Trumpism, climate and COVID: Social bases of the new science rejection

have become targets of politicized science rejection in the US, making these deadly problems less tractable. The arguments and tactics deployed against scientists and science-based mitigation for cli- mate change on one hand, and COVID-19 on the other, have some basic elements in common [5–7]. Science rejection in each case has been led by conservative media and political leaders, encouraging the wide partisan divisions seen on general-public surveys. Although these com- monalities are clear, they leave further hypotheses worth testing. In what other respects do the social bases of science rejection on COVID-19 resemble those of climate change, which have been established through more than 40 years of research on environmental concern [8,9]? While general correlations between political identity and views on climate change or COVID-19 are well known, we have less knowledge regarding common (or divergent) patterns with other individual characteristics including age, gender, education, religion, race or income. The more immediate personal impacts of COVID-19 compared with climate change, and its direct links to individual behavior, might give rise to differences in demographic patterns. Cer- tain interaction effects relating to information uptake that have been noted with climate change and environmental issues also remain untested regarding COVID-19. Finally, there are new elements in the US political landscape—notably the mainstreaming of conspiracy beliefs and the authoritarian, grievance-focused emergence of Trumpism.

The analysis that follows tests Trumpism and openness to conspiracy beliefs alongside more familiar demographic characteristics as predictors of rejecting the reality of human- caused climate change and COVID-19 vaccination. Data are from a nationally representative US survey conducted in mid-2021, when Trump was no longer in office. At that time vaccina- tions had been approved and made widely available, but employer mandates were not yet in effect. Because Trumpism emerged recently, growing out of traditional conservatism but dis- carding many of its tenets, it is modeled here as an intervening variable that might be predicted by some of the same demographic characteristics as climate and COVID responses, while con- tributing further direct effects of its own. 2. Background Conservative political identity has long been associated with lower concern about environ- mental problems [9–11], including the reality of anthropogenic climate change or ACC [8,12,13], and climate mitigation policies [14,15]. Politics also played a large role in shaping the evolution of US policy on COVID-19, affecting public perceptions of its seriousness as well as support for public-health countermeasures from social distancing to mask wearing and vac- cination. General-public surveys find strong associations between political identity and indi- vidual COVID-related behavior [16–21], while aggregate analyses show corresponding associations between county or state-level political indicators and public-health outcomes such as stay-at-home compliance, vaccination and death rates [22–26].

Survey researchers historically operationalized political identity in terms of ideology or party, two indicators that have become more overlapping in the US due to polarization and party sorting [27–30]. Another political indicator used in some recent studies has been support for president/ex-president Trump. When tested, Trumpism (operationalized as Trump voting or approval) exhibits additional effects beyond ideology or party, but comparable to them in strength [14,31–33]. While drawing from a traditional conservative base, Trumpism incorpo- rates stronger elements of personality cult, authoritarianism and scapegoating, with lower or even reversed emphasis on traditionally conservative values such as personal morality, anti- communism and limited government. Shao and Hao [19] present arguments and empirical PLOS ONE Trumpism, climate and COVID PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293059 January 10, 2024 2 / 20