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How Anti-Socialism Fuels Anti-Science Extremism in America
Republicans and the political right generally have routinely characterized President Joe Biden’s social and economic agendas as “socialist,” hoping a residual Cold War anti-communist hysteria will resonate with and terrify American voters, turning them reflexively and unthinkingly against policies and practices that would actually serve their interests and well-being.
This tactic succeeded significantly in Florida’s Dade County in the 2020 presidential election where the electorate played a large role in handing that state’s electoral votes to Donald Trump.
At the same time, Republicans and the political right have also demonized science, a phenomenon we see quite clearly in the dangerous prevalence of climate change denial and in the resistance to COVID-19 vaccines, as well as the overall downplaying of the seriousness, if not outright denial, of the pandemic.
While, in my voracious consumption of American political discourse, I have seen really no analysis at all that links anti-socialist and anti-science political rhetoric as mutually reinforcing, as working cooperatively, it is more than a little compelling, as I’ll analyze below, to understand the damaging way anti-socialism validates, even fuels, the anti-science worldview that has been responsible for so much death and division in the…
