manqiangrexue
Brigadier
I am vaguely aware that at some point, the CDC recommended that healthy people forgo masks because the mask supply in the US was dangerously low and it needed to be conserved for healthcare workers and vulnerable people (old people, those with co-morbidities, those who are coughing/ill). If you're talking about something else and they made a mistake, it really doesn't change anything. The CDC, just like every institution, is not perfect, but tries its best to make recommendations based on science. Errors made in this capacity are understandable, but angrily rejecting scientific advice while claiming whatever seems to be politically convenient (various "cures" that have no effect, that masks are for fear and control, that it'll just disappear by April, etc...) is criminal negligence at best, purposeful harm at worst.
Before Trump, anti-intellectualism in America amounted to the uneducated population disliking the intellectuals as snobs and assholes, though begrudgingly admitting that they did know what's best when it came to their fields. After Trump, these people believed that intellectuals were evil, stupid, wrong, and treasonous so doing the opposite of what they said would lead to the best outcome. That is a very dangerous belief and it bit America the hardest during COVID.
And the thing is, Trump could have gone completely without it and his base would have been safer and supported him all the same. But in embracing anti-intellectualism, he only accelerated America's decline and caused the deaths of those who supported him. He didn't tap into anything from a strategic point; he damaged his nation and put members of his support base in body bags because he simply followed his first instinct which was to attack anything that the Democrats supported, and in this case, it was science during a pandemic.
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