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Comment by msgodel | Hacker News Reader

Whether it's real or just poor communication a lot of the country felt like the scientific institutions had been weaponized against them. Maybe the constituents of those institutions even believed either making themselves an enemy of the public or creating PR indicating they were was moral but the practical reality of public institutions is that they must have the trust of the public or they will come to an end.

Hopefully people remember this for next time.

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> Whether it's real or just poor communication

Nah, there was nothing "poor communication" about it. It was very well done bad faith communication from bad actors. It was intentional lies. This was not a fault of communication of these institutions. They can not match the lies machine from well founded and motivated political groups. And that is about it.

Don't forget the resentment the religious hold toward science over things like evolution and the big bang that are inconsistent with their superstitions. There's been a concerted effort by evangelical Christianity to undermine the place of science in our society, probably because when religion loses its explanatory power over the wondrous things we see in the world people turn toward the alternatives, like evidence-based explanations.

It must be nice to be in Trumpist lala land, where it's always someone else's fault.

Trust of our institutions, scientific and other, had been deliberately destroyed by anti-intellectual political hacks over the past few decades. Some from appealing to regressive religious fundamentalism, but much just shameless ignorant grandstanding of painting the complex world as unfair. And it's mostly those same hacks who are now supporting the wanton burning of our societal institutions while continuing to whitewash it as "conservatism".

Sorry, the fault here lays entirely with the fascists - most especially with the people supporting them who should have known better.

Really? Is that why Project Warp Speed was both an achievement for Trump and at the same time vaccines were produced too fast and hence unreliable? That is at the same institutions were a friend, when it fit the narrative and enemy, when it didn't fit the narrative. People who say - "Don't trust the government, they make terrible decisions" are now saying "Trust the government". What a turn around.

Hopefully people who have voted for this and defending this remember this as the beginning of the end of American exceptionalism. It's certainly not happening any time soon. Maybe decades later but these things will be remembered in the same way as Mccarthyism.

> beginning of the end of American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism has always been a weird delusion, I don't see that ending. USA not being a market leader in <whatever>, now that can end and it's starting to happen for sure.

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