I suspect the popular tide against science, especially among the 'America first' crowd, turned once science came up with results that threatened to make certain

I suspect the popular tide against science, especially among the 'America first' crowd, turned once science came up with results that threatened to make certain very large piles of money slightly smaller. With society and the economy completely dependent on science to function, doing science now has a certain speaking truth to power aspect, in that scientific results can threaten wealthy established interests. This does not make science entirely popular among the kind of people who write the mental firmware for the 'America first' crowd. Several large piles of money have waged deliberate campaigns against public faith in the results of the scientific process [0], and this will certainly have had an impact on public faith in science. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_cont... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-tobacco-kept-cancer-risk-in-cigarettes-secret-study/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-tobacco-kept-cancer-risk-in...