For only the second time, a top science journal endorses for president
Scientific American endorsed Kamala Harris, arguing that Trump’s attack on scientific fact is singularly dangerous.
September 19, 2024 at 7:45 a.m. EDT
Democrats rightly point out that democracy is on the ballot in an election in which Republican nominee Donald Trump threatens to be a “dictator” for a day and claims he has the power to suspend the Constitution. This week, with a rare endorsement, for his rival Vice President Kamala Harris, the prestigious magazine Scientific American argued persuasively that reality and science are on the ballot, too.
“The U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience,” the endorsement begins. “In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies.” This is the magazine’s second endorsement in its 179-year history, following its endorsement of Joe Biden in 2020, which warned of the dangers of a Trump reelection.
The magazine reminds us that Harris recognizes the danger of climate change and supports “technology and clean energy” as well as “education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts.” Meanwhile, the editors say, Trump “ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws.” Moreover, “He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living.”
The endorsement article then methodically compares the candidates’ records on health care, abortion, guns (“evidence is clear that easy access to guns in the U.S. has increased the risk of suicides, murder and firearm accidents”), environment and technology. The conclusion: “Only one is a vote for reality and integrity. We urge you to vote for Kamala Harris.”
Put simply, regardless of your views on taxes or Ukraine or the deficit, a candidate who rejects established science and seeks to corrupt truth (either through unqualified flunkies in government or propaganda) disqualifies himself from the presidency. These candidates do not merely present competing opinion and policy options. They pose a choice between the Dark Ages and the Age of Enlightenment.
We should not be surprised that the Republican Party has drifted into anti-intellectualism, contempt for higher learning and racist hogwash. Thirteen years ago I warned: “It’s one thing to heap scorn on liberal elites who parrot unsupportable leftist dogma or who show contempt for ordinary Americans’ values; it’s quite another to celebrate ignorance.” Alas, it went downhill from there, not coincidentally tracking Republicans’ descent into authoritarianism.
“Authoritarians are always threatened by fact-based knowledge,” historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained during a 2021 interview. “The facts are their enemy. Propaganda means that you have to create an alternate reality that your believers will follow, and research based on science and scientific method becomes the enemy.”
And sure enough, during the Trump presidency, the war on science was part and parcel of the effort to empower him and his allies (including Big Oil). A 2022 article, “Politics v. science: How President Trump’s war on science impacted public health and environmental regulation,” documented how “the Trump presidency fundamentally changed how federal government agencies perform, use, and communicate scientific research.” This onslaught included 346 “anti-science actions” ranging from government censorship to personnel changes to research hindrance to bias and misrepresentation. The article explained:
The Trump administration’s attacks on climate science dovetailed neatly with one of the former president’s key goals: to rollback climate regulations that scientific research shows would advance public health and environmental quality. Faced with this contradiction, the Trump administration sought to restrict access to scientific information or cast doubt on its veracity, thereby limiting public understanding of the issues and reducing possible opposition to the administration’s plans. Those actions created a culture of fear among federal scientists, leading some to voluntarily suppress or distort information at odds with former president Trump’s agenda. Many of the scientists who did speak out were removed from their positions, while others were prevented from conducting further research on topics deemed “controversial,” such as climate change.
The threat in a second Trump term is far more profound and explicit. He was already caught promising he would repeal climate regulation in exchange for a $1 billion campaign donation.
Moreover, the GOP threat to replace 50,000 neutral experts with cranks, cronies, propagandists and ignoramuses should set off alarm bells. Whether it is the path of a hurricane, the safety of medication, the danger from climate change or the toxicity of chemicals, ordinary people’s lives depend on the accuracy and integrity of governmental data. When the latter become instruments of authoritarian control, people’s health and well-being are endangered.
Trump would not be the first demagogue to threaten scientific inquiry. “Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it,” wrote Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” Her admonition should remind us that a cult of anti-science crackpottery is not only a danger in and of itself; it is a blinking red light that its adherents are willing to manipulate facts and lie to manipulate the masses, bending them to their will and forcing them to abandon reason.
Scientific American therefore does not exaggerate when it describes the 2024 election as a choice between “rationality and respect for all” and “dark fantasies and demagoguery.” The last century was littered with the victims of those who fell prey to the latter.
Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump” and is host of the podcast Jen Rubin's "Green Room."
