Subject: The Republican Death Trap
https://paulkrugman.substack.c...
And Republican politicians have been rejecting science they don’t like for a long time. Remember that Ronald Reagan called for schools to teach creationism alongside the theory of evolution. He also initially rejected the scientific consensus on the causes of acid rain, and prohibited the National Academy of Sciences from studying the issue. In the first case he was catering to the religious right, in the second to industry groups, but in both he was saying that he wouldn’t accept science he didn’t like, an attitude that is now almost universal on the right.

In addition to rejecting science he didn’t like, Reagan did all he could to undermine belief that government can be a force for good. This is a real problem for health policy, because most of the long-term decline in deaths from infectious disease has been the result of collective action, from ensuring access to clean water to promoting childhood vaccination at rates sufficient to prevent diseases from spreading.

Notably, the Reagan era is also when U.S. life expectancy began falling significantly below life expectancy in other advanced countries:
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