Will the Anti-Science Wing Tear the GOP Apart?

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/28479-will-the-anti-science-wing-tear-the-gop-apart

Except in his own mind and among fat-cat loyalists like the Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and the Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, Chris Christie was already a dead presidential candidate walking. So he doesn’t have to worry about how his endorsement of “choice” for vaccinations (but not for reproductive rights), or his previous public-health fiasco, incarcerating a nurse who’d treated Ebola patients, will play out in a national election. He’s done.

Rand Paul, on the other hand, has been a leading Republican contender, and he may have done himself serious political damage even within his own party ranks. The conservative columnist John Podhoretz has called Paul’s musings on vaccinations among “the most irresponsible remarks ever uttered by a major American politician.” The Wall Street Journal ridiculed him in a lead editorial. It should be remembered that Michele Bachmann’s 2012 presidential campaign survived many self-inflicted wounds but didn’t fully crater until she flogged a bogus anecdote promoting a nonexistent link between vaccines and “mental retardation.”

It is true that Democrats and liberals can also be capable of such nonsense. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton paid lip service to the notion of researching the junk science of autism-vaccine links during the 2008 campaign. (John McCain went even further, saying there was “strong evidence” of a connection.) Jon Stewart has had fun this week chronicling the “mindful stupidity” of the vaccination resisters of Marin County. But for the most part, the anti-science forces are on the right — the far right that flexes its power during Republican primaries. It’s the constituency that denies climate change, that believes rape victims can resist pregnancy, and that endorses faith-based interventions in private health decisions. It was Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida, whose intervention into the case of a brain-dead hospital patient, Terri Schiavo, helped turn a family tragedy into a national political football.

As a rule, science and health are not major issues in presidential campaigns, but when a new Times poll finds that even a slim majority of Republicans supports government action against global warming, 2016 may be the 21st-century election that breaks with precedent.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Some Republicans' anti-science position on climate change is MUCH more dangerous than being anti-vax

if/when climate change really starts rolling an especially lethal pandemic would probably be merciful.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Republicans are against HAND WASHING now!!!

+ = &

[rurallib]

3. It's a wing? I thought it was the whole party

When a Republican makes some truly crazy statement you never hear members of his (or her) party criticize said statement. Thus I assume that silence = agreement.

Maybe I have missed it, but are there any Repugs that believe in climate change, or vaccinations for that matter. Since they are such a lockstep party once again I think silence = consent. Many other Republicans seem to sit back and see which way the wind blows but don't come out and openly oppose such craziness.

Right now they seem to be in favor of not washing hands before handling food.

[former9thward]

5. All the other presumed R candidates said they supported vaccinations.

As well as John Boehner. This is a bi-partisan issue. The reason Obama and Clinton pandered to the anti-vac people is because Democrats raise money in CA the headquarters of the anti-vac movement. Look at Robert Kennedy, Jr.

[truebluegreen]

4. Here's hoping. nt

[edhopper]

6. It's not so much anti-science

the majority of the GOP is anti-science. All the chairmen of the various science related committees in Congress are anti-science.

It's a streak of anti-conventional, that is fact based, medicine in this country that is the problem. And that does cross party lines.