Two of the most obnoxious things to have come out of American Right are the anti-scientific and anti-intellectual directions. In both cases we see vast wrong being done.
The truck that the right-winger drives, the TV he watches, and the air conditioning that he uses, all come from science. God did not create these things; scientists did. And without science the American right-winger would be tilling a two-acre plot of land with a horse and a plow and be dying in case of a crop failure. Science is at the root of all technology, which means that it is at the root of everything that business sells. And without science, capitalism would be nothing more than exchange of basic commodities at the level it was in Medieval Persia.
Even more prevalent is the anti-intellectual direction; and here we likewise see vast hypocrisy. America was not founded by God. People in Europe believed in God and in Jesus long before the Americans; and most of the places in Europe that believed in God and in Jesus were poor and corrupt monarchies that allowed no liberty and produced no wealth. America's democratic system was designed by intellectuals schooled in European Enlightenment philosophy, basing their system on the Greko-Roman democracy and the Iroquois Confederacy. America owes to intellectuals its very nationhood.
Aligned with the anti-intellectual direction is the anti-French sentiment; and here we likewise see vast hypocrisy. France was America's first major ally that delivered crucial assistance during the Revolutionary War. America's intervention in France in the wars of 20th century can be seen as repaying the favor for what France did to make America possible in the first place. Without France, American Revolution would have floundered, and the American Republicans would be singing "God save the Queen."
Why are these obvious arguments not being made enough in the public discourse? Probably because nobody wants to get the ire of the people who believe the nonsense that's promulgated by right-wing conmen. As someone who's pissed people off all my life, I am not afraid of these people's anger, and I am willing to say these things because nobody else would.
The anti-scientific and the anti-intellectual sentiments have to go. America owes vastly to both scientists and intellectuals, and that means: Everyone in the country owes to both scientists and intellectuals. Science is at the root of everything that business sells, and the intellectuals are at the root of American system and American nationhood. It is time that credit be placed where it belongs.
And it is time that the conmen who keep misappropriating the credit be seen for the scoundrels that they are and lose their power to shape people's minds.