A whole lot of classic liberals have discovered how goofy their progressive cousins have been for 25 years. All it took for this sudden embrace of critical thinking was for a Republican to say 'maybe he is right on food and medicine' about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
It's not new. When Dr. Alex Berezow and I were writing "Science Left Behind" in 2011, our publisher asked if they could title it something like "The Democratic War on Science" or "The Liberal War on Science" for better sales but we said no, the problem is anti-science progressives, not all liberals or Democrats. If we tried to lump in all Democrats just to sell books we'd be like those people who smear all Republicans for profit; a lot more successful(1), but no one you should trust your children around if a fire breaks out, because they'll knock your kids over to get out of the building.
I never liked one axis for talking about people, it is too simplistic. As is a quadrant(2), which tells us only about ourselves:
This is 44% of people in each political party.
But anti-science progressives are easy to spot. They think their electric car is run by solar power and that organic food is medicine. They think actual medicine is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
And thanks to President Clinton ordering his FDA to exempt supplements from real oversight if they write 'FDA has not validated our magical claims' in tiny print somewhere on the label, they believe so much in alternatives they risk their lives.
Like a woman who believed blue powder from a witch doctor in Africa would help her get pregnant - if she put the magic powder in her rectum. That ain't a conservative, folks, those instead believe praying does the job.
The powder had copper sulfate in it. You can't commit suicide with glyphosate, you can't even get get cancer from it (sorry, trial lawyers) but you can commit suicide with copper sulfate. It is a lot more toxic than modern pesticides. A lot more. The power she bought believing it was a "natural" fertility treatment caused a heart attack, she had to be intubated, and now she is on dialysis three times per week.
Even if you believed Robert F. Kennedy for the 25 years anti-science progressives loved him, or the one year than anti-science libertarians have loved him, don't do what he claims works. Sri Lanka nearly had government officials hung in the streets when they listened to Kennedy about organic food and caused mass starvation.
He's no more correct with his beliefs about cell phones or medicine.
And don't put pesticides in your rectum even if they are far less toxic than organic certified copper sulfate.
NOTES:
(1) Glib statements like 'Republicans don't believe in climate change or evolution' don't tell the real story either. Republicans invented the term 'climate change', as a way to undermine 'global warming', while the difference in evolution acceptance is only 9%.
(2) I instead embraced a triangle, and the triangle would have nodes like Excellence, Fairness, and Freedom. For various issues, people are going to move their position inside the triangle. On social issues, progressives prefer fairness over freedom or excellence, while in sports, excellence is going to be weighed more strongly. Don't pay for dog fights or beat your wife, but otherwise ability matters most.
