Stark warnings from the nation’s most trusted scientists led governors across the nation to lock down their economies in hopes of slowing the spread of the coronavirus that has already infected more than a million people in the United States.
But after weeks of stay-at-home orders, millions of lost jobs and trillions in emergency government spending, conservative agitators have begun to turn their ire on the scientists themselves, blaming them for overhyping a health crisis and in the process creating an economic one from which it will take years to recover.
The bubbling anger aimed at those who are perceived as elites is reminiscent of the Tea Party movement that protested the Obama administration and fueled Republican gains in the 2010 elections. It’s an anger that President Trump rode successfully to his election in 2016. Continue reading.