Playing the blame game in the MAGA era

An inconvenient truth for MAGA

Scientific expertise will remain central for good democratic governance. Science has become too important, too powerful a force in society, and too many crucial public issues hang on the technical details of scientific assessment. --  Heather Douglas, The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, Michael Hannon, Jeroen de Ridder, eds., 2021

Now that MAGA authoritarian poison is in full control of the federal government and political opposition has collapsed, what has happened due to MAGA since Jan. 2025 can reasonably be assigned to MAGA people, especially Trump and MAGA elites. 

At least one source reports that in response to criticisms of himself and his policies, HHS secretary & elite MAGA crackpot RFK Jr. struck back at critics by telling the American people, We need to stop trusting the experts. Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy. 

Criticism by actual public health experts claiming that Kennedy's actions "are endangering the health of the nation" prompted Kennedy's obviously toxic advice and his lie about democracy. Contrary to what the malicious crackpot says, trusting experts definitely is a feature of both science and democracy. Ignoring experts when they carry inconvenient messages is a feature of dictatorship, and authoritarianism generally.

Kennedy is a lawyer and crackpot conspiracy theory believer. He is not a public health expert, he has no professional public health expertise or experience, he has no peer-reviewed papers in any academic discipline. And he is an authoritarian and a liar, not a democrat and honest but lost soul.

Since Trump and MAGA elites put Kennedy in power, it is rational, fair and balanced to (i) acknowledge who and what is responsible for Kennedy's MAGA policies, and (ii) assign blame for bad, and credit for good. 

Long analysis made short: Conservative estimates of Kennedy-linked deaths are (1) three confirmed measles deaths in unvaccinated people (context), (2) two Whooping Cough deaths (context), (3) 252 pediatric influenza deaths in unvaccinated children (context), (4) many COVID deaths among the unvaccinated, and (5) minimum confirmed total: ~11,500+ deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases during Kennedy's tenure (context, context). 

Under the circumstances, MAGA elites and MAGA policy are ~100% to blame for those deaths. That makes Kennedy, Trump and MAGA elites, including the MAGA authors of Project 2025, mass killers. If there is are reasons to think that MAGA elites are not mass killers, what are the reasons and what is the evidence? 

 

Q: Are Kennedy, Trump and MAGA elites mass killers, or is it unfair or irrational to even imply that? 

More inconvenient truth for MAGA

Protecting science from politicization is an ongoing concern in contemporary society. .... scientific inquiry is distinctive from democratic politics [and that] can be the basis for defining politicization. .... Although there are parallels between democratic political norms and norms for scientific inquiry, there are crucial differences as well. Eliding these differences creates politicization of inquiry. --- Heather Douglas, Differentiating Scientific Inquiry and Politics, 2023