This isn't a uniquely Republican / Democrat United States problem. It's a problem in the UK and and it's a problem in Australia and so likely in most Western Democracies.

Simplistic ideas presented with easy-to-remember slogans defeat any complexity because of how humans work. Very few voters have any understanding of the various issues facing modern society, so politicians can say whatever they want without really being held to account in any kind of realistic fashion.

As a meta-example, it would be easy for me to get on your Republican-bashing bandwagon, but the issues at stake are infinitely more complex than that. The Republican / Democrat divide is a perfect example of humans inability to process nuance outside their areas of deep understanding, which are generally very narrow if they exist at all.

We've got easily persuaded societies under political systems that reward the kinds of people least deserving of positions of power.

If anti-science wins votes, then anti-science it is!

I hope there is a level of funding for science and education at which you'd say there's too much.

Sure, you can't throw an unlimited amount of funding at anything and have its productivity scale accordingly.

The difference here is that we're at the point of straight up denying that there's a problem and removing all funding from important programs.

They don't have a monopoly on that. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

They don't have a monopoly on it, but the current batch of Republicans are responsible for somewhere north of 80% of it. That's lopsided enough to make it count as a Republican thing, not a Democrat thing.

Ten years ago, it would have been different, but the Republican party has taken a pretty big turn away from science then. You can see this comparing the official party platform from then to now.

If the Republicans dont have a monopoly on anti-science ideas, what is just one anti-science position held by Democrats?

If you venture to the extremes, what comes to mind immediately for me are folks who believe in naturopathy, rejection of vaccines, "wifi will rot your brain", and I'm sure there are others. I've come across these folks at 'hippie resorts' in the PNW, Big Sur, and other similar areas.

Interestingly enough, there's some overlap in these 'ideologies' between some extreme left and some extreme right folks (and probably some folks in between).

>If you venture to the extremes

Isn’t this just moving the goalposts? We’re not talking about a fringe Republican here, we’re talking about the president of the United States, along with the senate majority leader and the speaker of the house, to name the three most prominent republicans advocating for these positions.

The question I responded to was about anti-science beliefs in the other camp. Everyone knows it's prevalent in the Republican camp, hell the article title even demonstrates that.

Twin study denialism.