Pluto is MAGA's favorite "planet" for a reason

Yesterday at a Senate hearing over NASA's 2027 budget, billionaire, outer-space sports betting trailblazer and current NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said that he is "very much in the camp of 'make Pluto a planet again.'"

The internet, predictably, took note.

"NASA Administrator thinks Pluto should be a planet" (The Independent)

NASA chief Jared Isaacman says he's fighting for Pluto: 'I am very much in the camp of 'make Pluto a planet again' (Space.com)

The head of NASA is now openly campaigning to make Pluto a planet again (Space Daily)

NASA Chief Jared Isaacman hints at campaigning to make Pluto a planet again (Scientific American)

Quit Whining. Pluto’s Not A Planet — An Astrophysicist Explains (Forbes)

MPAPA!

Let's be clear: the Pluto thing is nothing more than nostalgia-fueled science populism. It might seem silly. It is. We unfortunately live in times in which it is important to take silly things like this seriously.

Yes, there are "some experts" — real, serious scientists — who legitimately think demoting Pluto wasn't the right call. No, that does not mean that Isaacman is acting in good faith by bringing up the Pluto thing. As Naomi Klein outlined in her book Doppelganger, the "Mirror World" of populists and conspiracy theorists draws much of its power by promising to solve twisted doubles of real problems. The gold-gilded White House's executive order on "Gold Standard Science" already deployed this strategy to masterful effect by appropriating the rhetoric of the open science movement to attack science and scientists.

But Pluto — wow, what a move. Just fantastic. Whether or not Isaacman planned for the Pluto thing to get so much media attention, he did plan to bring it up at the hearing ("I would have brought it up myself, Senator"). And he sure seemed happy to have a chance to talk about Pluto. "Make Pluto a Planet Again," he said, the corners of his mouth twisting upward as he slowed down to enunciate each syllable. Who can say if it was a knowing grin? A smug smirk?

You may have missed it if you, like me, don't live in the Mirror World (though Sci Fri did notice), but this is not Isaacman's first flirt with making Pluto a planet again. A few weeks ago, Isaacman and Pluto were even in the news. Fox News, that is. A cute 10-year-old space enthusiast wrote an enthusiastic letter to NASA begging them to make Pluto a planet again, and an online acquaintance of her mom — a weather blogger and recurring guest on Fox's weather segment — posted the letter to X. It went viral, and Isaacman responded.

"It should be a planet. I mean, more than half of people online think it should be," said Mike of Mike's Weather Page. "I did a little AI summary of the post and it said 95% plus of the 10,000 comments over on X were in favor... it's something about it, it brought back memories."

Hm.

Oh. Also. Just a few days before that letter went up, Isaacman sat down with the tabloid Daily Mail for an interview that was nominally about Artemis II to say "I fully support President Trump making Pluto Great Again... I think we owe it to everyone from Kansas and all their contributions to science and aerospace to rightfully restore that discovery."

Who was it that brought up the Pluto thing at the Senate appropriations committee again? Ah yes, Senator Moran from Kansas.

What a coincidence.

It goes back even further. In May 2025, William Shatner — yes, the man who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek — posted on X calling the International Astronomical Union "just a bunch of corrupt nerds on a power trip" and suggesting that Trump re-instate Pluto's planethood by executive order.

Elon Musk, then still presiding over the DOGE rampage, concurred.

Interesting. But there's more.