MAGA & the Billionaires: Each Hate Science for Different Reasons

MAGA & the Billionaires: Each Hate Science for Different Reasons

“I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to deståroy all life.” 

The Bible. Genesis 9: 15

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 

 The Bible. Luke 18:25

“I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,’ declares the LORD.” 

 The Bible. Jeremiah 31:14

I remember hearing a deeply devote evangelical, in a television interview, answering the question, “What does ‘love thy neighbor’ mean?” The answer was to love her immediate neighbors in her immediate neighborhood. A very slightly better educated, avowed Roman Catholic, JD Vance, articulated his understanding of the Catholic concept of ordo amoris. Mr. Vance argued that the Trump administration is following “the Christian view” of our responsibilities based on his reading of Thomas Aquinas’s “order of love.” The vice president’s words: “We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.” Unfortunately for Mr. Vance, another “menu Christian,” the Pope rejected that view of Mr. Vance’s purported faith.

Still other evangelicals believe that the above biblical quotes meant that God would never again introduce a globally destroying event – hence negating the notion of “global climate change” – and that God was providing mankind with the ultimate bounty of endless resources. For those following these dictates with these particularly egregious interpretations, they were free to exploit, pollute and that the natural disasters we witness almost constantly could not possibly happen given all of God’s “pledges.”

As technology and science became increasingly complex, a large coterie of Americans preferred the assurances of their manipulative leaders that what “radical leftists” described as the result of manmade greenhouses gasses, the cause of “climate change,” were nothing more than normal seasonal weather patterns with 500-year events sprinkled as perfectly “normal, natural” occurrences. That virtually all climatologists disagreed with this prognosis was simply a sign that they were Godless men.

As Donald Trump gathered his cabinet and subcabinet appointees, there were almost zero qualified individuals, with experience and bona fide educational credentials, who were willing to substitute popular mythology, distorted biblical interpretations and conspiracy theories (often of mysterious origin with a viral aftermath) for scientific and medical facts. That the individuals with the greatest credibility were graduates of exceptional universities was turned against them as “out-of-touch elitists.” Attacks on those very institutions by the President was more than enough proof that their research and graduates were simply not to be trusted.

But why billionaires often poo-poo these experts is even more interesting. One the one hand, they do not want any responsibility for their abuse of the environment and the limitations that might be placed on their corporations, polluting private jets, destruction of the environment to build their mansions… but that their taxes were being used to fund such restrictions. However, there is another, particularly ugly rational: only certain people in society are entitled to the best. The rest don’t even deserve medical attention.

As Kirk Swearingen, writing for the July 19th Salon, explains: “A measles outbreak sparked by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists now extends beyond Texas to 34 states. Republicans are doing all they can to shut down funding for medical research.

“Why does MAGA hate science? Shall we count the ways?... Because scientific advances don’t discriminate between the ‘worthy’ and those considered unworthy, and because some in the billionaire class think they deserve to live much longer than you do… As they prep their fancy-shmancy bunkers or delude themselves that they can one day head off to Mars to escape their wanton destruction of the Earth, the billionaire bros know they can avail themselves and their children of lifesaving vaccinations and other health care services [even abortion!] that they are putting out of reach for many of us.

“But it’s not just the small — and small-minded, and small-hearted — wealthy libertarian or right-wing elite. Working people who choose to wear MAGA red caps hate science for their own reasons: It tells them things about disease and environmental destruction and, say, women’s reproductive health that they cannot bear to face. 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”.

But Trump’s ignorant appointees, particularly HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr disowned by own family, have taken to dispute science with no special credentials to do so. As Cassidy Morrison writes, for the July 17th Daily Mail, RFK, Jr. continues to challenge vaccinations (as the measles breakout spreads fast), and still believes that somehow autism is generated by dangerous vaccinations: “A major 20-year study of over one million children found no association between aluminum in vaccines and conditions like autism and ADHD.

“Findings in the sweeping investigation provide a rebuttal to oft-debunked claims about the use of aluminum salts in vaccines, which bolster the body’s immune response, and purported ties to asthma, autoimmune diseases, and autism… Danish researchers looked at 50 potential health effects in children taking a vaccine containing aluminum salts, including 36 immune system disorders like diabetes and celiac disease, nine allergy-related conditions, such as asthma and eczema, and five neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and ADHD… They found no increased risk of autism, ADHD, asthma, or autoimmune disorders from the small amounts of aluminum in vaccines.

“In fact, vaccinated children showed slightly lower rates of neurodevelopmental conditions – a seven percent lower autism risk and a 10 percent lower ADHD risk – with no connection to allergic or immune problems… Aluminum adjuvants are safely used in several common childhood vaccines, including those protecting against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP/Tdap), hepatitis A and B, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and pneumococcal disease…

“During a June 2024 appearance on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, Kennedy falsely labeled aluminum as ‘extremely neurotoxic,’ mirroring the debunked rhetoric of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, which ties aluminum adjuvants to autism, contradicting decades of rigorous studies confirming vaccine safety.” Remember, rich Americans can always get vaccinations, even if they have to take their private jets to a nation that does not have any relevant restrictions. That they can pay “whatever it takes” to get medical care that should not be provided to the vast “unworthy” horde of less fortunate Americans.

Medical research funding and support for Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP are paying to sustain that unworthy horde. “The long-term negative effects of Trump’s attack on science, which are also part of the full-spectrum MAGA assault on education and the nonpartisan civil service, will likely be even worse. Students will be increasingly reluctant to pursue careers in science. Only a months ago, STEM courses in high school and college were viewed as critical to the future of American ingenuity and enterprise, a big part of what actually made America great…

“Many MAGA supporters don’t want to share ‘their’ America with brown people who may or may not be citizens; too many of them welcome the persecution and deportation of longtime U.S. residents who put in long hours at child care centers, hotels and restaurants, construction and landscaping companies, hospitals and nursing homes, and in agricultural fields, doing the thankless and often grueling work of picking and delivering the crops that feed the nation.” Swearingen. Makes you go all warm and fuzzy inside, right?

I’m Peter Dekom, and this profoundly “us vs them” notion of entitlement at the expense of others flies in the faith of our nation’s most basic tenets… and most of the New Testament.