Thank you for sharing this article. I found this quote by David Dunning (of the Dunning-Kruger effect) spot on: “Some of our most stubborn misbeliefs arise not from primitive childlike intuitions or careless category errors, but from the very values and philosophies that define who we are as individuals.”

I agree with @t1nick (below) in his assessment of the long trend, which I only recently became cognizant of during the George W. Bush administration and through reading books like Susan Jacoby's 'The Age of American Unreason.' The rise of anti-intellectualism has brought us anti-vaxxers, the anti GMO movement, the anti-Evolution (teach the controversy) crowd, climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists and flat Earthers.

Politicians reflect their electorate, and when a large enough segment of a democratic society rejects reason and critical thinking, refuses to consider they may be wrong, eschews knowledge and expertise, castigates the educated as elites and resorts to a limited, if not, singular source for information, you get elected leaders like we see today. Leaders whose funding priorities align with their constituents who may view spending on scientific research and disaster preparedness as wasteful.