By Rosa Rubicondior | 2 August 2022
Rosa Rubicondior Blog
One of the more enduring and insidious legacies of the disastrous single-term US president, Donald J. Trump, is that distrusting public Health Officials who tried to explain the science behind the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to mitigate it, and by extension, all scientists, to the extent of harassing them, attacking them, and even making death threats against them when they deliver unwelcome news, has now become acceptable to a significant proportion of American adults.
That proportion appears to be growing according to an investigation by scientists from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, the University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, USA, the Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, Ithaca, New York, USA. Their findings are published open access in the online Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Open Network.
Trump salutes Long Island protest where "Hang Fauci" sign was displayed https://t.co/62bbzg4kzG by @RobertMackey
— The Intercept (@theintercept) May 17, 2020
What stand out here is the extent to which Donald Trump’s anti-science policies, firstly with climate change denial, removing environmental protections and tearing up the Paris Accord for no better reason than that Barak Obama had signed America up to it. Then his panicky response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when he realised he was out of his depth with the science and at a loss to know what to do about it, but was psychologically incapable of accepting that the scientist advising him really did know more than he did and understood the seriousness of the situation better than him, so he opted to do what he had done with climate change – he minimised the threat and blamed others.
His supporters in the evangelical churches and the white supremacist far right, who together dominate the Republican Party, dutifully toed the party line and the right-wing disinformation media and the conspiracy theorists duly came up with reasons to rubbish the scientists as being part of some wackadoodle conspiracy involving satanic child abusers, the Democratic Party and China, and even went so far as to demand their arrest and execution. All in a desperate attempt to save the flagging Trump presidency as the death toll mounted.
Thirty-four percent of Americans think violent action against the government is sometimes justified, according to a new poll released days ahead of the one-year anniversary of the insurrection at the US Capitol. https://t.co/hP6QwCQdny
— CNN (@CNN) January 2, 2022
So, Trump’s legacy now is a dangerous combination of a large, vociferously anti-science section of between a quarter and a fifth the US adult population and a scientific community intimidated into keeping quiet at a time when scientific advice, informed decisions and radical action are needed to combat climate change and to prepare for the next inevitable pandemic. Both are going to need the support of the electorate and not the current situation where a militant Trumpanzee cult of scientifically illiterate extremists are prepared to use violence and intimidation to frustrate any actions and to rubbish the scientific advice, supported by a lunatic fringe of Talibangelical preachers and Talivangelists who would like nothing better than the destruction of American democracy.
Rosa Rubicondior (a pseudonym) is a retired data analyst, biologist, blogger, author and atheist.
Want to think for yourself and not have frauds tell you what to think? Would you rather be right than be certain?
Get the facts and decide for yourself with:
“Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without It”https://t.co/m6gnJdejrI pic.twitter.com/dbTqqqJswe
— Rosa Rubicondior (@RosaRubicon) May 20, 2020
34% of Americans say violence against government is sometimes justified
Why Is The GOP So Anti-Science? | The Mehdi Hasan Show
‘So much worse than we thought’: GOP pollster on potential political violence in America
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