More and more people, institutions, organizations, and ordinary Americans are grasping the enormity of the moment this nation is confronting. The upcoming presidential election is not just another balloting-box experience that history will write about for generations to come. This is the election that will not only determine what type of a people we are, what character the citizenry is made of, but frankly, this election will determine if there will be a republic for those future readers to still live in.
That gravitas to this election is why so many otherwise non-political people are speaking up, and doing so clearly and factually.
Scientific American on Tuesday endorsed Joe Biden, the first presidential endorsement in the magazine’s 175-year history.
Its editors said they felt “compelled” to do so because President Trump’s well-documented rejection of science, from climate change to the coronavirus, has cost tens of thousands of American lives.
“The pandemic would strain any nation and system,” the editors wrote, “but Trump’s rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic in the U.S. He was warned many times in January and February about the onrushing disease, yet he did not develop a national strategy to provide protective equipment, coronavirus testing or clear health guidelines.
“Trump claimed, falsely, that ‘anybody that wants a test can get a test,’” they continued. “That was untrue in March and remained untrue through the summer. Trump opposed $25 billion for increased testing and tracing that was in a pandemic relief bill as late as July. These lapses accelerated the spread of disease through the country — particularly in highly vulnerable communities that include people of color, where deaths climbed disproportionately to those in the rest of the population.”
The monthly magazine, with a circulation of 3.5 million, is owned by Springer Nature, an international academic and scientific publishing company.
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