# Trump's ignorance about science will harm America (Trump's funding of anti vaccine group included)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-ignorance-about-science-will-harm-america-trumps-funding-of-anti-vaccine-group-included/767507>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [October 2, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-ignorance-about-science-will-harm-america-trumps-funding-of-anti-vaccine-group-included/767507 "2016-10-02T17:58:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-ignorance-about-science-will-harm-america-trumps-funding-of-anti-vaccine-group-included/767507/1 "2016-10-02T17:58:35Z")

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_Don’t know much [about](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/09/trump_once_again_revealed_his_stunning_ignorance_on_foreign_policy.html) [history](http://us.blastingnews.com/opinion/2016/09/donald-trump-s-fda-comments-reveal-ignorance-of-history-001126435.html)  
Don’t know much [biology](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/9/29/1575870/-Shocking-video-of-Trump-explaining-his-dangerous-theory-that-people-like-him-have-superior-genes)  
Don’t know much [about](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/) [science book](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/12/donald-trump-climate-change-science-sierra-club)  
Don’t know much about the [French](http://www.france24.com/en/20160803-donald-trump-makes-me-sick-says-hollande) I took_

The issue here, besides Trump’s ignorance about science, is how harmful his ignorance will be to the USA if he manages to win the presidency.

In the past the point was made that Republican presidents would still get close to experts to set policy, and mostly that was the case.[But the staff that Trump has been relying on betrays even that comforting idea.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/star-of-the-show/2016/08/25/a539743e-6afd-11e6-8225-fbb8a6fc65bc_story.html?utm_term=.3298bc4a8f85) It also does not help that currently the Republican congress is also on an anti-science position and the danger here is that a lot of policies that go against science and progress are bound to be rubber stamped by Trump and his personnel.

As Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who was a foreign policy adviser to the presidential campaigns of John McCain, Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio puts it:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/opinion/how-the-stupid-party-created-donald-trump.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/opinion/how-the-stupid-party-created-donald-trump.html?_r=0)

> [@](#):
>
> The Trump acolytes claim it doesn’t matter; he can hire experts to advise him. But experts always disagree with one another and it is the president alone who must make the most difficult decisions in the world. That’s not something he can do since he lacks the most basic grounding in the issues and is prey to fundamental misconceptions.
> 
> In a way, the joke’s on the Republican Party: After decades of masquerading as the “stupid party,” that’s what it has become. But if an unapologetic ignoramus wins the presidency, the consequences will be no laughing matter.
> 
> Even if we can avoid the calamity of a Trump presidency, however, the G.O.P. still has a lot of soul-searching to do. Mr. Trump is as much a symptom as a cause of the party’s anti-intellectual drift. The party needs to rethink its growing anti-intellectual bias and its reflexive aversion to elites. Catering to populist anger with extremist proposals that are certain to fail is not a viable strategy for political success.

What I do think is that eventually politics that does not yield to science will cause a lot of harm in the future. I do think that a Trump presidency will be very harmful, for education, support of science research, mitigation of climate change effects and many other issues that have scientific basis, but we can focus on one item to start the discussion:

[Finding recently that one of the few charities that indeed got money from the miser was the anti vaccination group headed by Jenny McCarty](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/30/donald-trump-charity-gave-to-jenny-mccarthy-s-anti-vaxx-crusade.html) shows where Trump is putting his money in, and it does not look good for vaccination efforts if Trump gets a hold of the biggest bully pulpit. This is an issue were literally lives are on the line.

Can we expect the Republican congress to oppose Trump’s efforts that are very likely to come against the CDC and other government organizations when vaccines are the issue?