I saw some graffiti in a local café last week and it seems like a good, if somewhat random, starting point for a discussion. On a sign by the bathroom sink with directions for hand-washing, someone had written this message:

Stop the Nerd Work Orders. Fake NWO. “Science”

Where to start?!

I will say that the sign is probably designed more for a hospital than a café, with its extreme level of detail. But who cares, really? Even if annoyed/amused by the level of detail in the sign, most rational people would shrug it off, especially considering that we’ve just emerged from a pandemic.

But obviously the mastermind with the red marker got pretty wound up about it. Their response fits in with Donald Trump’s ethos – to take everything personally and to hate any kind of oversight, especially liberty-crushing directives from “science.” (Remember the amazing scene of him ripping of his face mask?) Nerds telling us what to do – and not just regular nerds but woke nerds! The. Worst.

It’s time for some MAGA magic! Let’s fire all those nerds in the National Institutes of Health with their girly fear of germs. And get rid of that woke DEI brigade and – worst of all – the woke-nerds going on about climate change. Giving us Nerd Woke Orders all the time. Fake NWOs. Based on “science.” What the heck has science ever done for us?

How did we all reach this point?

This little piece of graffiti illustrates how divided we have become over the last decade. So much so that the unthinkable happened: Trump’s reelection. I know that I’m not alone in trying to process how this all came about so let’s try to figure it out. Sticking with the topic of the handwashing sign (and this blog) I’ll look at it mostly from the perspective of science. We can try breaking it down into a few phases.

1. A trend towards social and environmental responsibility

Going back to 2015-2016, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change was a major landmark in nations accepting responsibility for the future of the planet, setting science-based targets on greenhouse gas reduction. However, this was followed quickly by the double whammy of Brexit and the election of D. Trump, who quickly pulled out of the Paris Agreement. Chaos seemed to rule for a while.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction – Isaac Newton.

Then, following the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, most countries cooperated pretty well on how to handle the situation. More science-based directions were issued – social distancing and masks. Nobody particularly enjoyed this but most people accepted that these measures were necessary.

Soon after the outbreak of Covid-19, a series of historic wildfires in California reminded us to start taking climate change more seriously. At the same time there were several high-profile cases of unarmed black people killed by police officers in the US (Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, to name two). There was a lot going on in America in the spring of 2020.

2. Political correctness on steroids, with pushback

Victory for the left! Biden is elected in November, 2020. But actually it was more like victory for the left-of-center rather than a victory for the actual Left, which would have involved candidates Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.

Many agree that this is where everything started to go pear-shaped. Several actions that trended from 2020 onwards – not all, but many of them – were focused on visuals that grab attention on social media and the news, rather than on actual meaningful change. Actually it’s harder to think of examples here in the world of science – many of them were in the arena of social change. But one example, provided by Bill Maher in the video below, was the idea of getting rid of standardized testing in schools.

Standardized testing was dropped until schools saw how dumb that was. And yet, the head of the teachers’ union in Chicago still maintains that testing is “junk science rooted in white supremacy.” … The idea that testing is rooted in white supremacy is in itself a racist belief that says black children can’t compete with white children on tests, which they surely can. – Bill Maher.

The video was made in October 2024, just weeks before the election, imploring Kamala Harris to admit that sometimes the left goes overboard or simply gets it wrong.

Jon Stewart mirrored this, last month, giving the example of corporate sensitivity training videos, saying that we did what was easy rather than what was necessary.

They’re doing what they can, not what they should. … We’re going to let you have an office on the 8^th floor and every April you’re going to give us a presentation for two hours that everybody hates. – Jon Stewart

I’ll give one example of this from my own world of ethical consumption. There was a campaign against Trader Joe’s because packaging for ethnic food, labeled as Trader José, Trader Ming’s, Trader Giotto’s, etc., was considered unacceptable. Were we really so offended by this? To me, this was just a frustrating distraction from real social and environmental issues that we should be focusing on.

Put it this way – when I examined the social and environmental impact of Trader Joe’s, these packaging labels were not important enough to be factored into the Green Stars rating. The Green Stars Project (or any meaningful guide to ethical consumption) is not about the hunting of politically-incorrect witches (cancel culture) – it’s about real-world issues that are actually pretty urgent.

I think it goes without saying that TJ’s did not intentionally design packaging to be racist – it was supposed to be whimsical and faintly amusing. With St. Patrick’s Day upon us, last week, I didn’t fly into a rage (as an Irish person) every time I saw a sign covered with leprechauns. Same thing when people, learning that I’m Irish, make some joke about liking to drink a lot. I understand that the intention, 99.5% of the time, is not to offend. (Besides, I do like to drink!) I think we all know that a world that’s politically correct to the max becomes a humorless world.

We are caught up in a debate over which pronoun to use for The Titanic as the ship approaches an iceberg.

Just to be clear, many of the issues that we’ve become hung up on are not meaningless. But we need to prioritize what we focus on. Rather than tearing down statues of historical figures with a checkered past, we should be addressing issues such as exploitation of the Global South by current day corporations.

The irony is that this extreme focus on first world problems in the US has led to the country teetering on the brink of losing many of its first world privileges.

3. The pushback becomes indiscriminate

The pushback against the political correctness extends to a rejection of initiatives/developments that were actually useful. Science-based guidance is interpreted as directives from Leftist Big Brother – even little things like an informational sign on washing your hands in a café bathroom.

I’ve argued above (as have others) that some aspects of this pushback are understandable. Stuff was going down that even the lefties didn’t really believe in. Then, a few months ago, a breaking point was reached and the baby was thrown out with the bathwater. Then a new orange baby was elected and that orange baby brought an insane chainsaw-wielding toy into his playpen. And that’s how the left was lost!

4. A buy-in to a mindset of Us vs. Them

There’s a feeling of having put up with too much (on both sides) and then a buy-in to a whole mindset of Us versus Them. With that comes the buying into a set of ideals that seems to be only offered as a single package. That single-package idea is a topic for another post, because I think that the idea that 50% of Americans all buy into the same values is a myth. The same goes for the idea that the other 50% of Americans buy into the opposite set of values. This polarization that divides us is predominantly a construct that only benefits populist politicians.