercializing their advanced nuclear technologies, long before the current Administration (and many were started before the first Trump Administration). It’s great that the federal government is investing resources into new nuclear technologies (if they actually are!), but there needs to be more transparency into which companies get selected for federal funding. The decision should be based on technical merits and market feasibility, not political connections.
Fission Federalism
On the other hand, there is plenty of room for optimism, because so much of the progress with new nuclear is happening at the state level…and yes, even in states led by Democrats. Unlike our cautionary tale from the Philippines, in the U.S. there is a deep bench of diverse leaders promoting nuclear energy projects.
In June 2025, Democratic Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, directed the publicly-owned New York Power Authority (NYPA) to build at least 1 GW of new nuclear in upstate New York. In 2024, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced that Michigan would provide up to $300 million in state support for the Palisades restart. Governor Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania has supported the restart of Three-Mile Island and announced a technology-neutral push to expand power generation in the state.
In 2022, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom reversed a plan to close the state’s last operating nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, and keep it running for at least five more years. Now there is an effort in the state legislature to overturn the ban on building new nuclear. Illinois’ Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker has signed two bills to overturn bans on new nuclear: just for SMRs in 2023 and also large reactors in 2025.
But…
Nuclear Needs Democracy, Not Just Democrats
I’m glad all of the above is happening, but it’s going to take more than a few charismatic democratic governors to ensure durable support for new nuclear in the long-run. If the technology is to succeed in liberal democracies, it must be associated with: transparency, accountability, and public participation.
Pro-nuclear advocates should be wary of celebrating strong support from any polarizing or authoritarian-leaning leaders. The real victory for nuclear power is not a forceful champion—it is broad, cross-partisan legitimacy rooted in democratic governance. Bipartisan support in both state and federal legislatures remains a key indicator to watch.