WHY DOES MAGA HATE SCIENCE?

This is not entirely new, but more and more, it seems that the USA is drifting into an attitude of anti-science.  Some history of scientific trends from Google AI.

• Ancient Greece laid the groundwork for modern science.
• More than two millennia later came the Scientific Revolution, from Galileo on.
• The Romanticism movement from the late 1700s was concerned about separating science from humanity.

• 
  In the 1800s came the Industrial Revolution, when Luddites protested automation and technology.
• In the 1900s, some totalitarian states, like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, suppressed science and technology to serve political needs?  Sound familiar today?
• Today, anti-science attitudes are fueled by political, religious and corporate interest, on topics such as global warming, vaccine efficiency and evolution.

Thus, ...Why Does MAGA Hate Science?

Against all the evidence of horrific, devastating weather around us, climate change remains “a hoax.” An anti-vaxxer–caused outbreak of measles now extends beyond Texas to 34 states. Republicans are doing all they can to shut down funding for medical research.

• For those new to MAGA, stands for Make American Great Again, asserting that the U.S. has declined, and Donald Trump will restore the country back to prominence.

• 
  Let's start with billionaires.
• They think they deserve to live much longer than you do.
• Science, which made them rich, is nevertheless inconvenient.
• Many delude themselves about colonizing Mars and other fanciful adventures to escape their sometimes deleterious effect on Humanity and Planet Earth.

• 
  But many more working people who choose to wear MAGA red caps also hate science.
• Science brings lots of bad news, like pandemics, environmental destruction and women's reproductive health.
• Science contradicts their religious beliefs.  

Scientific findings often do not jibe with their religious beliefs. If you believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and were never taught how to distinguish between faith and knowledge, you’re naturally going to have a testy relationship with science.

Former Vice President Al Gore famously called global warming an “inconvenient truth,” but Donald Trump persists in calling it “a hoax,” while defunding climate research, green technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The COVID-19 pandemic gave MAGA followers yet another reason to hate science, which they dutifully learned to distrust even more while watching “their favorite president” politicize every aspect of the response.

• By its openness to new ideas, inquiry exemplifies the secular worldview of liberals.

Scientific advancements make us all more aware that we are all the same and should enjoy the same basic rights, to education, to health care, to civil liberties like voting, to freedom of and from religion, to reading whatever books or opinions we choose to read — the very things that the current occupant of the White House and his MAGA followers are working to take away from us.

• There is some irony here (and just repeating this makes me sound elitist).

Apparently, millions would rather suffer mightily — or even die, as many of the willfully unvaccinated did in the pandemic — than admit they were ever wrong. It’s a sad aspect of human nature to feel we have such sunk costs in our often-wrongheaded opinions that we are willing to perish for them.

• 
  In one of his first acts as a second-term president, Donald Trump signed an order to close the Department of Education.  And why also is he emasculating our top universities?  And a wide range of other institutions from Democratic states?  Well, this one is pure politics, as revenge for not voting for him.

Even worse will be the long-term effect, as with so many of MAGA’s anti-education initiatives or their attacks on nonpartisan civil service work. Students will shy away from careers in science. Just months ago, STEM courses for young students were viewed as being critical for the future of American ingenuity and enterprise, a big part of what has actually made America great. Now, it’s impossible to gauge just how far-ranging and long-lasting the negative effects of the Hey-Let’s-Bring-Back-Measles President’s attacks on science will be.

• We can go on and on about foreign aid, equal rights in the U.S. and so  on, but all this hate is ruining the USA.

From a May 2025 article in YouGov.com:

• 60% of Republicans have in the past thought of themselves as MAGA types.  There are signs that this number has dropped.

• 
  Are there a lot MAGAs out there?  In the latest Economic/YouGov poll, the share of MAGA supporters has never risen above 20%. 
• More specifically, 17% of U.S. adult citizens are today MAGA.
• This is not a dominating percentage, for ethnically in the U.S.
• 19.25% are Black.
• 12.5% are Hispanic.

• 
  97% of MAGA Republicans approve of Trump's programs, and 72% of non-MAGA Republicans.

About the current government shutdown:

A majority of Republican voters, including Donald Trump loyalists, want enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to be renewed, a key sticking point in the government shutdown, according to a new poll.

In total, 59 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of self-identified MAGA voters want to keep the Obamacare subsidies set, which are to expire at the end of the year unless Congress strikes a deal, the nationwide survey found.

Overall, 78 percent of U.S. adults say Congress should extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which were first implemented under former President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan and later in his Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The study, by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), questioned 1,334 adults.

As much as MAGA hates science, this is not true with the American public. From a poll conducted this year about support for science.  

• 74% of voters want our federal government to use taxpayer funds to invest in scientific research, with strong bipartisan support.
• 85% of Americans believe it is important for the U.S. to be the global leader in scientific research and technology.
• 75% worry about the economic impacts of the current White House policy to reduce or free funding for medical research.

In the 1900s, some totalitarian states, like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, suppressed science and technology to serve political needs?  Sound familiar today?  Is this what you would want our future to be?

These Major League Baseball Division Championship games have been hard to find.  So I asked Google AI about today:

American League Division Series (ALDS)

• Seattle Mariners at Detroit Tigers
  • Game 4: The Mariners lead the series 2-1.
  • Time: 3:08 p.m. ET on FS1 and Fubo.
• Toronto Blue Jays at New York Yankees
  • Game 4: The Blue Jays lead the series 2-1.
  • Time: 7:08 p.m. ET  on  FS1 and Fubo.

National League Division Series (NLDS)

• Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs
  • Game 3: The Brewers lead the series 2-0.
  • Time: 5:08 p.m. ET on TBS, truTV and HBO Max.
• Philadelphia Phillies at Los Angeles Dodgers
  • Game 3: The Dodgers lead the series 2-0.
  • Time: 9:08 p.m. ET on TBS, truTV and HBO Max. 

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